Psychological safety

Definition

Amy C. Edmondson of Harvard Business School defined psychological safety as a shared belief held by members of a team that the team is safe for interpersonal risk taking (1999). In such a team people are not afraid of being ridiculed, rejected or punished for asking a question, admitting a mistake, proposing an idea or disagreeing.

Edmondson noticed the phenomenon while studying hospital teams: the best teams reported more errors - not because they made more, but because they were not afraid to talk about them.

Project Aristotle

Between 2012 and 2015 Google studied over 180 of its teams to find what made them effective. The most important factor turned out to be psychological safety, followed by dependability, structure and clarity, meaning and impact. Who was on the team mattered less than how the team worked together.

What it is not

Psychological safety does not mean:

• a nice atmosphere and avoiding difficult conversations;
• lower standards - Edmondson describes the best zone as high safety combined with high standards (the learning zone), as opposed to the comfort zone (safety without standards) and the anxiety zone (standards without safety).

How a leader builds it

Edmondson (The Fearless Organization, 2018) describes three steps:

1. Setting the stage - framing the work as learning (“we don't know yet”), stressing that everyone's voice is needed.
2. Inviting participation - acknowledging one's own fallibility, asking genuine questions, creating structures for input.
3. Responding productively - thanking people for raising problems, treating failures as lessons, reserving sanctions for clear violations.

In a community

Communities that are not psychologically safe do not learn about problems - including abuse - or learn too late. That is why psychological safety is directly linked to the aims of the White Book, which wants communities to be able to “grow safely”. See trust, the five dysfunctions of a team, humility.