Psychological Safety

Psychological Safety is critical to not only team success, but also employee happiness. By creating a comfortable environment for team members to show vulnerability and take risks, you are creating room for innovation. In a study run by Google, researchers tested the things that make a great team. They found that there were five key dynamics that were critical to team success, with Psychological Safety being the most important on the list. Teams that felt comfortable making mistakes and learning quickly from them ended up performing better than teams who made fewer mistakes due to team culture. This is because the key to innovation lies in trial and error. When team members feel confident voicing concerns, asking questions, and trying new things, they stumble upon solutions faster. However, if you’re looking to create this team culture, you’ll need to consistently commit time to fostering this mindset. This team culture takes buy-in from the entire team and can’t be created overnight.

Download, print, and hang this fact sheet near your workspace to encourage the daily, weekly, and monthly efforts needed to transition your team to a psychologically safe culture. Learn about:

• What is Psychological Safety?
• How does it manifest itself?
• How can we model and reinforce it?

Looking for more ways to improve your team dynamics? Learn about Liberating Structures and how they can help you break out of your conventional (and sometimes limiting) collaboration methods.