What Is Psychological Safety, And Why Is It The Key To High Performing Teams?

Transcript

Hi there, this is Blair from BravaTrak.

I've been thinking about what makes a team effective. Fortunately, we don't have to think very hard about this because Google has been doing the thinking for us.

Several years ago, a group from Google's people operations set out to answer that very question using data and rigorous analysis. They discovered five key dynamics that set successful teams apart from other teams. The most important one - by a large margin - being psychological safety.

If you haven't heard the term before, psychological safety can be defined as a culture in which people are comfortable being and expressing themselves. In such a team, people feel safe to ask questions, to tell the truth, to give feedback, to put forward ideas, to make mistakes and to challenge the status quo.

When there is high psychological safety, team members feel accepted and respected. They feel they can take interpersonal risks around their team without feeling insecure or embarrassed. As it happens, several studies, not just the one done by Google, have shown that psychological safety plays an important role in workplace effectiveness.

Now, taking a risk around your team members seems pretty simple. But as it turns out, we're all reluctant to engage in behaviours that could negatively influence how others perceive us. Although this kind of self protection is natural, it harms teamwork.

According to a Gallup report, organisations that move towards psychological safety for their employees, see a 30% reduction in turnover and a 12% increase in productivity. Moreover, they bring in more revenue. A culture of psychological safety enables employees to be more engaged in their work.

So what's not to like?

Well for starters, the fact that about 40% of workers experience low psychological safety at work. I'll talk about some of the things you can do to turn that around in next week's post.

For the time being, that's my take. What do you think?