The Epic Guide to Psychological Safety

"Criticism: an unskillful attempt at giving useful feedback"

[This article was co-authored with Cherie Silas and is from the upcoming book An Invitation to Coaching the Agile Enterprise. Sign up to receive content from the book.]

Psychological Safety

It happens in every profession in every industry. An employee may notice something is about to go terribly wrong with something in the organization – but doesn’t speak up or do anything to stop it. Why not?

There could be a whole host of reasons. The person may be too scared to speak up. Maybe every thought or idea they’ve brought up before got shot down. Perhaps their boss had chided them in the past for “talking about things they know nothing about.”

The person could fear feeling like an idiot – or being called one – if they say something and they’re wrong. Or maybe the employee is so fed up and full of contempt for the company that they are secretly elated something horrible is about to happen to bring it down.

All those scenarios, and many others, can stem from the lack of a crucial element in the workplace: psychological safety.

This article provides a thorough rundown on what psychological safety is and its extreme importance in the team environment. We’ll also give a few techniques you can use to build psychological safety with people in your organization and describe some communication patterns well known for destroying it.

What It Is

The concept of “team psychological safety” was first introduced by Harvard organization behavioral scientist Amy Edmondson. She defines it as: “A shared belief held by members of a team that the team is safe for interpersonal risk taking.”

To elaborate on this, psychological safety is the belief that the environment is safe for taking an interpersonal risk without being seen as negative, disruptive, incompetent or ignorant. Team members feel they can ask questions, offer suggestions, admit mistakes and otherwise be vulnerable in front of each other without being disparaged, embarrassed or punished.

Michael Says

Let’s say you have a team project yet one team member is unclear of the project’s goal or his exact role in the undertaking. If he’s on a team with high levels of psychological safety, he’ll feel safe enough to ask those questions without fear of being made to feel foolish.

If he’s on a team that lacks psychological safety, he may decide to remain silent, not asking any questions. He might feel it’s easier to simply play along and hope for the best without a firm understanding just so he won’t be looked at as being ignorant.

Team members may be more worried about being perceived as ignorant than they are about messing up the work because they do not fully understand what’s going on.

Michael’s example illustrates how lack of psychological safety can create huge problems in the work of a team. In fact, when Google researchers set out to discover what makes a team effective at Google, they found the most important factor was not who was on the team but how a team worked together.

The research, entitled “Project Aristotle,” looked at how team composition and team dynamics impacted the effectiveness of the 180 different teams targeted for study. Researchers conducted hundreds of interviews with leaders, reviewed existing survey data from the annual Google employee engagement survey, and ran more than 35 statistical models on hundreds of variables to discover what made exceptional teams click.

They boiled it all down to discover the five key dynamics of effective teams. Psychological safety was the foundational element. It precedes dependability, team structure and clarity, meaningful work and impactful work.

The research also found that employees on teams with higher psychological safety levels:

• Were less likely to leave the company
• Were more likely to be open to diverse ideas from other team members
• Brought in more revenue
• Were rated as effective by executives twice as often as employees on teams with a low-level of psychological safety

What Psychological Safety Looks Like

If you were to give team members a list of team attributes that comes with psychological safety, it would look something like this:

• Making a mistake is not held against you
• You’re able to bring up tough issues and problems
• No one is rejected for being or thinking differently
• Diverse opinions are embraced
• It’s okay to disagree
• Opinions are respected
• Questions are encouraged
• You feel safe to take a risk
• Failure is seen as helpful for learning
•  It’s easy to ask other team members for help
• No other team member purposely behaves in a way that undermines your efforts
•  Your unique skills and talents are both used and valued working with other team members

 How to Build Psychological Safety

It would be great if you could just hand managers and team members the list of what psychological safety looks like and tell them to go for it. But it doesn’t work that way. Building this element with a team is possible through strategic techniques and concerted effort. Here are several for your consideration.

Three Techniques from Edmondson

Edmondson discusses three techniques for building psychological safety in her TEDx talk:

• Frame the work as a learning problem, not an execution problem. Recognize that both uncertainty and interdependence exists. Say something like, “We’ve never been in this territory before, and we need to have everyone’s input.”
• Acknowledge your own fallibility. This applies to all team members at all levels, from subordinates to peers and colleagues. Say something like, “I may miss something and I need to hear from you to make sure I don’t.” This creates more safety for speaking.
• Model curiosity and ask lots of questions. When people with positional authority ask questions, team members are more likely to speak up and answer.

Two Tips for Leaders  

Leaders and managers can contribute to building psychological safety by using these two suggestions that came out of the Google research.

• Solicit input and opinions from the group. Similar to Edmonton’s suggestion to model curiosity and ask lots of questions, directly asking team members for input opens the doors for people to speak up.
•  Share information about personal and work style preferences, and encourage others to do the same. Disclosing information about yourself reveals a layer of vulnerability which is a key component of psychological safety.

The VAST Cycle

Another way to build psychological safety within an organization is to show up in a way that invites people to connect, trust, and feel safe. A tool that can help you increase this type of engagement is the VAST cycle.

Developed by Michael Sahota and Olaf Lewitz, the VAST cycle is based on an acronym that stands for:

• Vulnerability
• Authentic Connection
• Safety
• Trust

It’s an incredible way to build awareness and choice for organizations, particularly when it’s contrasted with a fearful and mistrusting way of being. Keeping the cycle top of mind can help guide behavior as well as create ideas for experiments. The VAST cycle can be used for organizations and individuals in both professional and personal contexts.

One way to use VAST is as a tool for introspection. Team members can be encouraged to ask themselves:

• How trusting am I?
• How safe do I feel?
• How connected do I feel?
• How vulnerable am I choosing to be?
• Am I acting authentically?

Once individuals answer those questions for themselves, they can use the VAST model to adapt their behavior accordingly. For example:

• I can choose to trust the other person and notice how my behavior changes.
• I can choose to be vulnerable and share how I feel. How I am feeling unsafe. How I am not trusting.
•  I can state what I want. “I want to restart this conversation. I want to focus on how we can support each other. I want to focus on the goal.”
• I can ask for help.

Michael Says

In my experience, vulnerability is a powerful way to create psychological safety. Owning our experience. Owning how we feel. And then sharing it with others. It really kicks off the entire VAST cycle, opening the door for authentic connections with safety and trust to follow.

Cherie Says

In my experience, I have noticed that vulnerability gives other people hope and makes them feel like they can accomplish anything. Many leaders believe that in order to be seen as a leader they need to project an image that says, “I’m perfect. I never make mistakes. I know everything.” But, this image doesn’t help other people. That belief only serves to make the leader feel more confident that other people see a superhero in them. But, when people see how “perfect” we are it more often causes tension and a feeling that they are not good enough. What makes people feel like you are someone they can look up to as a role model is when you can say, “Here are the mistakes I have made along the way and what I have learned from them.” or “I’m really struggling with this thing. I don’t know all the answers and I could use some perspectives from you.” When people who work with us and for us see our vulnerabilities it makes us more human. When they see the things we have accomplished and are made aware of our vulnerabilities they start to believe that they are also capable of accomplishing great things in spite of their own vulnerability. 

Trust is one of the components in the VAST cycle; it’s also a key for psychological safety in any relationship. University of Houston research professor Brené Brown uses the acronym BRAVING to outline specific elements that need to exist for trust to be present.

BRAVING: The Seven Elements of Trust 

Here is an extended quote from one of Brown’s great handouts that neatly summarizes her BRAVING approach to creating trust:

• Boundaries: You respect my boundaries, and when you’re not clear about what’s OK and not OK, you ask. You’re willing to say no.
• Reliability: You do what you say you’ll do. At work, this means staying aware of your competencies and limitations so you don’t over promise and are able to deliver on commitments and balance competing priorities.
• Accountability: You own your mistakes, apologize, and make amends.
• Vault: You don’t share information or experiences that are not yours to share. I need to know that my confidences are kept, and that you’re not sharing with me any information about other people that should be confidential.
• Integrity: You choose courage over comfort. You choose what is right over what is fun, fast, or easy. And you choose to practice your values rather than simply professing them.
• Non Judgment: I can ask for what I need, and you can ask for what you need. We can talk about how we feel without judgment.
• Generosity: You extend the most generous interpretation possible to the intentions, words, and actions of others.

How Psychological Safety Gets Destroyed

In a psychologically safe environment, team members communicate with each other openly, honestly, and with a level of vulnerability that encourages authentic connections, safety and trust. But that environment can be destroyed rather quickly when unhealthy, unproductive communication patterns arise.

The Gottman Institute, which brings a research-based approach to relationships, identifies four of these patterns, dubbing them the Four Horsemen. Just as the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse depicted the end of times, these Four Horsemen of communication styles can predict the end of relationships:

• Criticism or Blaming
• Contempt
• Defensiveness
• Stonewalling

While the Gottman Institute focuses mainly on family relationships, these four elements can likewise spell doom and gloom for relationships within organizations, totally annihilating any sense of psychological safety.

Cherie refers to these four elements as Toxic Communication Strategies. By introducing healthy communication strategies to counteract these toxic strategies we can help team members learn to both make an intervention in their own tendency to turn to a Toxic Communication Strategy and also de-escalate a conflict when someone else is utilizing a Toxic Communication Strategy.  

It is helpful to remember that just because someone utilizes a Toxic Communication Strategy it doesn’t mean that they are a toxic person or even a bad person. Everyone utilizes these strategies at some point and we all generally have a favorite “go to” strategy we run to when we feel threatened, angry, or some other negative emotion. These are learned strategies that often start in childhood. For example, think of a small child who is trying to play with a toy that isn’t working. They get frustrated, bang the part on the toy and cry. The parent comes and helps them. Then at age five, that child wants a cookie. The parent says, “no,” and the child gets frustrated and throws a tantrum. The parent is busy and tired and just gives in and gives the child a cookie. Then, a few years later as a teen the child wants to go somewhere with friends and the parent says, “No, we have other plans.” The child throws a tantrum and the parent gives in. This behavior is repeated throughout childhood and into adulthood and the child has learned that by getting angry and throwing tantrums they can get what they want. In the workplace, when they don’t get what they want they throw similar tantrums and thus… Toxic Communication Strategies show up on the team. 

Think about your natural tendency when you don’t get your way or when someone tells you something you don’t agree with. Do you get a bit defensive? Do you blame someone else for the problem? Do you shut down and hold your anger inside but give the silent treatment? Do you walk away and tell someone how horrible the other person is?

When we can identify our own natural tendencies, we are able to be vulnerable and help our team members understand that these are normal human behaviors. However, they are hurtful behaviors that destroy psychological safety in our relationships.

When working with people on these toxins, it is often helpful to have them identify the toxin that is their personal “go to” which normalizes the strategies. Then, explore together how the team as an intact system reacts to conflict. Which toxic strategies do they most often fall into? Do they tend to stonewall? Do they tend to blame someone outside the team for the challenges they are having?

Once they identify some of the “go to” strategies of the team ask these questions: 

• What situations bring out these toxins in the team?
• How do we behave when we are utilizing these toxins?
• What is the belief behind the toxins?
• How are these toxins trying to be helpful?

Once the team members have an understanding of how these Toxic Communication Strategies work and can identify behaviors associated with them it is helpful to introduce healthy communication strategies that can counteract the toxins.

Criticism and Blame

The person giving the criticism may believe on some level they are trying to be helpful by offering a suggestion, but their delivery method turns it into an attack. Both blame and criticism are offensive actions. Complaining is different from criticism because criticism attacks the person where complaints focus on a specific behavior. Variations of criticism and blame can include:

• Aggressive attack: An obvious verbal assault
• Bullying: Attempting to coerce through intimidation
• Harsh start up: Beginning a conversation with blame, criticism or attack
• Chronic criticalness: Perpetually adding negative words about a character or personality
• Domination: Attempting to control or influence through intimidation
• Criticism: complaining about a person instead of addressing behavior directly

Healthy strategies that can combat criticism and blame

Here are ways to combat criticism and blame:

1. It is helpful to understand that while it may be hurtful, criticism is actually an unskillful attempt at giving useful feedback. When we can remember that the person has useful information they are trying to relay, we are often able to separate the delivery of the feedback from the feedback itself and receive it without turning to defensiveness as a way to protect ourselves from the perceived attack.

2. It is also helpful to identify your own contribution to the problem. We are often so focused on what others are doing (blaming) that we don’t take ownership of how we are partly responsible for what is happening. 

• Example: I am frustrated because a team member is always late for our meetings.
• My contribution: I insisted that the meeting is first thing in the morning because that was convenient for me. I didn’t take into consideration that they have children to get to school and a long commute that sometimes gets delayed by traffic.

3. When you feel frustrated by the actions of others stop yourself from criticising by thinking through your complaint. Focus on specific behavior; don’t attack the person's character

• No: You’re so irresponsible.
• Yes: It hinders the team’s productivity when you are late.

4. Turn the complaint into a request. Instead of complaining about the behavior you do not want, ask for the behavior you want.

•  No: You’re always late.
• Yes: Can you email us your updates when you are going to be late so we will know how to get started on the work?

5. When someone is complaining to you, you can turn the complaint into a request by asking a question similar to these:

• Can you tell us what you would like to have happen instead?
• What would you like to request us to do differently?

6. Rather than focusing on individuals and the actions of individuals or your own frustration, focus on “What does the relationship need from us now?”

• No: Everyone else is always on time. 
• Yes: What can we do to promote everyone’s ability to be at meetings on time regularly?

Defensiveness

Defensiveness escalates conflict and is the most commonly recognized Toxic Communication Strategy. Cherie views defensiveness as reactive blaming. It’s a defense mechanism to deflect blame from oneself to others. Rather than accepting or admitting a mistake, defensiveness turns the tables to imply, “It’s not me. It’s you.” Variations can include:

• Not being open to influence
• Refusal to take responsibility
• Deflection
• “Not my fault, not my job” mindset

Healthy strategies that can combat defensiveness

Blaming often occurs when we get triggered by the actions or words of others (often through one of the other Toxic Communication Strategies). 

1. When you feel triggered by what someone else has said, rather than jumping into defensiveness, breathe. Repeat what you believe you heard them say and ask for clarification

• No: I did NOT press the wrong button to disconnect the call.
• No: So you’re saying I hit a button that disconnected the call? Which button was that?
• Yes: It seems like you are blaming me for disconnecting the call, possibly on purpose. Is this what you intended to say?

2. When you sense that someone else is triggered and they are getting defensive in response to what you have said or done, ask them to tell you the message they believe you were sending; clarify.

• Yes: I’m sorry, it seems like what I said may not have come across as intended. What message do you believe I was trying to convey? (clarify as needed)

3. You can give them the benefit of doubt by taking the posture that you may have misunderstood their message or motive.

• Yes: I’m not sure I understand what you’re saying. Can you clarify what you believe went wrong?

4. Another helpful strategy is to listen beyond the words. Instead of looking at the disagreement point, remember that there is an intention of giving some useful feedback. Even if the complaint is not being communicated skillfully, there is probably some truth in it that your defensive reaction is causing you to overlook. Search for the element of truth in what you are hearing:

• No: So what if the phone system is new; I don’t need classes to figure it out.
• Yes: This is a new phone system. It is possible that I may have hit the wrong button in error and hung up. 

Stonewalling

Stonewalling feeds other toxins.

Stonewalling is cutting off communication. This can be done via the silent treatment, refusal to engage, withdrawal or reluctance to directly communicate. Stonewalling can be overt like refusing to speak to someone when they talk to you. Only answering with short words in a sarcastic tone, etc. And it can be covert such as not giving your ideas or not speaking up when you have an idea that could solve a problem. Variations can include:

• Not being open to influence
• Avoidance
• Uncooperativeness
• Passivity or passive-aggressive behaviors
• Disengagement
• Withholding information
• Silent Treatment

Healthy strategies that can combat stonewalling

It’s often hard to recognize if someone else gets triggered and starts slipping into stonewalling behaviors quietly. But, you can recognize when you are getting triggered and develop strategies to respond.

First, it is important to understand the things that trigger you to shut down. Anger, fear, frustration, confusion, feeling threatened, being overwhelmed and other similar things may trigger you to start shutting down. When this happens, notice what happens in your mind and body. Do you feel tightness in your throat or chest? Does your mind start racing? Do you start shaking inside? Do you start to clench your teeth or fist?

1. By recognizing what it feels like to go into this triggered state of mind you can utilize this information to shift your own natural tendencies to shut down. Develop a habit that counteracts the shut down. Some people have found these helpful:

• Take a deep breath and release it slowly.
• Take a drink of water or step out to get a drink of water. Walking releases the tension building up. Stepping away from the situation gives you time to compose your thoughts. Changing the perspective through the use of moving to a different space can change your perspective
• Ask to take a break and resume the discussion at a specific time: in 15 minutes or tomorrow at 3pm. But, don’t leave this open ended: by not setting a specific timeframe on the pause you are likely to go deeper into stonewalling by hiding from the interaction.

2. Find a way to shift your perspective of what is happening 

•  No: They don’t like my ideas – fine! I won’t offer any ever again.
• Yes: This isn’t personal. We are all throwing thoughts into the pool so we can develop an idea together. All ideas are helpful. 

3. Recognize that every voice is important and holds critical information for the team.

•  No: They only want to hear the best ideas that are guaranteed to work.
• Yes: We need to hear ALL the ideas. We can make the best decisions when we have input from everyone.

4. Design safety conditions that will allow everyone to speak-up in meetings. Design working agreements with the team around how conflict is handled and what people need to feel safe enough to contribute. 

• No: Who wants to go first?
• Yes: Let’s go around the table, with each person sharing their ideas.

5. Evaluate if there are other toxic behaviors impacting safe communication. What Toxic Communication Strategies is the team using regularly? Teach the team about these strategies and healthy ways of communicating that can be more productive.

• No: Asking the group “Why are you all so quiet? Don’t you have any brain power?”
• Yes: Speaking with individual members privately, asking if there is anything you can do to help them feel safer sharing their ideas.

Contempt

Contempt is fueled by long-simmering negative thoughts.

Contempt conveys disgust and condescension. It’s frequently the result of ongoing disdain, whether it’s disdain for an individual, a group, an institution or the world in general. Variations can include:

• Sarcasm and hostile humor
• Personal attacks, including belittling and name-calling
• Cynicism
• Disrespectful gossip
• Demeaning tone
• Belligerence
• Eye-rolling 

Healthy strategies that can combat contempt

Here are ways to combat contempt: 

1. Contempt in a team can be extremely damaging. One way to combat bringing contempt into a conversation is to use “I feel….I want” statements to replace your own contempt statements.

• No: Geesh, we went over this same material three days in a row. Do you have holes in your brain that you can’t retain the information?
• Yes: I feel frustrated when we review the same information multiple times. I want to feel stimulated and excited. Can we move to the next step?

2. Contempt behaviors are often surprising and aggressive. Team members can often be at a loss for how to respond or may respond with another toxic behavior which escalates the situation. One de-escalating strategy is to address the behavior directly without “You” statements:

• No: Your eye-rolling has got to stop.
• Yes: Group members feel threatened and demeaned when you roll your eyes during the discussion. Can you help us understand what is happening for you?

3. Another way to de-escalate contempt statements is to address it by asking the person exhibiting the behavior to clarify the intention. This can help the person with the behavior understand that their behavior is not acceptable and can also clarify for others when insult or offensive behavior may be unintentional. 

• Yes: What are you trying to accomplish by doing that?
• Yes: Can you clarify your intention in saying that?

4. Another useful strategy that can be used in a one on one situation to address concerns about behavior is to utilize the SBI Feedback Model which describes the situation from your point of view, the feeling or impact it has on you, and what you would prefer to be different.

• Yes: I noticed that in the meeting yesterday you rolled your eyes and sighed every time Sasha shared his ideas. I was uncomfortable with these responses and I am concerned about the impact it may have on the team’s ability to collaborate in safety. Can you give me your perspective on what was happening?

It is often most helpful to introduce these Toxic Communication Strategies and counteracting healthy communicating strategies to teams when things are going well or during team formation activities. By doing this in a fun way, the team can enjoy the vulnerability of exposing their own humanness and develop language and agreements on how they will be when these toxic strategies inevitably show up. This will help them grow in their ability to identify these and develop responses that are de-escalating and create better team psychological safety and increase the willingness to collaborate. Not only that, but they will also have a rich array of tools at their disposal to help guide the team.