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HRBusiness
THE KEY TO HIGH-PERFORMING TEAMS: PSYCHOLOGICAL SAFETY
Laurel C Newman, Ph.D.
11 min read
Jan 18, 2023
BEHAVIORAL SCIENCE, DEMOCRATIZED
We make 35,000 decisions each day, often in environments that aren’t conducive
to making sound choices.
At TDL, we work with organizations in the public and private sectors—from new
startups, to governments, to established players like the Gates Foundation—to
debias decision-making and create better outcomes for everyone.
More about our services
For many American workers, the brand name Google has become synonymous with
aspirational workplace culture. And there’s data to back up the hype: for years,
Google has been at or close to the top in LinkedIn’s internal study1 of the
country’s top employers.
What is it about this particular company that allows it to sit above so many
others in culture, engagement, and desirability? It’s not just the comp and the
lavish benefits, nor the opportunity to share your “Noogler” status on LinkedIn
and show your high school classmates that you’ve arrived. The biggest draw,
according to job searchers, is Google’s relentless focus on using data and
science to support workplace happiness and to promote high-functioning teams.
In 2015, Google’s People Operations team did their own deep dive study2 to find
out which factors are most important for creating these high-performing teams.
They were surprised to find out that the #1 most influential factor was not
diversity of thought, level of education, or work ethic. Instead it was the dark
horse of psychological safety.
In this article, we’ll discuss what psychological safety is, why it’s so
important (hint: It’s not just about feelings), and we’ll leave with a few
“take-home” ideas for how you can increase it in your organization.
BEHAVIORAL SCIENCE, DEMOCRATIZED
We make 35,000 decisions each day, often in environments that aren’t conducive
to making sound choices.
At TDL, we work with organizations in the public and private sectors—from new
startups, to governments, to established players like the Gates Foundation—to
debias decision-making and create better outcomes for everyone.
More about our services
WHAT IS PSYCHOLOGICAL SAFETY?
Harvard Professor Amy C. Edmondson once described psychological safety3 as “the
belief that one can speak up without risk of punishment or humiliation.” In a
psychologically safe workplace, employees are more likely to believe statements
such as:
* “I can be my whole, authentic self.”
* “I can make and admit to mistakes.”
* “I can voice dissent or criticism respectfully.”
In psychologically safe environments, not only can people do these things
without fear of repercussions, but the culture and leaders consistently model,
encourage, and appreciate such behaviors.
In other words, rather than being penalized for being honest about their
opinions and their work performance, people are rewarded for it — even when
doing so means that they are going against the grain.
WHY IS PSYCHOLOGICAL SAFETY SO IMPORTANT TO MY BUSINESS?
Many leaders think of psychological safety as supporting diversity and
inclusion. This is not wrong. As we move from diversity to inclusion to real
belonging, people with diverse viewpoints must be encouraged to share them. It’s
not a culture of belonging if only some people are able to speak up. In fact,
some research has found that increasing the diversity of teams only yields the
expected benefits when those teams are carefully led,4 with psychological safety
rising to the top of the list5 of required cultural features.
But the benefits of psychological safety extend beyond core psychological needs,
impacting companies’ productivity and bottom lines. Researchers have identified
at least 3 major performance benefits to cultures that are high in psychological
safety.
PSYCHOLOGICAL SAFETY REDUCES ERRORS
Companies and teams high in psychological safety make fewer critical mistakes.6
Imagine you’re a nurse. You’re standing in front of a doctor who you believe is
about to operate on the wrong side of their patient’s body. You have to make the
split-second decision of whether or not to challenge the doctor publicly.
If you work in a hostile environment — where you may be chastised as
insubordinate or even fired — you’ll play it safe. Obviously, this leads to
tragic consequences for the patient (and probably for the doctor and hospital).
If, instead, you find yourself in an environment where speaking up is encouraged
and rewarded, you’ll respectfully state your concern and head off that enormous
mistake.
It may surprise you to find out that this example isn’t far from real life. A
recent study7 found that staff in a hospital’s radiation oncology department
were more likely to report “near misses” — incidents that nearly led to patient
harm — if they felt a sense of psychological safety.
Another recent, high-profile example concerns an ad campaign for the company
Balenciaga. In November 2022, they received massive blowback from the public for
running ads featuring children posing with stuffed animals dressed in BDSM
gear.
How many people had to view these images and sign off on them before they ran
publicly? Out of the numerous employees who worked on the campaign, we can
assume that at least some of them must have had concerns. Although we can’t know
what happened internally, presumably either nobody spoke up, or their voices
were not heard. Either way, this suggests a culture where employee perspectives
are not valued or taken seriously.
It takes courage to go against the group. There is real personal risk, and many
people avoid it even when risks are low. But when companies encourage dissent
and disagreement, they are rewarded with better results.
High-performing teams in any sector are generally more likely to lean on one
another to avoid mistakes. And when mistakes do happen, they approach them with
curiosity, rather than blame.8 This mindset encourages teams to unpack their
missteps, helping to prevent similar mistakes from happening in the future.
PSYCHOLOGICAL SAFETY BOOSTS CREATIVITY
In addition to avoiding more mistakes, companies and teams that are high in
psychological safety are more creative and innovative. Some of this comes down
to basic math. Innovation by definition means you’re doing something new. If
your team needs to find a new solution to a problem, the more good ideas the
team produces, the greater the probability that you’ll hear the best idea.
If a team leader reacts to “bad” ideas by chastising the person who offered
them, others will see this and stop offering their own ideas for fear of
humiliation. If instead you encourage everyone to think outside the box and
share their own unique ideas, no matter how off-the-wall, you will get more and
better ideas.
BALANCING CREATIVITY AND CRITIQUE
Psychological safety also supports innovation by helping teams to avoid wasting
resources pursuing bad ideas. Suppose a leader comes up with her own idea for
solving a problem and tries to drive it forward. But the idea is flawed and
doomed to fail, for reasons she has not yet discovered. When people feel safe to
speak up and express their concerns, we avoid investing in ideas that would cost
time and money but go nowhere.
You may be thinking that these two points contradict one another. I first said,
“don’t criticize others’ ideas.” I then said it saves us time and money when we
openly criticize bad ideas.
In an environment high in psychological safety, it’s all about context. It comes
down to nuances in how, when, and why the ideas are criticized. Everyone gets
sufficient airtime to express their ideas before anyone weighs in with
criticism. When criticism is offered, it is done so in a respectful and
sensitive way, and — perhaps most importantly — it’s clear that the critique is
driven by the north star of what’s best for the organization. There is a feeling
that the team is all in it together, with the shared goal of coming up with the
best idea to meet the client’s or company’s needs. Instead of the boss saying,
“I’m upset you did not like my idea,” she says, “Thank goodness you said
something, or we would have made a big mistake!”
Note also that this criticism takes place in group sessions where the focus is
on the merit of the idea, NOT in backchannel meetings-after-the-meeting, which
are often a telltale sign that the culture does not value psychological safety.
PSYCHOLOGICAL SAFETY INCREASES BELONGING
Companies high in psychological safety experience a greater sense of belonging,
which is crucial for teamwork, productivity, and even employee retention.
In outstanding organizational cultures, psychological safety is personalized for
each employee. There’s a broad culture of acceptance — one that says it’s okay
to speak up and admit mistakes.
There is also an acknowledgement and appreciation of individual employee needs.
One person may need to adjust a team roadmap to allow for religious holidays.
Another might need to feel that they aren’t a burden when requesting
accommodations for their disability. Diversity comes in all forms, and people
show up for one another in all kinds of ways.
In psychologically safe cultures, people truly feel that they are “in it
together.” As a result, they pull together harder to achieve their shared
goals.
Belonging can be thought of as a mediator — or a necessary road — to our other
two goals of creativity and accuracy. By creating a culture of belonging, where
people feel safe to be their whole selves, to make and admit to mistakes, and to
voice concerns publicly, leaders can enable the very behaviors that lead to high
performance: greater innovation, fewer mistakes, and overall higher
productivity.
HOW LEADERS CAN CULTIVATE PSYCHOLOGICAL SAFETY
Hopefully by now you’re on board with the concept of psychological safety as
critical for employee experience, diversity and belonging, and company
performance. You may be wondering, “What can I do to increase psychological
safety in my team or org?”
Here are some suggestions, in order of importance:
LEAD BY EXAMPLE
Publicly model, encourage, and reward the behaviors you want. This means showing
up as your “whole self” in team meetings and gatherings, and letting your team
see you as a person with struggles, preferences, and weaknesses.
You need to get comfortable with failure and admitting to your mistakes. And
when others make a mistake, they must be gracefully forgiven and encouraged to
move on.
Finally, encourage people to share their concerns and criticisms openly. When
your colleagues do this effectively, respond with gratitude to let everyone know
it’s not just okay — it’s good to speak out when it’s tough to do so.
RESTRUCTURE YOUR SYSTEMS
Create structural opportunities for people to speak up.
* For major decisions, assign colleagues to play devil’s advocate. Praise them
for highlighting issues that had not yet been discussed. Do this early in the
process, when it’s still easy to change strategy if needed.
* Reserve ten minutes of each meeting to brainstorm concerns or potential
risks, and really lean into it. If no one voices a concern, offer your own to
break the ice. If you can poke a hole in your own idea, even better.
* If you are participating in a physical design session (such as a design
thinking sprint where people come together to brainstorm improvements for a
platform’s UX), ask participants to use "red flag" stickers (whether real or
digital) to mark concerns they think the group should explore.
* Do a premortem.9 Have your team imagine they’re a couple of years into a
future where they took the proposed course of action, and it failed. “Looking
back,” they speculate as to the causes of this failure. This flips the social
pressure script, so that those who identify the biggest problems are the
heroes rather than the squeaky wheels.
These ideas embody the spirit of behavioral design: If you make the desired
behavior easy and rewarding, people will do it. If you make it hard and
punishing, they will not.
The onus of interrupting groupthink and challenging the majority of the team
should never be put on individual employees. It may feel uncomfortable or even
dangerous for many people, especially introverts and people from diverse
backgrounds, who ironically may be most likely to have unique perspectives.
It’s up to leadership to implement processes that make it easier and more
rewarding to share overlooked concerns. Anonymous pulse-check surveys and
suggestion boxes make it safe and easy for people to voice concerns without fear
of retaliation. But if people only feel safe being honest when it’s anonymous,
this is a signal that you have work to do to bolster psychological safety.
KEEP IT REAL
In some workplace cultures, employees who see faults in an idea decline to speak
up because the culture values being friendly and agreeable over making sound
business decisions. People tend to get promoted if they’re positive and
agreeable, and tend to be penalized if they disagree “too much.”
In the short term, it may feel better to disincentivize disagreement in this
way. It creates the impression of harmony within an organization, and minimizes
conflict.
But in the long term, this pattern impedes real progress. Mistakes are not
caught ahead of time, innovation does not happen, and bad ideas are pushed
through when they should not be.
UPSKILL FOR CONSTRUCTIVE FEEDBACK
Train employees on HOW to speak up constructively. Publically dragging a
coworker’s idea over the coals can decrease psychological safety, especially if
it’s done in a sarcastic or otherwise toxic way. Raising concerns should never
feel like a personal attack.
Employees should be led to speak up respectfully, constructively, and from a
place of curiosity and concern. For instance, when questioning an idea, it can
be helpful to point out its positive aspects first, and to make a point of
incorporating those benefits into other approaches. The way colleagues
communicate criticism can make the difference between a psychologically safe or
unsafe environment.
FINAL WORDS
There is a long historical debate over whether leaders should aspire to exude
greater warmth or greater competence.10 Ideally, of course, they should aspire
for both. Treating others with respect and compassion does not hinder progress.
On the contrary, the research on psychological safety reminds us that when we
see our colleagues as humans first, approaching their ideas with warmth and
curiosity, we enjoy better ideas, fewer costly mistakes, and higher functioning
teams.
REFERENCES
Hide
1. Top Companies 2022: The 50 best workplaces to grow your career in the U.S.
(n.d.).
www.linkedin.com.https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/top-companies-2022-50-best-workplaces-grow-your-career-us-/
2. Rozovsky, J. (2015, November 17). re:Work - the Five Keys to a Successful
Google Team.
Withgoogle.com.https://rework.withgoogle.com/blog/five-keys-to-a-successful-google-team/
3. Edmondson, A., & Mortensen, M. (2021, April 19). What Psychological Safety
Looks Like in a Hybrid Workplace. Harvard Business Review.
https://hbr.org/2021/04/what-psychological-safety-looks-like-in-a-hybrid-workplace
4. Newman, L. (2021, September 21). The hidden risk of diversity training, and
what you should do about it. WeWhistle.
https://www.wewhistle.com/the-hidden-risk-of-diversity-training-and-what-you-should-do-about-it/
5. Bresman, H., & Edmondson, A. (2022, March 17). Research: To Excel, Diverse
Teams Need Psychological Safety. Harvard Business Review.
https://hbr.org/2022/03/research-to-excel-diverse-teams-need-psychological-safety
6. Christian, M. S., Bradley, J. C., Wallace, J. C., & Burke, M. J. (2009).
Workplace safety: A meta-analysis of the roles of person and situation
factors. Journal of Applied Psychology, 94(5), 1103–1127.
https://doi.org/10.1037/a0016172
7. Jung, O. S., Kundu, P., Edmondson, A. C., Hegde, J., Agazaryan, N.,
Steinberg, M., & Raldow, A. (2021). Resilience vs. Vulnerability:
Psychological Safety and Reporting of Near Misses with Varying Proximity to
Harm in Radiation Oncology. The Joint Commission Journal on Quality and
Patient Safety, 47(1), 15–22. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jcjq.2020.09.005
8. Delizonna, L. (2022, October 19). High-Performing Teams Need Psychological
Safety: Here’s How to Create It. Harvard Business Review.
https://hbr.org/2017/08/high-performing-teams-need-psychological-safety-heres-how-to-create-it
9. Klein, G., Koller, T., & Lovallo, D. (2020, June 29). Bias busters:
Premortems: Being smart at the start. McKinsey & Company.
https://www.mckinsey.com/capabilities/strategy-and-corporate-finance/our-insights/bias-busters-premortems-being-smart-at-the-start
10. Zenger, J. (2018, October 4). Should Leaders Aspire To Warmth Or
Competence? Forbes.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/jackzenger/2018/10/04/should-leaders-aspire-to-warmth-or-competence/?sh=424b5787eded
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
LAUREL C NEWMAN, PH.D.
Laurel Newman is a social psychologist and an applied behavioral scientist. She
began her career as a psychology professor and department chair at Fontbonne
University, leaving academia in 2018 to help create a behavioral science
function at Maritz. Laurel consults, conducts research, and delivers corporate
behavioral science curricula. She writes articles and books on topics such as
employee engagement and how to build a behavioral science function within an
organization. Laurel has a Ph.D. in Social and Personality Psychology from
Washington University in St. Louis. She works in the Experience Center of
Expertise at Edward Jones and is co-founder and advisor to the employee loyalty
startup Whistle Systems.
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