Psychological Safety Newsletter – First Edition

News and opinion:

This is an excellent article by Jonathan Smart (of “Sooner, Safer, Happier”) about the Boeing 737 Max issues and how they stemmed from a lack of psychological safety at all levels of the organisation: https://itrevolution.com/lack-of-psychological-safety-at-boeing/

Leadership lessons in psychological safety from a pandemic: https://www.sydney.edu.au/news-opinion/news/2021/01/18/leaders-building-psychological-safety-will-thrive-post-covid.html

LGBTQ+ workers experience higher levels of conflict, lower levels of psychological safety and lower job satisfaction at work: https://www.cipd.co.uk/about/media/press/10-02-21lgbt-workers-experience-higher-conflict-levels#gref

Excellent piece about the importance of maintaining a pro-psychologically safe stance even when under pressure:
https://www.infoq.com/news/2021/01/psychological-safety-pressure/

Psychological safety and group homogeneity and diversity:
https://tomgeraghty.co.uk/index.php/psychological-safety-homogeneity-and-diversity-in-group-contexts/

Academic and research:

A very in-depth systematic review of the literature regarding the ability to “speak up” in healthcare contexts: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0168851021000026

More evidence showing that the risk of employee burnout is reduced by increasing psychological safety in teams: https://www.shs-conferences.org/articles/shsconf/abs/2021/07/shsconf_iafsm2020_02004/shsconf_iafsm2020_02004.html

Changes in workplace practices during the COVID-19 pandemic: the roles of emotion, psychological safety and organisation support: https://www.emerald.com/insight/content/doi/10.1108/JOEPP-06-2020-0104/full/html

Video and audio:

Symposium: Safety Culture, Lean, and DevOps, with Dr. Sidney Dekker, Dr. Steven Spear, Dr. Richard Cook, John Willis and Gene Kim:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gtxtb9z_4FY

Episode 10 of The Agile Engineering Podcast: Psychological Safety with Tom Geraghty:
https://agileengineeringpodcast.com/2020/12/04/episode-10-psychological-safety-with-tom-geraghty/

Books:

This is a great write-up in the Army University Press of “Leadership is Language” by David Marquet, which speaks to excellent leadership practices that facilitate and build psychological safety.
https://www.armyupress.army.mil/Journals/Military-Review/English-Edition-Archives/May-June-2020/BRE-MJ20-Bundt/

Other:

Gitanjali 35, a poem by Rabindranath Tagore:
https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/45668/gitanjali-35

Finally:
And for anyone who hasn’t recently visited Psych Safety, we have a few new articles, including How to Run Psychologically Safe Meetings, The difference between Trust and Psychological Safety, and some handy presentation resources.