By Amy Dufrane
“There’s no team without trust,” said Paul Santagata, Head of Industry at Google. That company conducted a two-year study on team performance, which revealed that the highest-performing teams share the one thing in common: psychological safety.
Now, we are all familiar with physical safety in the workplace. The Occupational Safety and Health Act of 1970 (OSHA) was created to ensure safe and healthful working conditions by setting and enforcing standards and providing training, outreach, education and assistance. As HR professionals, we’ve kept records of work-related injuries and illnesses, collaborated with our colleagues in the training function to inform employees about chemical hazards and posted OSHA summary data and job safety posters.
Fast-forward to today’s decentralized workplaces, and there are contemporary issues. State-mandated COVID regulations. Building and cybersecurity. Tired remote workers who are tethered to video conferencing applications all day long.
As Google uncovered, it’s not just about physical safety (although one cannot dispute its importance.) More difficult to identify, psychologically unsafe work environments can be just as risky as dealing with perilous materials on the job. As HR professionals, what can we be doing to identify the signals and support a culture of psychological safety? And why is this so important, especially in today’s workplace?
First, the term psychological safety warrants some explanation. It might have conjured a discussion of mental wellbeing, yet it’s that and so much more. Harvard professor and author of Fearless Organization, Dr. Amy Edmondson, says, “Psychological safety is a belief that one will not be punished or humiliated for speaking up with ideas, questions, concerns, or mistakes.” She adds, “It can be defined as a shared belief that the team is safe for interpersonal risk taking.”
Dr. Edmondson’s quote merits reflection. How many workplaces exhibit unproductive behaviors such as defensiveness, lack of focus or limited social interaction? And how does this translate into lower productivity, higher attrition and dismal employee engagement?
When employees think their work matters and create change, they feel valued. Google learned that when team members can depend on each other, have clear roles, plans and goals, and know it is OK to be vulnerable, they feel safe. Conversely, when workers feel unsafe in their work environment, they are unwilling to share ideas freely and learn new things. Speaking up seems discouraged, and employees see no reward in taking risks. Productivity starts to lower, and surprises frequently occur because the workforce is not proactively flagging and sharing exceptions that could have been managed.
The linkage between physical and psychological safety is fascinating, considered simultaneously fragile and essential. When an unpleasant boss, cruel co-worker or uncooperative assistant threatens productivity, our brains revert to the fight-or-flight response. It’s an “act first, think later” scenario that can derail the critical thinking necessary to problem solve and be creative. Barbara Fredrickson at the University of North Carolina has found that emotions like trust, curiosity, confidence and inspiration actually help us build psychological resources – enabling resilience, motivation and divergent thinking.
Psychological safety depends on inclusion and belonging, other pillars of trust. “Humans have a fundamental need to belong. Just as we have needs for food and water, we also have needs for positive and lasting relationships,” says C. Nathan DeWall, Ph.D., a psychologist at the University of Kentucky. “This need is deeply rooted in our evolutionary history and has all sorts of consequences for modern psychological processes.”
We all know what we need to do to have physically safe workplaces. What can you as an HR professional do to support psychological safety? Remember the role of trust in high-performing teams:
Model Healthy Trustworthy Behaviors
First, assess your current state by asking these questions:
- Are our managers listening to employees’ ideas or being dismissive?
- Are we welcoming questions and ideas?
- Do employees feel they can rely upon us to protect their best interests?
- Are we being fair in our expectations?
By clearly articulating problematic behaviors, awareness is created, and conflict-resolution tactics can be implemented. Once you have generated awareness throughout the managerial ranks, it’s time to examine the employee experience.
Reinforce Trust Through Action
Talking the talk is very different from walking the walk. Aligning actions with intent needs to be planned and purposeful. As you look across the enterprise, consider these questions:
- Are we consistently checking in with employees – especially in work-from-anywhere models – to show we care about them?
- How often are we demonstrating appreciation for a job well done, whether a simple thank you or formal recognition, to provide reinforcement for open communications?
- If an employee is disengaged, do we replace blame with conversation by asking them what we can do better?
- Do we involve team members in problem-solving, asking for their participation in problem definition, unearthing root causes and developing solutions?
Santagata at Google developed a reflection exercise called “Just Like Me.” Even in contentious moments, he was able to drive a winning dynamic that reminded workers of the hopes, dreams and anxieties that make us just like each other. By neutralizing emotionally charged moments, the conversation shifted from blame to respect.
Support Success, Large and Small
Psychological safety should be considered throughout the employee journey. For example:
- Is your culture of trust and caring being effectively communicated to job candidates via your recruitment marketing?
- Are your onboarding efforts effective, helping new hires integrate into their respective teams with support from a mentor?
- Do employees have a means of reporting incidents confidentially?
- Are managers hovering and micromanaging or acting as trustworthy role models who generously trust their teams?
A recent study by Crucial Learning showed that a quarter of the workforce are burned out, and when it comes to discussing that burnout, most feel ignored. Seventy-five percent are unsure who can help them; therefore, it’s not hard to understand why the “great resignation” is underway. That’s why global industry analyst Josh Bersin espouses the importance of listening tools that shorten the distance between signal and action, especially as it relates to building trust in the organization.
Trust and psychological safety go hand-in-hand. With so many changes recently behind us and so many rapidly unfolding ahead, this is core to any organization’s success. It’s why the “T” in teams first stands for trust.
