Keywords

Organisations depend on their employees to contribute to the continuous improvement of processes and practices by providing friction, voicing and opposing new ideas, and trying out novel ways of doing things. These activities could benefit the organisation and other stakeholders, but they also come with a risk for the individuals who undertake them. To challenge and criticise established practices can result in being a bad career move because it can put the individual in a negative light among those who make decisions about permanent employment and promotions. Psychological safety has been identified as a counterweight to a fear of repercussions for speaking up and voicing one’s concerns in the workplace. It builds on the works of Schein and Bennis (1965) on how individuals can feel safe and confident in managing change. Kahn (1990), Edmondson (1999) and others’ subsequent contributions have placed psychological safety at the centre of attention in studies of workplace collaboration. Newman et al. (2017) provided a comprehensive systematic review of these contributions, outlining how research has identified antecedents and benefits of psychological safety in the workplace.

Psychological safety addresses people’s individual and shared perceptions of the consequences of taking interpersonal risks in a group or team (Edmondson 1999). Here, I will present it as one of the five qualities inherent in well-functioning communication climates. Previous chapters have introduced friendly friction and tolerance from false alarms as two such qualities. Psychological safety is the third quality to which I will draw attention. It is present when there is a shared belief that people will not be rejected, reprimanded, or punished for being themselves and saying what they think, even when it goes against the beliefs of the majority in the group (Edmondson 1999).

Four of the examples from previous chapters can illustrate the presence and benefits of psychological safety in a workplace.

  • From Chap. 1: The junior doctor Ida experienced weaknesses in the routines when patients were moved from the surgical unit to the medical unit at the hospital. It would have been an interpersonal risk to speak up, that is, a test of how receptive the group she belonged to would be to her critical comments. She decided to take the risk and suggest improvements to the current practices and she received praise for the effort.

  • From Chap. 2: The substitute in the match between Norway and Brazil sensed that the head coach was about to make the wrong substitution and intervened by voicing his belief about what would be a better tactical move. He publicly corrected the head coach and risked becoming unpopular in the eyes of both the coaching team and his teammates. His intervention turned out to be crucial for the match’s positive outcome, and the head coach gave him public credit for having taken the initiative.

  • From Chap. 2: An engineering company was about to move forward with the drawings and specifications for a bridge leading traffic over a wide river. The group of engineers studied the details one final time before handing the data over to the production unit, and most of them were satisfied with what they saw. However, one newcomer in the group noticed a detail that made the construction far weaker than it should be. When she spoke up and drew attention to this weakness, everyone else could see it as well and they halted the procedures to make new calculations and drawings.

  • From Chap. 7: A communications advisor provided candid criticism of the first draft of a professor’s article, and the effort was acknowledged and appreciated as an example of friendly friction. Even in this situation, there was initial interpersonal risk at play. How would the professor respond to criticism from a non-academic colleague? The advisor received acknowledgement for his effort and was encouraged to do more of the same. This exchange occurred as a normal procedure in a work environment consisting of academic and non-academic professionals.

The final example illustrates the connection between two of the qualities present in a constructive communication climate. Psychological safety can serve as a foundation for friendly friction. When people sense that it is safe to take the interpersonal risk of challenging an idea or a suggestion at work, they can more readily engage in well-intentioned criticism. Experiencing friendly friction at work can also strengthen the psychological safety. When newcomers enter the organisorganisation and witness a friendly atmosphere for critical exchanges, it can mobilise them to become involved and to provide honest feedback in interactions with their new colleagues.

One common feature in the four examples above is that the verbal initiatives are taken in a context where there is organisational hierarchy. The person speaking up addresses an issue with someone with a higher status and position in the workplace. Hierarchy can pose an obstacle to psychological safety. The interpersonal risk of speaking up can feel more acute when the recipients are in higher positions than those who are contemplating a verbal initiative. Research has shown that an effective way to create psychological safety is to neutralise the hierarchical dimension (Nembhard and Edmondson 2006). Leaders and seniors can do so by admitting mistakes and seeking help from colleagues. They can also do this by valuing and appreciating the initiatives from juniors and other lower-status people, as was done in the illustrations from previous chapters.

Edmondson emphasised the difference between psychological safety and trust. The former occurs on a group level, while the latter is a feature of the relation between two people (Edmondson 2018). In organisational settings, trust is present when one person assumes that another person has the required ability, benevolence, and integrity to perform a particular task as agreed (Mayer et al. 1995). Trust can thus also be relevant in a communication climate setting when one person considers whether the recipient of a particular message will have the ability, benevolence, and integrity to respond in a constructive manner. The third example above illustrates that there can be one-on-one situations that can be studied through the lenses of both personal trust and interpersonal safety. The exchange happens between two individuals, but the context is group-level collaboration.

To grasp the elements that constitute psychological safety, it can be helpful to study the seven items in Edmondson’s (2018) well-established survey to map the phenomenon. This measure has been developed through rigorous use of scale construction protocols, and a range of studies have proved it reliable (Newman et al. 2017). Participants are invited to express their agreement with these statements, from 1 (strongly disagree) to 5 (strongly agree). The list contains reverse statements to motivate participants to think carefully about the content of each item.

  1. 1.

    If you make a mistake on this team, it is often held against you.

  2. 2.

    Members of this team can bring up problems and tough issues.

  3. 3.

    People on this team sometimes reject others for being different.

  4. 4.

    It is safe to take a risk on this team.

  5. 5.

    It is difficult to ask other members of this team for help.

  6. 6.

    No one on this team would deliberately act in a way that undermines my efforts.

  7. 7.

    While working with members of this team, my unique skills and talents are valued and utilised.

Applying these items in a group can provide data to measure the shared beliefs about psychological safety. Each item can also serve as a starting point for reflection within the group about interpersonal risk in voicing a concern or disagreement. In Chap. 5, I showed that the threshold for seeking help from colleagues is a highly relevant aspect of an organisation’s communication climate. The fifth item in Edmondson’s scale addresses that issue. It is central to measuring psychological safety in a group and is integral to conversations and reflections about how easy or difficult it is in this group to ask a colleague for help.

Responses to the survey can provide insights about the perceived psychological safety in a group. It can produce an average score for the group, and this provides an indication regarding the shared beliefs about the interpersonal risk of expressing nonconformity and challenging ideas, plans, and practices within the group. However, more interesting and revealing than the average score can be the differences in responses between those who feel the most and those who feel the least safe. How psychologically safe are the least-safe individuals in the group? How do they perceive the risk involved in correcting a senior colleague or superior? These might be more pressing questions to address than finding the general level of safety in the group. Having a high average score for psychological safety can camouflage a considerable communication climate challenge in a group, if it turns out that the least-safe minority perceive that the risk of addressing their concerns is high. In critical quality moments, where they can be in a position to address serious issues and bring attention to mistakes, they are likely to remain silent. Hierarchy’s numbing effects can fall out of view if an individual focuses solely on average scores in the survey.

When newcomers face situations where they sense a need to speak up, they may be uncertain about the level of psychological safety in the group. They have not been in the workplace long enough to receive an impression of how leaders and colleagues respond to criticism in this group. If they are given Edmondson’s survey, they are not yet in a position to strongly agree or disagree with the items; therefore, they might answer with a three, indicating that they do not really know whether it is safe to take an interpersonal risk in this group, or whether attempting to draw attention to something important will be valued and appreciated.

Empirical studies of psychological safety document various beneficial outcomes of having a communication climate where it feels safe to take an interpersonal risk by expressing disagreement, criticism, or concern. Newman et al. (2017) pointed to several studies that established strong and positive links between psychological safety and various positive organisational outcomes. Psychological safety has been proven to create

  • an increase in the reporting of treatment errors;

  • more knowledge sharing;

  • a greater likelihood of raising disagreement and providing candid feedback;

  • more learning from failure;

  • better team and individual learning;

  • improved performance, innovation, and creativity;

  • higher work engagement; and

  • higher organisational commitment.

Based on these findings, leaders and other decision-makers have strong reasons to design work environments that enhance and stimulate psychological safety. According to research in this field, they can do so by reducing and neutralising hierarchy, and more generally through supportive and inclusive leadership practices (Newman et al. 2017). For leaders, it involves finding constructive ways to cope with what I called earlier in this book the critical quality moments, both before and after they occur. Practicing a tolerance for false alarms belongs in this framework.

Psychological safety has received widespread recognition as a crucial quality to grow and maintain in an organisation. I have suggested that it is one of five qualities that characterise well-functioning communication climates. However, it is also worth reflecting on whether it can have negative outcomes, and the extent to which there can be too much of it. In line with the Aristotelian concept of the golden mean, I can further explore how safety can reach a tipping point where it becomes an obstacle to constructive conversations at work, rather than an enabling factor. Aristotle suggested that precious human virtues and qualities could be found on the golden mean between opposites or extremes. Courage is situated between cowardice and foolhardiness. Honesty can be placed on the golden mean between being dishonest and being uncritically open about everything. This way of thinking is an alternative to the common practice of operating with concept pairs like honest–dishonest, fair–unfair, helpful–unhelpful, safe–unsafe, and so on. Aristotle’s view was that any human virtue or quality can be exaggerated and taken too far, resulting in negative activity. Can this be the case with psychological safety?

Observations from academic work environments, where senior researchers and teachers tend to dominate and express themselves in a manner that signals a high level of psychological safety, motivates my reflection on this question. They behave from an assumption that it is safe for them to engage in interpersonal risk taking: no repercussions or punishment will come their way, no matter what they say and how they say it. The safety they experience links to a sense of being protected against sanctions. Even if they go a bit too far and use strong language to characterise a colleague or a student, no one will criticise them. In a university department, I witnessed a senior professor turning to another senior professor and called him a “shitbag.” It turned out that the angry professor disagreed on a decision his colleague had recently voted for in a committee. He started the conversation in this aggressive manner, knowing that he could do that without fear of repercussions. His senior status protected him against negative consequences. I have been wondering if this is an example of someone being too psychologically safe. If people sense they can say absolutely anything without repercussions, it can create drastic and unwanted results such as this.

In other contexts, discussions of risk and safety involve analysing levels of protection. Insurance companies are wary of providing their customers with so much protection that they start to behave recklessly. Moral hazard is the term used for situations where decision-makers sense they are insulated from the negative consequences of their actions (Pauly 1968; Rowell and Connelly 2012). Perhaps there can be moral hazard dimensions to psychological safety in the workplace as well. Leaders should be wary of providing employees (e.g., seniors, high-status people) with so much protection that they start to behave hazardously towards their colleagues. If decision-makers are too safe and they experience that no matter how they express themselves at work, they will avoid repercussions, it opens for misbehaviour and reckless communication.

One aspect of psychological safety that the literature has highlighted is that of being free to be oneself. One of the beliefs Edmondson (1999) identifies as an expression of psychological safety is, “In this team you aren’t rejected for being yourself or stating what you think” (p. 11). One informant told Edmondson (2002) about the experience of being psychologically safe at work: “I don’t have to wear a mask in this team—I can be myself” (p. 9). Similar beliefs can create a scope for harsh verbal behaviour from people who see themselves as direct and uncompromising in their word choice. The professor calling a colleague a “shitbag” may do so thinking that this is really him. He does not have to wear a mask and pretend to like his colleague or be polite and respectful in his responses. That is who he really is. An individual sensing that they are free to be themself in this way indicates that the psychological safety level has reached a tipping point where it leads to questionable behaviour.

Having high levels of psychological safety can cause people to remain silent and inactive at crucial moments in a project or other activities in the workplace. It may create a form of bystander effect where it makes people passive. One executive in a Norwegian organisation told me that they have encountered critical quality moments where employees have been in position to intervene but have failed to do so. The level of psychological safety in the organisation is by all accounts high. The organisation hails people who provide friction and challenge current ideas and plans. There is an eagerness to contribute through disagreement and dissent. The threshold for turning to a colleague for help is low. At crucial moments, people have nevertheless chosen to remain silent. Internal analyses have identified a pattern to explain this silence mystery. Employees appear to have assumed that someone else must have spoken up about this already because what they are seeing is an obvious flaw or mistake, and no one there has any reason to hold back and be silent. There is low interpersonal risk involved in taking an initiative. If an individual does not speak up in this group, it is a missed opportunity to shine and make a contribution that their leader and colleagues will value. If the level of psychological safety had been lower, it may have triggered employees to act under the assumption that someone needs to take responsibility, and in this rather unsafe environment, it is unlikely that anyone has done so yet.

This chapter has launched the third of five qualities of well-functioning communication climates. Psychological safety supplements the qualities identified in the previous chapters. I have shown that friendly friction and tolerance for false alarms tend to be present in workplaces where people communicate constructively and collaborate well. The same holds for psychological safety, a belief that in this group, it is safe to speak up about one’s concerns and to address critical issues. When people have a sense that their initiatives will be valued even when they challenge the common beliefs and assumptions in the group, they are more likely to contribute actively to collaborative efforts.