What is psychological safety
At: 2021-08-15 12:00 | by: @Fiill
Psychological safety defines an environment at work where people can take risks and speak their minds.
The term was quoted by Amy Edmondson a Harvard professor, as part of her study on what makes some medical teams perform higher than others.
One of the major conclusions of the research that speaks up openly about work-related topics, like a mistake that someone made or some concerns that another person has was a big factor in making the whole team works better.
While this was not the first time open employee input was mentioned as a strong indicator of the team and organization performance, this research resonated more with the corpora world, not only because of the high profile of the researchers, and the rigorous of their scientific method but also because the result of the research was validated by a sort of replication done by Google in 2012, where they come to the same conclusion by studying what makes some team more performant.
The result was the same, psychological safety and the library that come with it to speak up and take on risks when needed allow individuals and teams to solve problems faster, find better solutions to the same problem, try new things...
It makes the organization highly performing, more innovative.
It creates a workplace where people can feel safe. Not the complaisant way where the most important thing is you don't hear anything that you don't like, but a real safety based on being honest in speaking up and holding each other accountable so we can learn from mistakes and grow as a team.
It provides a place whereof genuinely belonging since it allows employees to shape their culture they feel they can bring their authentic selves.
