Psychological Safety is not the goal Now, this might seem an odd thing to say for someone who makes a living by helping people understand and foster psychological safety, but it’s true. Psychological safety isn’t the goal; the goal is whatever your
Everest, and psychological safety in the mountains Thanks so much to a client of mine, the excellent Paul Verrico at Eversheds Sutherland, I was lucky enough to attend the 70th anniversary of the first Everest ascent, at the Royal Geographical Society
If we think about how we can apply sociotechnical theory in practice, we realise that organisational change or technological change will fail if we focus on one component (social or technical) in isolation and to the exclusion of others. We must consider how people are affected by technologies, and likewise, how technologies affect the way people behave.
High Performing Teams & Psychological Safety at Work: Psychological safety is the foundation for team performance, whether we’re oriented towards consistent quality, innovation, adaptation, safety or a combination of all outcomes. When people feel psychologically safe, they feel more able
Psychological Safety Behaviours: The Big List (Updated Oct 2025) Psychological safety is a belief that the group is safe for interpersonal risk taking (Edmondson, 1999). There are many ways we can help to foster these environments, but it’s important to
Psychological Safety and Belonging In recent years, the crucial role of psychological safety and a sense of belonging in the workplace has come to the forefront of organisational research and discourse. These elements are not merely about comfort and inclusion;
https://youtu.be/QhwHGfws1-c Or Leadership vs Management? Leadership and management are not the same thing. But they’re not mutually exclusive either. In order to be a truly effective leader, we must also possess strong competency and capability in our respective domains. We
Interpersonal vs. Intrapersonal Dynamics in Psychological Safety: Balancing Self and Others in Organisational Contexts In the organisational behaviour and dynamics, understanding the interplay between interpersonal and intrapersonal dynamics is crucial for fostering a culture of psychological safety. While these terms
The recent resignation of Dominic Raab, the deputy prime minister of Great Britain, has put the issue of psychological safety in the workplace under the spotlight. Mr. Raab resigned following an investigation by Adam Tolley, which revealed his bullying behaviour
Psychological Safety, Aviation Disasters and Crew Resource Management This week I’ve been reading “Confronting Mistakes” by Jan Hagen. This is a fantastic book, focusing on the human factors behind a multitude of aviation incidents. Jan highlights how miscommunication and failures to speak up
Psychological Safety #101 What does Cognitive Load have to do with Psychological Safety? Psychological safety helps to reduce our cognitive load by allowing us to ask for help and worry less about the interpersonal risks we take. Conversely, high cognitive
What is Conway’s Law? This week we’re diving into the concept of Conway’s Law, and its relation to psychological safety. Conway’s Law essentially describes the “force” that means how a team or organisation is structured will affect what the organisation
Resilience Engineering Today we’re diving into the field of Resilience Engineering. This subject ticks a lot of my interest boxes: from complexity and sociotechnicality to psychological safety and leadership. I hope you find it interesting too! Resilience Engineering is a
Team charters are a fantastic way of creating alignment, cohesion and psychological safety in a team. They also help to onboard new team members, and enable teams to work together more effectively. This Psychological Safety Practice Playbook Add-on for the
Agile It seems like the word “Agile” gets thrown about a lot. Sometimes it refers to a more flexible approach to working hours and locations, sometimes it refers to Scrum practices, and sometimes it means taking an iterative, incremental project management style
Psychological Safety vs a “Safe Space” This tweet from Amy Edmondson asks a really important question: what’s the difference between “psychological safety” and a “safe space”? As Amy says, and as in my experience, the two are often conflated, but they’re certainly not the
Provan’s “safety of work” and “work of safety” are two different ways of thinking about occupational health and safety (OHS) in the workplace. While both are essential, understanding their differences and how they interconnect with modern theories like HOP and
Tuckman’s Model We’ve recently covered team size, Dunbars number, and the effect that team sizes has on performance and psychological safety. In this issue, we’re going to take a little look at team longevity, the difference between short-lived and long-lived teams, and how the
Welcome to the psychological safety newsletter and thanks for subscribing. You are amazing. This week discusses some things to think about before measuring psychological safety. Measuring Psychological Safety I’ve had a lot of conversations recently about measuring psychological safety, and thought it’d be good to
It might be sometimes hard to tell whether people in a team feel psychologically safe, or how safe they feel. The more you hear these phrases, more psychologically safe they’re likely to be. Indicators of Psychological Safety in a Team
Psychological safety is “The belief that one will not be punished or humiliated for speaking up with ideas, questions, concerns, or mistakes, and that the team is safe for interpersonal risk taking” (Edmondson, 1999) Also stated as “A belief that
With companies such as Facebook, Twitter, Stripe and many others announcing redundancies and layoffs, it’s crucial to consider the impact that this has on both the people who are leaving companies, and the people staying. Making people redundant has an
Safety Guardrails, Mechanisms and Culture. In working with psychological safety, we often touch on “real” or physical safety and how the two are related. By “real” safety, I mean not only safety from the risk of injurious accidents but also all
Can a team be too psychologically safe? A question I get asked in many (maybe even most) workshops is “Can a team be too psychologically safe?” Or sometimes framed, “What’s the impact of a team being too safe?“ My short answer,
As much as Dunbar’s limits on group sizes might seem to be common sense, and reflected in many real world examples, Dunbar’s theories on group size boundaries have been deconstructed and shown to possess confidence intervals too large to be robust in the real world. That is, group size boundaries do exist, but may be anywhere from 30 to 250, depending on context, culture, and other factors.
