The Definition Of Psychological Safety Psychological safety is defined as the belief, in a group, that we are safe to take interpersonal risks. It’s the belief that we are able to speak up with ideas, questions, concerns and mistakes, and […]
The Definition Of Psychological Safety Psychological safety is defined as the belief, in a group, that we are safe to take interpersonal risks. It’s the belief that we are able to speak up with ideas, questions, concerns and mistakes, and […]
The Seven Deadly Sins of Psychological Safety I recently tried to work out how many people have attended one or more of our workshops on psychological safety, including our workshops for teams and organisations, our online workshops, and any we’ve […]
Can you see the cat? This image is a meme from 1879 (yes, memes were a thing 140+ years ago!) used by the “Georgist” movement. Henry George was an economist who examined the apparent paradox of how the USA could […]
It’s no good having a great culture if you’ve gone out of business. Psychological safety is the foundational factor in ensuring teams and organisations are as high performing as possible. It’s also ethically the right thing to do. People deserve […]
How to foster psychological safety with your own manager. By Jade Garratt Psychological safety isn’t only the responsibility of those in leadership positions. We believe that if you have the power to destroy psychological safety for someone – if you […]
By Jade Garratt, Bea Poyton and Tom Geraghty In our leadership workshops, we often talk about failures of psychological safety – what happens when, in an absence of psychological safety, concerns are not raised, questions remain unasked, mistakes are hidden […]
Experiments, bets and probes One of our mottos at PsychSafety is “everything is an experiment”. The outcome of work shouldn’t just be getting the thing done, it should be learning how to do it better next time. Experiments don’t mean […]
The Johari Window By Jade Garratt, Director of Education Like many, I was first introduced to the Johari Window in leadership development training. It was presented as a tool to understand yourself, and it was used to demonstrate how feedback […]
(DEI stands for Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion) We’ve recently seen more and more people (almost always white, straight men) jumping on the “DEI didn’t work” bandwagon, even some who are prominent in the psychological safety domain. And it’s really worrying, so […]
By Jade Garratt When was the last time someone told you something you already knew? How did it make you feel? Edgar Schein opens his book “Humble Inquiry” with a story about his own experiences of this while out walking. […]
Psychological Safety and Neurodiversity The field of psychological safety often focuses on neurotypical contexts. Psychological safety is defined as a shared belief that a group is safe for interpersonal risk taking. In practice, this seems simple; individuals speaking up, sharing […]
Goodhart’s Law, Campbell’s Law, and the Cobra Effect. We’ve mentioned Goodhart’s Law a few times in previous newsletters about measuring psychological safety, alongside its siblings, Campbell’s Law and The Cobra Effect. I thought it would be useful to do a […]
How psychological safety emerges and changes over time in the workplace. Given that psychological safety itself is a relatively young field, there’s not a huge amount of published research that addresses the longitudinal dynamics of psychological safety in the workplace: […]
The Highest Paid Person’s Opinion. One of the (many) barriers to speaking up is the knowledge or perception that your voice doesn’t carry as much weight as someone else’s. This can be particularly common when in the presence of those […]
The Interrelationship between Psychological Safety And Wellbeing When we talk about psychological safety in our workshops and sessions, the concept of wellbeing almost always comes up. This makes sense, since psychological safety is essentially about how people feel at work. […]
The Pac-Man rule One of the main reasons to go to a conference, event or meetup is to meet people and have interesting conversations. I’ve found myself at day-long conferences where I’ve not attended a single talk, and instead found […]
Ten Ways to Foster Psychological Safety in the Workplace We’ve been reflecting on our last few years of experience delivering psychological safety workshops, training and consultancy in organisations around the world. Based on all those wonderful experiences, working with industries […]
We love to measure stuff, don’t we? Maybe it’s human nature, but we seem to have a strong desire to make the intangible tangible, and we tend (or at least many of us do) to believe in the robustness of […]
Psychological Safety and Safeguarding Article by Jade Garratt Imagine suspecting, or even knowing, that something is terribly wrong, but feeling unable to speak up about your concerns. This feeling can be all too real in environments where safeguarding is essential, […]
The Workplace Psychological Safety Act (WPSA) is proposed USA legislation aimed at addressing and mitigating psychological abuse, including bullying and mobbing, in the workplace. This act seeks to provide comprehensive protection for all employees, regardless of their membership in a […]
The online Psychological Safety Community has been live since early 2021, and currently has around 800 members. It’s completely free to join, and we have some great conversations there. A lot of newsletter topics and sharing items come from discussions […]
Psychological Safety and DevOps Practices This is a special edition article by Balázs Szakmáry Developing software of any real complexity is a task that goes well beyond one person and one computer. The people, the machines, and the processes involved […]
Non-Violent Communication (or “Giraffe Language”) I saw this great post by Robin Weinick on LinkedIn about her bowl of tiny giraffes, and it reminded me to share a photo of our own “Speak Up Giraffe”! This giraffe is passed around […]
The increase in awareness and popularity of psychological safety I thought it would be interesting to look at the frequency of the search term “psychological safety” over time, and map certain events onto that. If you head to Google Trends, […]
Leadership and Empathy One of the most powerful capabilities that leaders and managers can possess is empathy. Arguably, the same could be said for anyone – we can best understand and help others when we’re able to see the world […]