S1 E4: What Team Psychological Safety Is and Why It Matters
How do you create an environment for your teams to thrive and flourish? Creating psychological safety goes a long way to establishing this.
Welcome to our latest podcast episode, where we explore the fascinating topic of psychological safety and its impact on team performance! If you're curious about how creating a safe and supportive environment can unlock your team's full potential, then this episode is for you.
From building trust and fostering open communication to encouraging risk-taking and innovation, we'll explore the many ways in which psychological safety can transform a team's performance and unlock their full potential.
Join me for a thought-provoking conversation on the impact of psychological safety on team dynamics, and discover how you can cultivate a culture of safety and support in your own team. Whether you're a team leader, a member, or simply interested in learning more about the power of psychological safety, this episode is not to be missed!
Get ready to unlock your team's full potential and unleash their creativity, innovation, and productivity with the power of psychological safety!
Key discussion points in today's episode:
What is team psychological safety? 0:08
Why psychological safety is so integral to creating brilliant teams. 3:36
How to prioritise team psychological safety. 7:26
Psychological safety enables teams to face and overcome the challenges that many can't 9:26
Divergent thinking and team psychological safety can only foster innovation. 12:51
Make psychological safety an integral part of your culture and organisation. 15:01
Leaders need to model psychological safety for their teams. 17:13
How to create psychological safety in your organisation. 21:37
The essential nature of psychological safety doesn’t change when teams are remote. 24:14
Resource Links:
Here are the links to the major listening platforms. Don’t forget to subscribe and leave us a review! Happy listening!
SHOW NOTES:
S1 EP04 What Team Psychological Safety is and Why it is important
SUMMARY KEYWORDS
psychological safety, team, organisation, create, people, leaders, employee retention, personality assessments, productivity, employees, ideas, real, grace, hogan, working, personality, team members, safe, brilliant, innovation, TeamBuilding, Leadership, teamwork, Collaboration, Management, Business, Employee engagement, Organisational culture, Professional development, emotional culture, Team development, leadership development, High performing team, Team effectiveness, Team cohesion. Performance management, Conflict resolution, Personality assessments, Cross-functional teams, Emotional intelligence, Team performance
Welcome to the knowing me knowing you. Hello, and welcome to this week's podcast. This week, I will discuss team psychological safety and why it matters. I'm sharing a story with you about an example that I see around teams on a very regular basis. I'm going to tell you a story.
So Grace is a team leader. She has a new process for the team and wants them all to follow it.
So as Grace is delivering her new process, Sarah sees a way that she thinks that this new process could be much more efficient. She would like to make an efficiency improvement. But she doesn't say anything. Nigel at the other end of the table, feels disrespected that Grace hasn't consulted him about his field of expertise. While wondering how the process will affect other teams he works alongside, Sam still shows enthusiasm for Grace's plan but doesn't share his concerns. Meanwhile, Helen thinks the timeline needs to be tighter and more ambitious and asks how demanding the deadline is without sharing her concerns.
Grace says the deadline is a priority. What's missing from this team? Yes, it's psychological safety. Now imagine how much better Grace's new process would be if Sarah shared her ideas or if Nigel weighed in with his expertise and knowledge. Or Sam would oppose the question about the change's effect on others and help him or provide some constructive criticism about the rollout.
This happens in many teams of varying business sizes throughout the country; it is not specific to one type of organisation team. It is a widespread occurrence. And perhaps you've recognised this in your group. So the question is, well, what can guys do to build an environment of Team psychological safety? In this podcast, I will share what it is and why it matters in teams. So the first question is, what is Team psychological safety? Because we hear a lot about it.
There's a lot of research about it, and it's quite a buzzphrase. But it comes back to 1943. You may have heard of a psychologist called Abraham Maslow; he published a theory that humans are motivated by the instinct to satisfy their needs. And after meeting our basic physiological needs, food and water, our next urge to help or need is to feel safe because someone who doesn't feel safe is more likely to pursue safety until it's achieved.
And psychological safety is that perception of whether it's safe or risky to show our authentic self. And originally, psychological safety referred to an individual's perceptions about whether their authenticity would cause negative social consequences that perhaps would be repelled from the groups to which they belong. But the definition has now evolved to encompass a team's commonly held perceptions about each other. Now one of my favourite authors, and she's a big leadership researcher, Amy Edmondson from the United States defines team psychological safety as a shared belief that the team is safe for interpersonal risk-taking and at Hayim would have psychological safety when all members hold similar positive beliefs about their interpersonal trust, their inclusion and their mutual respect. Timothy Clark is another psychologist who defined psychological safety, about how it's established in four consecutive stages.
So he would say that it's a condition in which human beings feel included, safe to learn, safe to contribute, and also, really importantly, when the example I gave you earlier, safe to challenge, and these four stages are achieved only in the absence of fear of that social reprisal, which could come from something a bit more, you know, worst case scenario would be to be repelled from a group and belonging is a big human need. It could just be an embarrassment, humiliation, disrespect, or possibly punishment, being laughed at, or shame; we always move away from those negative feelings. And while it might be self-evident that team members who work from trust and respect instead of fear are happier, more productive workers, we must explore why psychological safety is integral to creating brilliant teams. So in the last few episodes, we talked about what it takes to create a brilliant team for performance and culture.
But it's essential also to understand how you make those teams thrive and how you can create that psychological safety above and beyond just being happy and more productive. So let's go back to the team. So in earlier podcasts, and I'll repeat this today, just for anyone that hasn't possibly listened before, a team is defined as three or more people who share either a common goal or common leadership, whether that's success or failure; it's people coming together with a common goal or purpose, negative or positive. And Team psychological safety contributes to their learning that innovation, productivity, and so many other positive outcomes. So let me explain three reasons why. You should prioritise team psychological safety if you are an organisation or team leader. The first benefit is employee retention, were working in an environment in a market where there is a real talent shortage.
Now, Team psychological safety increases employee retention. So those bright shining stars already work for you; it helps keep them. It's more expensive to lose and replace them with somebody else than invest in that employee retention. So if you have a high attrition rate and a high turnover of employees, this is one for you. Because according to data from the Pew Research Centre, 89% of people say that creating a safe and respectful workplace is essential to staying in an organisation that's nearly 90%. And McKenzie they've surveyed, and their data indicates that 43% of their respondents described their team as having a positive climate or environment. And it was the key ingredient in their feeling safe and psychologically safe in their teams.
So what's interesting is that toxic corporate culture doesn't even have to be a corporate culture, an organisational culture that is characterised by disrespect, lack of diversity, equity, inclusion, abuse, or unethical actions; they are 10 times more likely than money to contribute to people leaving the organisation people do not necessarily leave for their compensation they leave because of this toxicity. And that toxic disrespect at work is a major reason that employees leave. So creating a psychologically safe environment can mitigate that major driver of attrition in your organisation. So the second is productivity.
A team's psychological safety does improve productivity. It isn't a guarantee of high productivity, but it doesn't happen without it. So when team members feel psychologically safe, they can bring their energy and drive to solving those big gritty problems to innovating to achieving and exceeding goals. They collaborate more, they connect more they're more curious about each other. They're continually improving because If they're feeling safe to do so they don't have to conform to that team's forms, norms, and standards. So they'll ask questions, share information, make connections, explore deep relationships with those around them, and have ideas against a background of positivity and respect towards their colleagues.
And they will constructively conflict and debate around the best ways to proceed. And Amy Edmondson said that psychological safety enables teams to face and overcome the challenges that teams without it can't. It is an essential ingredient in that high-performing brilliant team. Now, Amy also mentioned that the space between teams, such as those working in the hybrid or remote models that we see a lot of at the moment post-pandemic, is an obstacle that psychological safety diminishes. So it's fascinating that when you're physically in someone's space, you are more likely to create psychological safety, which, and are so many more questions about how we create psychological safety in the hybrid remote working that currently a lot of organisations are embracing.
Now other productivity boosts generated by that environment of psychological safety would also be having a positive attitude toward failure in the form of, you know, making and reporting mistakes much sooner, having that productive conflict that I've talked about, and also having that real divergent thinking where we're bringing diversity and equity and inclusion into the discussion. And it's not just necessarily, you know, in creed and religion, that kind of diversity; it's also diversity and thinking, diversity of socio-economic backgrounds. And invite you to think about how often you see the leaders in your organisation or, if you're a leader of an organisation, how often you encourage and embrace failure in pursuit of innovation and growth.
So there's a story where Sara Blakely, the founder of Spanx, the underwear, Spanx, had a huge journey into making Spanx, the brand it was, before she sold it. And the reason that she says that she was so successful with her brand is that her dad used to sit her down at the end of every evening. And he used to ask her and her family, her siblings, what did you fail at today, and he embraced failure in his children and Sara Blakely so that they could consistently pursue innovation and growth. And that is something that I think we need to put into all of our heads. So that failure, you know, is something we look for because we learn lessons as we fail.
And as we learn lessons, we find better ways to attack, you know, those big problems facing us now. So it is a big ingredient for creating that real progression in our teams. The third is around innovation because, as I've already mentioned, if you've got productivity, you've got divergent thinking, teams, and psychological safety can only foster innovation because it's tough to measure the lack of innovation. After all, you can't measure every time someone doesn't say what they think or, you know, that they don't voice their opinions, or those people that were sat around the table with Grace that didn't say anything, you can't measure that. But what you can do is that when employees Express have formed ideas or make spontaneous suggestions because they feel safe to do so, without repercussion, then the innovation potential can only increase. And that takes courage, and it takes trust. And, you know, start your sentence with why or what if, because that can then break down. It's a curiosity, rather than, you know, confrontational conflict or challenge in Google research productivity among their teams, you know, they are one of the most innovative brands that we know at the moment. And they found that psychological safety was critical to making their teams work. And their teams thrived when they had these obvious goals.
And when people feel free to be fully present at work, it starts with us as leaders. So the next question, I bet you're also asking me that's that great. I want those outcomes in my organisation, but how do I create them? Well, there are four ways you can create team psychological safety and ultimately It's to prioritise team psychological safety on your agenda. Because if you can prioritise psychological safety, so will your teams because your teams will model and role model you. So make it an integral part of your team, culture, and organisation by doing these four things. The first is you need to understand personality. Now, that's not going to come as any shock to you come from me on a podcast knowing me knowing you. But personality is the driving force behind human behaviour.
And it's the answer to why we act as we do. And identifying the everyday strengths and potential and derailers and motives and values of everyone in your team allows not just the leaders but the team members to understand themselves better, and not just themselves from their perspective of their identity, but actually what their reputation is how others perceive them. And that's the first step in strategic self-awareness. Because understanding personality then allows you, as a leader or team member, to support each other, improve your communication and your team and advance your learning styles to boost engagement between each other. And we'll come on to that in further episodes when we talk about communication, particularly the different personality assessments that look at these kinds of attributes. So Hogan or desk, because we can relate when we manage our behaviour. Again, we're creating greater psychological safety because we accept each other and understand each other. We're empathising with each other, allowing that safety and that trust to form and manifest between that group of people because we're acknowledging the characteristics of the whole person and empowering and encouraging employees to be fully present, fully authentic, fully themselves. So that's the first thing I would do about creating team psychological safety.
The second would be, as I say, to model psychological safety. So leaders set the norms for their teams with everything, you know, the teams look to the leaders for the precedents that are set; they create that culture. And when leaders model psychological safety with humility, authenticity and vulnerability, team members feel safe to act the same way. So if we can show up with that real vulnerability, honesty and transparency, it only serves our team well. And those behaviours that lead to Team psychological safety, will include those active listening, really active listening, not just nodding while you're on your phone, seeking feedback, taking responsibility, or, as I say, you know, really embracing failure, and showing respect for each other. And The leader's inclusivity to their team is positively associated with creating psychological safety and therefore advances individual performance.
And those leaders where I've seen this done brilliantly that talk about emotions and challenging situations and don't live in an ivory tower, where they get things right all the time, then create space for others to share their struggles. And, you know, that creates even more of a bond between people. The other leaders I've worked with who are brilliant at this, you know, replace blame with a real curiosity, a real growth mindset, and effectively de-escalating conflict. So if something happens that they don't like or agree with, you know, they didn't go into chastise they go in with curiosity, what happened? Why did that happen? What were you? Not? What were you thinking? But you know, what were you thinking? What, where did that, you know, come from?
What ideas and concepts were you trying to prove? And I think other positive communication behaviours from leaders is, you know, allowing your team to speak, not thinking you've always got the answers, you know, stop interrupting your team. thank people for asking questions and sharing ideas, and use respectful language. I think this comes down to just civility in the workplace. I think sometimes we miss this when we're a leader. Still, civility from the leader and team members creates a huge sense of team psychological safety because imagine if somebody is not being very civil, you don't really feel that you can open up and trust and be authentic. I think the third thing I would encourage you to do is hire people with psychological safety in mind. So select for respect, if you like. McKenzie, in their research, reported that supportive consultative behaviours contribute to that positive team culture.
And they do support psychological safety. So, leaders that can develop people can build relationships easily and leverage that diversity, and then they tend to be very good at creating psychological safety in their team. And those competencies are strongly correlated again to personality. So to build your team's psychological safety, that leader needs to be motivated to create an environment of the open positive communicative team working. And as I've mentioned, personality assessments, such as Hogan, will determine how people score on what they call affiliation or sociability because those tend to be the competencies in Hogan tests that are good at establishing these norms. I think also the altruistic score, and the Hogan is also associated with how a leader treats their employees, and shows and demonstrates that you know, their employees are cared for and that caring is important, and their careers are important.
And that togetherness as a team is important. And, you know, organisations can hire and develop leaders whose personalities tend to be respectful towards each other. Sadly, other organisations will hire based on skills or having done the job before. But I think it's essential that we hire for people's personalities and how they work together. Because as we, you know, as we unfold through these podcast episodes, you know, the personality drives all of the key ingredients for creating a successful team. So think about how you can hire people with respect and affiliation, sociability, and real empathy and warmth for people. And also the way they're able to inspire. There's no point just having someone kind of, they've got to be able to influence and inspire their team. And then the fourth way to create psychological safety in your organisation would be, you know, to measure it, because if we don't measure it, we don't know what, you know, how well we're doing, if we're improving or not. And there was a survey that I read recently about US workers, where only 30% of those workers strongly agreed that their opinions counted at work, which it's a pretty dire statistic for people like me and talent professionals and leaders too, you know, be faced with statistics like that, because, you know, being intentional about creating psychological safety, it is, you know, you've got to gather the data and set those measurable goals rather than, you know, the intention is great, but how are you going to do this and how you're going to measure it. And depending on your team, you know, regular check-ins can be just as informal as formal; they could be the best way to do the temperature checks. How are we doing against some of the goals we've set? Surveys and polls all help to gauge the degree of psychological safety.
But obviously, you got to be asking the right questions. And that data collection strategy is equally as important as setting the intention. So you know, find a way of how you want to measure psychological safety in your organisation. We touched on this a few moments ago, but I think it's worth saying, as we're all working and moving into hybrid and remote team working. The essential nature of teams and psychological safety doesn't necessarily lessen when they're removed. But it is way more necessary for leaders of remote or hybrid or distributed teams to prioritise it than those that have got office teams because of the benefit of that physical proximity.
The responsibility still allows team leaders to create that environment in remote teams. And most actions are and should be consistent no matter what kind of team you've got. But certain practices around communication can be incredibly effective when you're working virtually, and leaders that share personal and professional challenges with their remote or hybrid work in They open the discussion for employees to do likewise. And we sometimes forget this, and we're in this remote working in our little world in our office, at our desk, or at the kitchen table wherever we work. But, you know, really try and engage with some of these tools we've got in these virtual meetings, hand-raising polls, breakout rooms so that these meetings are not just a download. Still, they're opportunities for people to share ideas, a challenge to debate, and conflict positively around, you know, some of the big ideas happening in your organisation. And if we go back to Grace for a second and that new process in her team, inviting and hearing her team's feedback, ideas, and questions would advance the rollout of her new process.
But also, it would have built a lot of team trust. Because when a leader communicates with that openness and transparency, the team members can feel more secure in their communication. And that doesn't go away in remote teams that need to step up a notch. And that team psychological safety can not only prevent the loss of employees but also improve efficiency and creativity. But it adds to employee retention, productivity, and innovation. And I think it also attracts new people into your organisation where we've got this huge talent gap, after the great resignation of the pandemic. You know, this is another way to bring people in.
Because when you model psychological safety in what you do as a leader, you create space for people to be themselves, whether in the workplace or at home. So this week, I invite you to think about how you're creating psychological safety in your organisation, what you could be doing better, what you're doing well, and what you want to continue with. You want to ensure you embed it even further into the organisation. For help and support with this unit, please get in touch with me; you can visit the website www dot brilliant teams.org forward slash store. T
here are also some pieces on the website around the Hogan personality assessment that I've discussed with you today, along with all my other various services that can support you in improving your organisation's psychological safety. But that's it from me for this week. I will see you in the next episode. And until then, stay brilliant. See you soon. You have been listening to knowing me knowing you. If you would like to take your personality or team assessment, go to brilliant teams.org forward slash store and let's get you knowing you knowing them. Tell your friends about us and share the podcast with colleagues.
But most importantly, come and listen to us again next week. See you soon.
Buy your DISC Assessment here.
Buy my “Leading Highly Engaged Remote Teams” course here