Examples of people working in a toxic workplace are all across LinkedIn at the moment, a result of this is the negative impact on an employee’s mental health driving the ever-increasing trend of ‘quiet quitting’.
How do you address this and at the same time make your organisation more innovative and successful?
Answer: Review the psychological safety in your team (or organisation).
What is psychological safety: The belief that you can speak up with ideas, questions, concerns, or mistakes without fear of being punished or humiliated.
In 2012 Google conducted a study known as Project Aristotle which was aimed at understanding the factors that impacted team effectiveness across Google. Using over 30 statistical models and hundreds of variables, the project concluded that who was on a team mattered less than how the team worked together. The most important factor was psychological safety.
The downside of not having an environment which is psychologically safe includes a negative impact on employee wellbeing, including stress, burnout and turnover, as well as on the turnover and performance of the organisation.
How do you know if your team has it? Amy Edmondson (Harvard Business School) developed a simple 7 item questionnaire to assess the perception of psychological safety:
- If you make a mistake on this team, it is not held against you.
- Members of this team are able to bring up problems and tough issues.
- People on this team accept others for being different.
- It is safe to take a risk on this team.
- It isn’t difficult to ask other members of this team for help.
- No one on this team would deliberately act in a way that undermines my efforts.
- Working with members of this team, my unique skills and talents are valued and utilised.
How people answer these questions will give you a sense of the degree to which they feel psychologically safe.
A lot of what goes into creating a psychologically safe environment are simply good management practices – things like establishing clear norms and expectations so there is a sense of predictability and fairness; encouraging open communication and actively listening to employees; making sure team members feel supported; and showing appreciation and humility when people do speak up.
Do you feel psychologically safe in your team, organisation, or environment?
As a leader why wouldn’t you assess and make changes of needed?
