Idea 1 - Learn about psychological safety

Picture the scene … you are back at school sitting in your physics class. You’re surrounded by kids who seem to have understood what has just been said, and the teacher asks if anyone has any questions. You do have a question, a very important question: “What did all that just mean?” but you don’t want to put your hand up. Maybe the teacher will say, “Weren’t you listening?” Maybe the rest of the class will roll their eyes and sigh because you’ve said something “stupid”. So you don’t lift your hand, you don’t say anything, and you remain clueless on the topic. Twenty-nine other kids in the class all feel the same.

You didn’t ask the question because you didn’t feel safe. You didn’t feel safe that the teacher wouldn’t have humiliated you, and your colleagues wouldn’t have made fun of you. 

Ironically, everyone else in the room would have benefited from your question. Even the teacher. Everyone lost out.

What happened? Why didn’t you ask the question?

You didn’t have psychological safety

You feel psychologically safe when you feel safe to ask questions, challenge others, and make suggestions without fear of retribution or a negative response. Most people do not feel safe in a 50-person Zoom call to speak out and ask a question, but they do feel safe asking their line manager a question in private.

Google, in their massive study on team performance, argues that psychological safety is the most important factor in determining a team’s ability. Teams that have a high level of psychological safety perform better than those that don’t, even if they have less knowledge and experience. So … it’s quite important.

But what does psychological safety have to do with happiness in the workplace?

In Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, you cannot even move beyond the first stage unless you feel safe. Arguably, it is the same in the workplace. For a person to feel happy at work, they need to feel safe - safe that their job will exist tomorrow, safe they are not going to get hurt, and safe that they can speak their mind. Unless you feel safe, you cannot be truly happy, even if you are surrounded by wonderful people and earn a fortune. I believe that psychological safety is the first thing any workplace should look at if they are interested in their team’s wellbeing.

How do you know if your team feels safe?

There are various surveys and questionnaires you can use (this is a good one), but the easiest way is to observe. If everyone in a team speaks about the same amount in a discussion, they feel safe. If one person speaks less, it is often a sign that they don’t feel safe. Also, in 1-to-1s, if you feel the other person is not being totally honest, that could be a sign too.

How can you make your team feel safe?

The first thing you need to realise is that, just as it is the teacher’s responsibility to make their students feel safe, it is the leaders and other team members' responsibility for their team mates’ safety. You are responsible for your colleague’s feeling of safety, not them. How you interact with them will influence how safe they feel.

There are hundreds of techniques you can use to help others feel safe, some that will work in your company and some that won’t. 

Over the next year, I will be sharing many ideas on how you can improve psychological safety to boost the happiness of your team starting next week by showing you how by changing your coffee machine you can enhance psychological safety and improve your team’s feeling of connection.

So what was this week’s tip? 

“Learn what psychological safety is and learn what it looks like in the workplace”. 

Observe your teammates, and if you have time, read a couple of articles or watch a couple of videos. Here are some suggestions to get you going.

If you like reading - this blog post by the Harvard Business Review is good

Like watching YouTube videos? - Watch Amy Edmondson’s Ted talk

Prefer podcasts? - here is an interview with Amy Edmondson (also available on Apple podcasts and Spotify)

Harvard professor Amy Edmondson came up with the theory in 1999 and is probably the most famous person associated with the term. Anything by her, or with her, is usually great.

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Next week … How changing your coffee machine at work can boost psychological safety and improve connection.