Unlock Peak Performance: The Power of Psychological Safety at Work
💡 If you want to retain an engaged workforce that achieves great results, the #1 thing you can do is to create a psychologically safe environment. 𝑷𝒆𝒓𝒊𝒐𝒅.
Psychological safety isn't a soft, fuzzy, nice-to-have idea created by an HR leader or consultant like me.
It's founded on research by Amy Edmondson at Harvard and Google. They have demonstrated that teams that operate in a psychologically safe environment have markedly better results.
"Sustain High Performance With Psychological Safety", an article by my friend Kenneth Nowack and his colleague Paul Zak explains this AND provides tools for psychological safety - a team survey ✍️, exercise 🤔, and a checklist✔! It's a great read!
It does have a paywall if you're not an ATD member. So here are a few highlights from the article.
First, if our goal is to provide a safe environment we need to ensure employees say 'yes' to each of these questions:
➤ Do I feel included in the team or company?
➤ Do I feel safe to experiment, try new things, and potentially fail without fear of consequences?
➤ Do I feel comfortable contributing my ideas and perspectives?
➤ Do I feel comfortable disagreeing and challenging the status quo?
Second, here are things a leader can do to increase the psychological safety on their teams:
Involve them in providing input, recommendations, and feedback on planning, decision-making, and problem-solving.
Build respectful, caring, and appreciative relationships. Show genuine interest in them as people.
Champion their ideas. Develop a habit of regularly noticing things that are going well and show your appreciation by specifically highlighting what the person did and the impact it had.
Use pulse surveys and other engagement surveys to see how people are feeling. What's working and what can be improved.
These touchpoints are a critical time to communicate the company's values.
Screen, select, and promote colleagues who have strong self awareness, are empathetic, and can regulate their emotions and reactions to difficult situations.
If you want to engage and retain employees, psychological safety can be a game-changer.
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