Psychological safety: The bedrock of team performance
From the The Money Files Blog
by Elizabeth Harrin
A blog that looks at all aspects of project and program finances from budgets, estimating and accounting to getting a pay rise and managing contracts.
Written by Elizabeth Harrin from RebelsGuideToPM.com.
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Psychological safety, as I think of it, is the way that you show up at work and how much risk you feel yourself in when expressing your opinions or when choosing a course of action.
If it feels ‘safe’ you’ll speak up when things are wrong, suggest new ideas and call out bad behaviour. If it doesn’t feel safe, you’ll keep your head down.
On a project team, psychological safety is important because you want people to challenge poor ideas or speak up when they see a better way of doing things. And also because we are nice leaders and we want people to be happy at work, without second-guessing what their boss is going to think all the time.
In an environment where psychological safety is present, people feel that it is safe to take risks. They might try a new solution or propose a new way of working. They might come up with an idea and implement it, or opt for a new technology over a proven one because it might be better.
They also feel that it is safe to speak up and express ideas. They’ll speak in meetings, bounce ideas around, build on other people’s ideas and say when they don’t think an idea will work.
The benefits are clear.
You will see better team collaboration. People will be more creative and prepared to innovate. You should end up with better problem-solving and decision-making. And it will feel like a nice place to work surrounded by professional adults.
How do you know if you’ve got psychological safety in the team?
It’s probably easier to look at what the environment looks like if you don’t have psychological safety.
You’ll see:
- Lack of participation in meetings.
- Fear of retribution
- Fear of embarrassment.
People might not say out loud: I was too embarrassed to say what I thought, but you might pick up on it either through one-to-one conversations or body language.
If you want to find out more, you could survey the team or use other feedback methods, but if the environment doesn’t feel like one where you can speak freely, frankly I don’t think you’ll get a lot of good out of those methods. It is probably best to build good relationships with some of the people who exhibit more confidence or who contribute the most and talk to them openly about your worries for the team.
The trouble with projects is that they happen inside the culture of the organisation, so while you might want to create an environment where people feel safe, if the rest of the organisation isn’t backing you up, that can be tricky.
How to create a safer environment
In your leadership role, you can model vulnerability and openness. Share what you’re comfortable sharing. Lead by example. Be consistent in your actions and expectations and demonstrate the behaviours you want to see.
Encourage and reward contributions. Let people know you appreciate their ideas even if you don’t end up using them.
Value diverse perspectives. Ask for them, incorporate them and let people know that their voices are being heard. Again, if they share their perspective and you can’t do anything with it or affect any change, at least pass that back to them.
A lot of what you can do centres on establishing norms for respectful communication. For example, regularly ask for feedback, through anonymous suggestion methods if necessary (and people are wary of Microsoft forms not being truly anonymous). Handle conflict early when you spot it, and look out for those people who are showing signs of being resistant to change and support them.
Schedule some team-building activities, but not awkward cringey ones, things that the team actually will be interested in doing.
Over time, hopefully you’ll see that the feeling in the team has changed. I think it’s a hard thing to measure, but you might see results through employee surveys, perhaps in responses to do with belonging, or feeling understood/appreciated etc.
What’s more evident is that you’ll probably feel it. You can observe the team dynamics and notice what is different. However, you don’t want to lose that and slip back into old ways, so keep psychological safety on the agenda. Ask people how they feel about working in the team now, and what else you could do together to encourage good working practices. Then act on their suggestions.
Posted on: September 09, 2024 09:00 AM |
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Comments (7)
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Kwiyuh Michael Wepngong
Community Champion
Financial Management Specialist | US Peace Corps / Cameroon
Yaounde, Centre, Cameroon
This point on:
How do you know if you’ve got psychological safety in the team?
It’s probably easier to look at what the environment looks like if you don’t have psychological safety.
You’ll see:
Lack of participation in meetings.
Fear of retribution
Fear of embarrassment.
What happens when this may be happening because of overwork and somewhat high expectation from staff?
Diego Diez
Operations Manager| Petropipe
Veracruz, Mexico
SHWETA BRAHMBHATT
SENIOR PROJECT LEADER| Clinical Project Solutions Ltd
Nairobi, Kenya
I agree with the points in this article, but can this also apply in the context of a contractor PM to an organisation? I foresee some very different dynamics in play there and whilst a contractor PM is still responsible for leading the team, there are elements that may be outside of his/her control in that context.
Great analysis and recommedations. Thanks.
Good article. You are right about the psychological safety. It's about trusting your team members, and they in turn trust you. The key though is to keep the information confidential.
If you are Pm of the project, and you want your team to open up, then you need to share something about you, something personal.
And in turn, you need keep what they share confidential and not share the information. trust the team.
I agree with Shweta. The challenge that A contract PM faces is building the team. The contract PM, though well skilled, has been brought in from outside, so that means the management does not seem any of the team members having the right skill, and they needed to bring in someone to assist. This person is an outsider, and also has no personal ties, with the team members, nor the company
Evan Mitchell
Program Manager | Romaire Studios, Inc.
Los Angeles, CA, USA
Thanks, Elizabeth!
From my perspective two things are essential for their to be (or to build) psychological safety: trust and vulnerability. If your team trusts each other, and in theory the organization, then they can be vulnerable by participating in authentic and engaging ways without fear of reproach, judgement, or ostracism.
If your team is lacking psychological safety, you as the leader have to take a chance and show a bit of your own vulnerability in a bid to start building trust. I recommend Dare to Lead by Brene Brown for some excellent, research based insight on leading with courage and vulnerability.
Andreas Madjari
Senior Consultant| consigma Management Beratung GmbH
Vienna, Austria
Thank you Elizabeth!
One more aspect of psychological safety is the openness about mistakes and therefore easier correction.
Where humans work, mistakes will happen. We can do a lot to prevent and a psychologically safe environment reduces the impact of mistakes, making them an opportunity to grow. Also mistakes will shift from basic ones to the unavoidable, providing lessons learned, growth, and a more resilient environment for the future.
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