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💡What are your thoughts about psychological safety in your team?

Elena Koleva (Nemetschek Bulgaria)

If you are like me and had the chance to change your workplace once or twice in the past, you might have noticed the different dynamic that each team provides to the overall feeling of working in the company. It is this feeling that is not only related to your direct role but closely related to how the team communicates, accepts feedback and takes risks. What I am describing, in the world of organizational behavior, is identified as psychological safety.

Recently I took an online course on Digital Leadership at Growth Tribe and learned a lot about psychological safety. It is a fundamental concept in work environments, teams or any group setting. The term holds the meaning of individuals freely expressing thoughts, ideas and concerns without the fear of judgement or reprisal.

Have you ever observed that in certain work settings you feel more comfortable expressing your opinion or even admitting that you do not know what the next step is? Then you are probably operating in a healthy and psychologically safe environment. But what happens when you experience negative psychological safety? Then you are most likely feeling stuck, unmotivated and lacking the opportunity to discuss that with your team or direct manager.

I have worked in both a positive and a negative psychologically safe environment. In my first job, I was feeling extremely stressed out about my performance and results. The set expectations for the outcomes of the project were set really high. Management would often scold me for the lack of progress. That definitely affected my confidence and prompted me out from speaking up or using any creativity to boost my performance. Back then I did not know that this company wide attitude was a big red flag. Only after changing my workplace I realized what an immense difference it makes to work in a team where you can openly talk about your setbacks and see problems as a learning opportunity rather than something to be obsessively concerned about.

💡What are your thoughts about psychological safety in your team?

Bonus tip -> Here are some questions with which you can check the psychological safety status in your team

When someone makes a mistake in this team, it is often held against her or him?
In this team, is it easy to discuss difficult issues and problems?
In this team, are people sometimes rejected for being different?
Is it completely safe to take a risk on this team?
Is it difficult to ask other members of this team for help?

Comments

Emilee

@Elena Koleva _Nemetschek Bulgaria_ Great post!!

I wholeheartedly agree that psychological safety is super important to feel like you can perform at your best. This sentence about feeling stuck and unmotivated definitely hit home as I've been there myself on teams. Your questions about how to check the psychological safety status in your team is super helpful but I wonder if the course you took offered any advice for those in a current negative psychological environment. Once someone identifies that they are in a negative environment, is there a way they can try to improve the situation? Does this work both ways for a manager and individual contributors?

On a side note - While I think a lot of the tone of a team is set by the manager, I think these are some plays from the Atlassian Playbook that ICs may find helpful in addressing the lack of psychological safety on a team.

Elena Koleva (Nemetschek Bulgaria)

Hi @Emilee

Thank you so much for engaging with my post!

I totally agree that psychological safety lies in the hands of higher management. There is hardly anything that an individual contributor can do in order to change the team dynamic. The mere incentive in a toxic work environment that there might be something wrong would be wholeheartedly dismissed.

What I would suggest to individual contributors to survive in a psychologically unsafe setting is to focus on little things that make their work more pleasant - such as engaging with other colleagues, increasing communication with clients if available and focusing on learning a new skill. However, my biggest advice is to just find a new work opportunity in the search of a better team dynamic.

Thank you for sharing the resources of Atlassian. Have you tried either activity with your team before? What was the outcome?

Would you like to connect with me on LinkedIn and continue the conversation? Here is my profile

Have a good one!

Elena

Elena Koleva (Nemetschek Bulgaria)

Hi @Emilee

Thank you so much for engaging with my post!

I totally agree that psychological safety lies in the hands of higher management. There is hardly anything that an individual contributor can do in order to change the team dynamic. The mere incentive in a toxic work environment that there might be something wrong would be wholeheartedly dismissed.

What I would suggest to individual contributors to survive in a psychologically unsafe setting is to focus on little things that make their work more pleasant - such as engaging with other colleagues, increasing communication with clients if available and focusing on learning a new skill. However, my biggest advice is to just find a new work opportunity in the search of a better team dynamic.

Thank you for sharing the resources of Atlassian. Have you tried either activity with your team before? What was the outcome?

Would you like to connect with me on LinkedIn and continue the conversation? Here is my profile

Have a good one!

Elena

Emilee

Hi @Elena Koleva _Nemetschek Bulgaria_

Happy to engage - you brought up an interesting topic!

It's a shame that there is so little influence that an IC can make in order to improve the psychological safety of a team (if you are a reader who feels differently, please chime in!).

While I haven't run every play that I outlined above, I have run the Health Monitor multiple times on different teams and the Working Agreements play. I find the Health Monitor especially helpful and encourage any team, new or old, to try it. Even for teams that feel like they are running smoothly, it's always good to preemptively work on addressing even the smallest of gaps.

For teams that are not working as effectively, I find this play helps identify what the team needs and actions to take without pointing any fingers. It's an open discussion about how the team is feeling about certain things and once you get a vote, you can turn that discussion into why and what would help to address it. For the Health Monitor, I think it's important to have an impartial team member help run it for you so they can count the votes and guide the flow of discussion.

I'm curious if anyone else here has tried it out before. How did it go for your team?

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