Psychological Safety is fluid and ever-changing and, once interrogated with data, is made up of clear components that can be observed and measured. 

The main determining factor of whether teams can uphold and better their degree of Psychological Safety or not in the remote world as well as the physical one is their level of willingness to do the human work. The work that sees the team come together to talk, examine, experiment and become closer through team actions, workshops, exercises and targeted plays that are specifically aimed at increasing a certain speaking up behaviour. Holding space (and yes, virtual space works as well) for those conversations, informing them with data and closing those feedback loops will help team members see such dramatic change for the better in their interpersonal interactions that they will become even more invested in doing the work to maintain and increase their Psychological Safety in this new hybrid reality. 

While they seem many, none of these is a true objection. Oftentimes, the real fears are all about organisational level impression management. The ones saying this, are likely really just fearful. Afraid to lose their position by looking “too soft” or “too unprofessional” or “too concerned with the wrong things and not focused on the priorities”.

In the previous episodes of this series, we have spoken of the need for action that is undertaken by every team member to change behaviours, improve the dynamic of their team and raise Psychological Safety in order to lower their HumanDebt. We call this the “people work” or the “human work”. While there is work…Read More

What is HumanDebt™? The concept of HumanDebt was coined by Duena Blomstrom while investigating what organisations need in order to thrive. She wanted to know what stops enterprises from availing themselves from Agile and the concepts of high performance at a team level such as Psychological Safety. What she found was that most – if…Read More

This article is based on the chapter with the same name in the book People Before Tech: The Importance of Psychological Safety and Teamwork in the Digital Age, by Duena Blomstrom. Within the context of work, the idea of “impression management” was first formalised by Leary and Kowalski in 1990 and in the context of…Read More

This article is based on the chapter with the same name in the book People Before Tech: The Importance of Psychological Safety and Teamwork in the Digital Age, by Duena Blomstrom. It is undeniable that when we observe and measure the way successful and high performing teams interact, their behaviours are drastically different from those…Read More

This article is based on the chapter with the same name in the book People Before Tech: The Importance of Psychological Safety and Teamwork in the Digital Age, by Duena Blomstrom. When first hearing about Psychological Safety many people make the assumption that it is a “nice to have”. Nothing could be further from the…Read More

Just as it is important that we state and understand what Psychological Safety is, we also need to state and understand what it is not. This is important because there have been instances where, as with any other new and radical concept, people have misunderstood the meaning of it and have then adopted its inaccurate definition anyways and doing so does neither concept any favours.

Welcome to the Fundamentals of Psychological Safety Series. If you’re reading this, chances are you’re already on your way to having better performance in your team. Every Thursday we’ll be writing about the cornerstone concepts that go into this intensely relatable and yet slightly nebulous concept. This is in an effort to demystify it and…Read More