Psychological Safety Is Necessary But Not Sufficient.

We sometimes hear “But psychological safety isn’t enough!”, and well… Obviously. It’s rather like saying that having a fully functioning car isn’t enough to make a road trip – and of course it isn’t. We need lots more things to make a road trip happen (people, fuel, snacks, a map, an awesome playlist…), but let’s face it, we won’t get far without a functioning vehicle.

Speaking of vehicles, Amy Edmondson refers to psychological safety as “letting the brakes off” – which is a great analogy: a lack of psychological safety acts as a throttle or constraint on the performance of a group. When we increase psychological safety, we’re letting off the brakes, reducing the constraints, and allowing the team to make best use of their skills and experience to meet their shared goals. 

And those skills, experience and shared goals are just some of the things that teams also need. As well as high psychological safety, teams also need:

• A shared goal
• A sense of drive and purpose
• Skills and expertise 
• Plans and priorities 
• Tools and equipment 
• Shared ways of working 
• Cognitive and affective trust
• Shared language
• Personal investment and meaning to their work
• Quality standards
• Agreed behaviour expectations 
• Time
• Space 
• Buffer capacity
• Dependability and accountability 
• Diversity 
• Well defined roles
• Boundaries of decision making and execution (what they’re allowed to do and decide, and what they must escalate)
• Funding

One of the great things about psychological safety is that it makes most, if not all of these, a lot easier to establish. We’re better able to ask questions, have the important conversations, and clarify any confusion, if we feel safe to do that. 

So psychological safety isn’t enough, but it’s a great place to start, and it’s an essential component of high performing teams. (It’s also the right thing to do). What else would you add to our list of ‘what else’ we need? Email us and we’ll add your suggestions to the list and (if you’d like) include your name in the contributors to this article online 🙂 

Further points from contributors include:

• Appropriate facilities and infrastructure
• Escalation procedures
• Processes to handover responsibilities
• Knowledge sharing
• Shared sense of belonging
• Explicit recognition and appreciation
• Leaders modelling behaviours consistently
• Systems and processes aligned to the values
• Honest, bi-directional feedback loops

Thanks to Briony Adams, Bryna Sclater, Brian Hunter Young and Petra Agthe for the additions!

New Stickers!

We’re super excited to announce our two newest stickers!

“No Such Thing As Too Much Psychological Safety” and “Psychological Safety Looks Different For Everyone” (designed by our wonderful illustrator Deisa Tremarias) both available at our online shop, along with (nearly) all the classics!