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: […]
Performance
How psychological safety captured the world’s attention Project Aristotle was a project undertaken by Google to understand what makes teams successful. The project aimed to identify patterns and behaviours within teams that led to high performance. Starting in 2012, Google […]
Psychological Safety Case Study: The Sales Team One of the most popular requests from the newsletter feedback survey was for some case studies of psychological safety in practice, so here’s the first one! It’s an interesting case that illustrates why […]
Guest Post by Beatriz Poyton The term psychological safety is believed to have originated in 1954 by clinical psychologist Carl Rogers. William Kahn has since defined psychological safety as “the sense of being able to show and employ one’s self […]
In a word, yes. The importance of mental health and well-being is now being recognised in the workplace. Some would even argue it’s being respected. Though not universal in its reach, this new attitude is seeing employers investing in a […]
A few issues ago, we covered various kinds of retrospective – the practice of looking back and learning from work, as well as some of the conditions and requirements for effective retrospectives. One of those points was about the “weak […]
John Boyd and The OODA Loop John Boyd’s OODA loops are more than just an esoteric strategic concept; they’ve earned a huge following online and around the world. In this article, I highlight key points about OODA loops along with a glimpse into […]
Team performance isn’t the only reason that we foster psychological safety. We also do it because we want people to feel fulfilled in their jobs, we don’t want people to leave a team because they don’t feel included, we want people to experience less unnecessary stress and have greater mental wellbeing, we want to foster greater diversity and inclusion. Ultimately, we foster psychological safety because it’s fundamentally the right thing to do.
15/5 Reports To manage teams in a way that fosters psychological safety requires clear communication and feedback channels. Team members should have well-defined platforms to share achievements, voice concerns, and seek assistance. Ideally, these feedback mechanisms will be consistent, high-cadence and […]
Normal Accidents Charles Perrow is regarded as a pivotal figure in the theory of why and how things fail. He served as a sociology professor at Yale and Stanford and was primarily focused on the influence of large organisations on […]
Statistical Process Control and Understanding Variation In a chat with a great client this week, we got talking about different approaches to measurement and metrics. I introduced the concept of Statistical Process Control (SPC), so that’s what this week’s newsletter […]
Everest, and psychological safety in the mountains Thanks so much to a client of mine, the excellent Paul Verrico at Eversheds Sutherland, I was lucky enough to attend the 70th anniversary of the first Everest ascent, at the Royal Geographical Society […]
High Performing Teams & Psychological Safety at Work: Psychological safety is the foundation for team performance, whether we’re oriented towards consistent quality, innovation, adaptation, safety or a combination of all outcomes. When people feel psychologically safe, they feel more able […]
What is “Safe to Fail”? Recently, I failed a motorbike test. This might sound like a mistake, but I fully expected to fail. In the UK, you must pass multiple tests before you’re allowed out on the roads on a […]
Psychological Safety Behaviours: The Big List Psychological safety is a belief that the group is safe for interpersonal risk taking (Edmondson, 1999). There are many ways we can help to foster these environments, but it’s important to remember that we […]
The recent resignation of Dominic Raab, the deputy prime minister of Great Britain, has put the issue of psychological safety in the workplace under the spotlight. Mr. Raab resigned following an investigation by Adam Tolley, which revealed his bullying behaviour […]
Checklists I read Atul Gawande’s “Better” some time around 2008 and absolutely loved it, so when he published “The Checklist Manifesto” in 2009, I grabbed a copy immediately. The Checklist Manifesto describes the power of checklists in reducing human error and increasing effectiveness across various industries, […]
Psychological Safety, Aviation Disasters and Crew Resource Management This week I’ve been reading “Confronting Mistakes” by Jan Hagen. This is a fantastic book, focusing on the human factors behind a multitude of aviation incidents. Jan highlights how miscommunication and failures to speak up […]
Agile It seems like the word “Agile” gets thrown about a lot. Sometimes it refers to a more flexible approach to working hours and locations, sometimes it refers to Scrum practices, and sometimes it means taking an iterative, incremental project management style […]
Welcome to the psychological safety newsletter and thanks for subscribing. You are amazing. This week discusses how not to be Brent (Static work vs Generative work), plus great resources on autonomy, pedagogy, nursing, software engineering and human factors. Static Work vs Generative Work, […]
Welcome to the psychological safety newsletter and thanks for subscribing. You are amazing. This week discusses artificial intelligence and psychological safety. Psychological safety and safety culture workshops In the New Year, we’re running two new workshops! The first is a 2-hour Intermediate Psychological Safety Workshop on […]
Welcome to the psychological safety newsletter and thanks for subscribing. You are amazing. This week discusses team longevity and Tuckman’s Model. Plus another great piece from Amy Edmondson, research on women in in the workplace, and Herbie Hancock playing a wrong chord. […]
Psychological safety is “The belief that one will not be punished or humiliated for speaking up with ideas, questions, concerns, or mistakes, and that the team is safe for interpersonal risk taking” (Edmondson, 1999) Also stated as “A belief that […]
Can a team be too psychologically safe? A question I get asked in many (maybe even most) workshops is “Can a team be too psychologically safe?” Or sometimes framed, “What’s the impact of a team being too safe?“ My short answer, […]
Team Charters In a previous newsletter, we discussed “personal readmes” or “user manuals” (and if you found them useful, you probably want to check out this issue’s sponsor, Candor). I’m a huge fan of personal readmes as a way to foster […]
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