Psychological Safety at Work: 3 Proven Strategies for Success

The 2 most common misconceptions about psychological safety

Often, individuals report that they “do” or “don’t” have psychological safety or that their culture “is” or “isn’t” psychologically safe. But, we know from research that this is not quite how the concept works in practice.

1. 💡 It’s a team-wide phenomenon. Psychological safety occurs at the team level, not individually in isolation. So any nudge, engagement, or intervention must target the whole group to be effective.

2. 💡 It’s not all or nothing, but a matter of degree. Instead of thinking of psychological safety in terms of “having” or “not having” it, think about to what extent your team consistently demonstrates interpersonal risk-taking. That's your answer and will help you develop a solution that is more targeted. Also, remember, psychological safety is a ladder of levels (inclusion, learner, contributor, and challenger safety) that we can climb by added experiences of vulnerability.

3 approaches to strengthen psychological safety

1️⃣ Start with the self:

You alone don’t determine psychological safety for your whole team, but you are a big influence in everyone’s experiences, including your own.

❓Identify: What is one important and unaddressed problem today that you want to speak up about, resurface, or discuss with others?

📢 Model interpersonal risk-taking: Schedule a time to model candor and interpersonal risk-taking with the whole group. And, we’ll make it easy for you! Check out these scripts written by Edmonson herself for managers and employees. These expertly crafted phrases will help you more effectively challenge the status quo, and feel confident while doing it.

2️⃣ Examine your relationships:

Next, examine your relationships at work. How much trust have you established with colleagues? Also, is there anyone you’ve been butting heads with recently? Or perhaps someone you just never seem to click with?

❤️ Practice “like me” thinking: Learn the “Just One Thing” exercise to better identify common ground with those who try your patience or that you aren't particularly close with. Identifying common ground whether it be shared experiences, goals, motivations, or vulnerabilities helps us approach the problem from the same side and better yet learn from the unique strengths of the players on our team.

3️⃣ Explicitly assign disagreement:

Every team has its own delicate balance of social norms and dynamics. If there are humans on your team, this is just the baseline truth, no matter how awesome the team is. To strengthen psychological safety and teaming, we need to account for that by creating spaces where speaking openly is the expected norm and there is more explicitly stated permission to disagree.

🙅 Rumble: There are several clever approaches to cultivating more healthy disagreement and open discussions. One we'd recommend trying is Brené Brown’s Rumble format. A “rumble” allows the team, especially those less inclined to lean into conflict to bring the full value of their experiences, observations, and knowledge to the table.

☝️ That is the "whole is greater than the sum of its parts" thinking at its absolute finest.

Go forth and (kindly) find opportunities to disagree well!

Looking to improve psychological safety and promote DEI in your workplace? As an impact-driven DEI consulting firm, we provide behavior-based training and solutions to help organizations create inclusive environments where all team members feel safe to take interpersonal risks and bring their whole selves to work. Contact us today to learn more.