{"id":1324,"date":"2018-10-11T00:00:31","date_gmt":"2018-10-11T00:00:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/jhanderson.biz\/?p=1324"},"modified":"2019-01-03T00:19:18","modified_gmt":"2019-01-03T00:19:18","slug":"4-team-habits-that-boost-psychological-safety","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/jhanderson.biz\/index.php\/2018\/10\/11\/4-team-habits-that-boost-psychological-safety\/","title":{"rendered":"4 team habits that boost psychological safety"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"A compelling piece of recent research about team effectiveness comes from Google\u2019s Aristotle Project<\/a>. It\u2019s among the best and most thorough investigations of what makes corporate teams work well together. The key finding was that the number one predictor of team effectiveness is \u201cpsychological safety\u201d. As Google\u2019s re:Work site puts it<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\u201cPsychological safety refers to an individual\u2019s perception of the consequences of taking an interpersonal risk\u00a0or a belief that a team is safe for risk taking in the face of being seen as ignorant, incompetent, negative, or disruptive.\u201d<\/p>\n

There are other team effectiveness factors, too, like dependability and structure and clarity\u2014but psychological safety tops the list. If we ever needed a reminder that humans today continue to live out the challenges of our ancestral, risk-filled homelands, this should do it. When people feel safe with each other, they perform well. When they don\u2019t, they can\u2019t.<\/p>\n

While managers in particular have a definite impact on the sense of safety in a group, every member of the team has a role to play. Without a group exploration of safety or its absence, it\u2019s too easy to view the lack of safety as someone else\u2019s problem. When everyone on a team takes responsibility for building a safe environment for all, teams can make real progress.<\/p>\n

While the norms of safety may vary from one environment to another, a team\u2019s sense of psychological safety functions as a reservoir of goodwill and trust. Everyone on the team is always adding to the reservoir or draining it.<\/p>\n

Here are four things any team can do to build its reservoir of psychological safety:<\/p>\n

Bump up your self-awareness:<\/strong> a lot of unsafe environments are created unintentionally when people aren\u2019t aware of the effect they\u2019re having on others. On the other hand, if you\u2019re feeling unsafe and don\u2019t realize it, there\u2019s not much you can do about it. Pay attention to what\u2019s happening within yourself and with other people. That\u2019s the basis of psychological safety.<\/p>\n

Listen to each other:<\/strong> One of the fastest ways to grow your self-awareness is to really hear what other people are saying: not just the words they are using, but their tone of voice and the emotional content of what they say.<\/p>\n

Include each other:<\/strong> Barriers decrease the collective sense of safety (why do those walls need to be there in the first place?) and reduce your ability to stay self-aware. Keep barriers down, stay committed to transparency, and let rich interactions stimulate connections.<\/p>\n

Speak up for yourself:<\/strong> Psychological safety is a group effort. But your point of view\u2014even if it\u2019s challenging to express in the moment\u2014is essential for building the group\u2019s self-awareness.<\/p>\n

Try It:<\/em> Have a conversation with your team about psychological safety. Consider how the group\u2019s ways of behaving are adding to or draining the safety reservoir. What small changes can you make to your patterns of interaction that will increase the supply?<\/p>\n

Image:\u00a0By Editor5807 [GFDL<\/a> or CC BY 3.0 <\/a>], from Wikimedia Commons<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A compelling piece of recent research about team effectiveness comes from Google\u2019s Aristotle Project. It\u2019s among the best and most thorough investigations of what makes corporate teams work well together. The key finding was that the number one predictor of team effectiveness is \u201cpsychological safety\u201d. As Google\u2019s re:Work site puts it: \u201cPsychological safety refers to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1439,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[33,37],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1324","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-selfawareness","category-tips-for-your-team"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/jhanderson.biz\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1324","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/jhanderson.biz\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/jhanderson.biz\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/jhanderson.biz\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/jhanderson.biz\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1324"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"http:\/\/jhanderson.biz\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1324\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1531,"href":"http:\/\/jhanderson.biz\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1324\/revisions\/1531"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/jhanderson.biz\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1439"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/jhanderson.biz\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1324"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/jhanderson.biz\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1324"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/jhanderson.biz\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1324"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}