Modern organizations operate in a volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous (VUCA) world. To stay competitive in the market organizations must be high-performing, innovative, experimental, engaged, learning continuously, and so on. This means that one of the important assets of an organization i.e. its employees should showcase these qualities for organizations to be competitive in the market.
One of the important factors that enable employees to be high- performing, innovative, experimental, engaged, and learning continuously is psychological safety. It is what makes an organization fearless.
What is Psychological Safety and Why is it Needed?
Psychological Safety is defined by Amy Edmonson as “a shared belief that the team is safe for interpersonal risk taking” (Edmondson, 1999, p. 353). In a psychologically safe organization, candor is permitted and hence employees are not afraid of seeking help or making mistakes because they know that their co-workers or supervisors will not react negatively. According to research, in psychologically safe organizations employees engage in well- intentioned risk-taking that leads to learning behavior. This learning behavior in turn leads to better performance (Edmondson, 1999; Soundview Executive Book Summaries, n.d.).
But why is psychological safety important? Most organizations these days operate in knowledgebased industries where there is a dependence on the efficient generation and utilization of knowledge. Hence for such organizations, the ideas, questions, observations, and concerns of their employees can provide them with important information. But many times employees do not ask questions, give their ideas, do not seek help, or raise their concerns because they do not want to look negative and hence engage in impression management. When doctors, pilots, engineers do not give their ideas or raise questions and concerns the organizations not only lose an opportunity to innovate and learn but, it may lead to crises (Soundview Executive Book Summaries, n.d.; Steinmueller, 2002; TEDx Talks, 2014).
Outcomes of Psychological Safety
- Improved communication and voice behavior Psychological safety leads to higher interpersonal communication, voice behavior, raising differences in opinion, giving feedback, and showing and reporting errors within teams and dyadic relationships (Newman et al., 2017).
- Learning behavior
Psychological safety in organizations encourages employee learning behavior at the team and individual level. It helps employees learn from failures. Also, teams that are psychologically safe speak about their mistakes often and also make fewer errors (Newman et al., 2017; Soundview Executive Book Summaries, n.d.). - Performance
Through a project named Aristotle Google’s researchers found that psychological safety is one of the most important factors for team effectiveness. Teams that had psychological safety outperformed other teams (Google, n.d.). According to other research studies, psychological safety improves performance indirectly through team turnover, encouraging learning behavior and social exchange, and employees’ identification with the organization (Newman et al., 2017). - Employee Engagement
Employees working in psychologically safe organizations are engaged. A supportive relationship with colleagues and trust in top management enhances psychological safety, which in turn leads to employee engagement (Soundview Executive Book Summaries, n.d.).
Toolkit for Build Psychological Safety in Organizations
Now that we have understood what psychological safety is and its benefits to an organization the question remains how do we build psychological safety in our organizations? Amy Edmondson has given a three-step toolkit to help leaders build psychologically safe organizations.
- Setting the Stage for Psychological Safety
Setting the stage for psychological safety includes framing the work and motivating effort. Framing the work consists of reframing failure and clarifying stakes. To reframe failure we first need to understand the three types of failures. Preventable failures occur due to not following the recommended procedures. Complex failures are a combination of unusual and new actions and events that lead to unwanted results. Finally, intelligent failures are the ones that should be supported as these unwanted results help us foray into new areas. To clarify the need for voice leaders should highlight uncertainty and interdependence so that employees remember to be attentive and inquisitive to detect the early signs of change in the organizational environment and know that they should understand how their work interacts with others’ work. Lastly to make employees more likely to speak up it is important to clarify both the high and low stakes (Edmondson, 2018). Motivating employees by reminding them of why their work matters to others instills a sense of purpose in them and helps in improving psychological safety (Edmondson, 2018). - Inviting Participation so that Employees Respond
Leaders should invite employees to participate in a real and compelling manner. This requires adopting two behaviors one of which is a mindset of situational humility. By adopting this learning mindset leaders showcase that they do not know everything and there is always something new to learn. This helps employees to voice their ideas. The second behavior is proactive inquiry in which a leader tries to learn about the employee, issue, or situation through purposeful questions. This shows respect for other people which is important for building psychological safety. Another way of getting employee input is to design structures that help us get this input such as knowledge-sharing conferences or employee-to-employee learning systems (Edmondson, 2018). - Responding to Employee Voice Productively Regardless of its Quality
Responding productively to employee voice consists of three elements. The first element is expressing appreciation which means that whenever an employee speaks up the leader should appreciate the employee’s courage to speak up regardless of its quality and then educate the employee through feedback to make sure that employees keep voicing their ideas or questions. Destigmatizing failure is the second element. In the above section, we understood the three types of failures. Leaders should not respond in the same way to all types of failures instead a productive response should be given to an intelligent failure to celebrate such failures. The third element might sound contrary to building psychological safety but it isn’t. Sanctioning clear violations means responding in a considerate and fair manner (for e.g. firing) to potentially harmful and careless employee behavior (for e.g. repeatedly violating the rules). This enhances psychological safety rather than harming it because employees understand that such behavior puts themselves, their co-workers, and the organization in danger (Edmondson, 2018).
Building psychological safety is a long-term process, but committing to this process will help us build organizations that sustain and grow in today’s VUCA world.
Work Cited:
- Edmondson, A. (1999). Psychological safety and learning behavior in work teams. Administrative science quarterly, 44(2), 350-383.
- Edmondson, A. C. (2018). The fearless organization: Creating psychological safety in the workplace for learning, innovation, and growth. John Wiley & Sons.
- Google. (n.d.). Project Aristotle – re: Work – Google. Re: Work. Retrieved October 25, 2022, from https://rework.withgoogle.com/print/guides/5721312655835136/
- Newman, A., Donohue, R., & Eva, N. (2017). Psychological safety: A systematic review of the literature. Human resource management review, 27(3), 521-535.
- Soundview Executive Book Summaries. (n.d.). The Fearless Organization Creating Psychological Safety in the Workplace for Learning, Innovation and Growth. Retrieved October 23, 2022, from https://www2.mvcc.edu/shn/pdf/presentations/2022-annarbor/The-Fearless-Organization.pdf
- Steinmueller, W. E. (2002). Knowledge-based economies and information and communication technologies. International Social Science Journal, 54(171), 141-153.
- TEDx Talks. (2014, May 5). Building a psychologically safe workplace | Amy Edmondson | TEDxHGSE [Video]. YouTube. Retrieved October 23, 2022, from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LhoLuui9gX8
About the Author
