Psychological safety as a key factor to quality and productivity of Organizations

Revision as of 18:36, 21 February 2021

Abstract

Trust is a key factor for an improved performance in teams, according to Paul Santagata, Head of Industry at Google. High performance teams at Google share a common trait: psychological safety, the weightless environment that allows everyone to express themselves transparently, with never feeling judged by any means. This can be translated in, for example, not believing that they will be punished when they make a mistake, ask a basic question, or share a different opinion. Studies show that psychological safety stimulates moderate risk taking, creativity and boldness, that constitute key ingredients to market breakthroughs. People become more resilient, open-minded, persistent and motivated when they feel safe. The capacity of humor increases, such as solution-finding, and “thinking outside the box” mechanisms are enhanced. This safety is perceived by people’s bodies and they have a biological response to it. The people’s manager that has this factor into account, will definitely have success in managing his workers, highly increasing the personal and organizational performance and well-being.

Core Concept

Schein and Bennis(1965) defined psychological safety as the awareness of individuals of feeling secure and confidence in their skills to manage change.^[1] Posteriorly, (Kahn, 1990) stated that psychological safety is: “the feeling able to show and employ one's self without fear of negative consequences to self-image, status, or career”, and also argued that employees tend to feel more psychological safe when they are in a trusting and supportive environment. More recently, Edmondson (1999) stated that psychological safety is more of a team-level climate, quoting: “it is a shared belief held by members of a team that the team is safe for interpersonal risk taking”

Psychological safety is then characterized by the individuals’ perception about the consequences of interpersonal risks inside the workplace. It takes into account the pre-made beliefs that individuals have regarding the reactions to their interactions (such as questions, suggestions, asking for feedback or reporting an error), and their willingness to overcome challenges through effective communication.

These already built beliefs are often tacit, and in most working environments there are not many opportunities to give the deserved attention by the whole team. Although sometimes these tacit beliefs may be exposed and discussed in a team meeting or interpersonal conversation, it will not affect the essence of the psychological safety of that environment.

In fact, when such activities occur, they can be faced as just a protocol of an HR agenda that is not taken seriously, and the team ends up missing the point of that discussion. This is often a common trait among entities with a dubious atmosphere of psychological safety.

Benefits

There are several important reasons for promoting a psychological safe environment. When established, teams that work in these standards have significant improvements in their learning behavior, ending up improving overall performance (Edmondson,1999) . Studies have concluded that psychological safety allows for moderate risk-taking, helping to step out of the personal comfort zone, increasing the overall chances of overcoming challenges in a more efficient and quicker way. It happens since it stimulates the spread of creative ideas, opinions and beliefs that will channel all the team resources to the same end. Psychological safety makes employees avoid spending mental resources on impressions and expectations management. Working in constant surrounding of having to threat respond, leads to decrease of productivity of both companies and employees, directly related to the energy that is spent on these mental processes. It also impairs analytical thinking, problem-solving approaches and creativity creation. This results in more energetic and hyped workers, decreasing the number and dimension of overall mistakes and errors. (Rock, 2009).

Application

Lead by setting the example

This is a mindset that should be implemented from senior management, down to small teams leaders and managers. A proactive leadership, characterized by asking upward feedback, taking responsibility for managerial mistakes, having an open-minded approach to different opinions and ideas, be accessible, encourage discussions and brain-storming sessions is one of the key ingredients for promoting an healthy psychological environment across an organization.

Encourage active listening

It is crucial that employees feel that they are important, and that their ideas and beliefs are carefully listened and discussed, in order to provide maximum contribute to the team. It is not enough to only ask for people to share their ideas, if they do not have a followed discussion and reasoning about them. Strategies like encouraging other members to give their opinions about a topic, proactively ask questions, repeating the belief that was transmitted to ensure understanding, or even leaving phones at the door during a meeting are valuable when promoting active listening in the team.

Create a safe Environment

People need to feel comfortable when speaking their minds, and not being apprehensive regarding other persons’ judgment. A set of established, simple rules can significantly help improving the promotion of this atmosphere, such as not interrupting another member’s speech, not placing blame or stimulating creative contributions from everyone with relevant brain-storming sessions.

Develop an Open mindset

An open mindset is desirable to promote a respectful relationship between team-members, eliminating misunderstandings and judgmental thoughts. Being aware of the importance of different perspectives is a key-factor when promoting an open mindset environment. Also, it is extremely relevant that there is a global understanding on how to receive input from others. Maybe there is someone more shy working with an extrovert, and the same word will have different meanings for them. It is the job of the team leader to understand its teams qualities and limitations from a third-eye perspective, and to ensure that everyone is aware of the teams’ traits and social dynamics. Another important aspect is to encourage teams to see feedback as a great opportunity for learning, as an helping mechanism instead of a criticizing one. By doing so, ideas will be able to rise faster and stronger, and processes will become more reliable and robust.

Limitations

Psychological safety isn not the same as being nice

Working in a psychological safe workplace does not mean that your co-workers will always smile and wave at each other, providing unconditional support and always agreeing with each other. It is not about being “nice”, in fact, some people may say its kind of the opposite. It relies on providing an environment that is able to successfully handle disagreements, making the highly productive, and promote a free exchange of ideas. Conflicts will always happen in the workplace, and the key is not to avoid it, but to take god advantage of it.

Psychological safety is not about personality

Psychological safety can be commonly mistaken with being an extrovert. Mainly due to the direct correlation between shyness and low number of interventions in the workplace. In fact, psychological safety refers to the working climate, creating an environment that will affect everyone regardless their personality. People will feel safe when voicing their ideas and concerns, regardless of whether they are extroverted or introverted.

Psychological safety is not another word for trust

Besides these two concepts have so much in common, they do not mean the same. A key aspect that distinguishes them is that, trust is experienced at an individual level, and during a period of time, while psychological safety exists at a group level, and it is experienced immediately in several different occurrences.

Psychological safety Is not related with lowering performance standards

A psychological safe environment has nothing to do with being satisfied by everything the employees deliver. It does not mean that workers are not expected to meet high standards or deadlines. Psycholigcal safety relies on comfort regarding your social interactions and management of expectations, but not on an overall comfortableness on the workplace, since this would start stimulating a state of sloppiness concerning work deliveries and reaching milestones. A Psychological safety promotes frankness and openness, creating a pure environment of mutual respect

References

1. ↑ Schein, E., & Bennis, W. (1965). Personal and Organizational Change through Group Methods. New York: Wiley.