What is Psychological Safety and why is it so important?

Back in the day, Google embarked on a two-year research endeavor known as Project Aristotle, comprising 180 teams, all driven by a single question: What makes teams successful? The results were enlightening, dispelling a host of misconceptions. It wasn't about teams sitting in the same office, achieving consensus through decision-making, the extraversion of team members, their individual performance, the workload, seniority, team size, or tenure.

Instead, the key ingredients were conversational turn-taking and average social sensitivity. In other words, successful teams ensured that everyone had an equal opportunity to speak during meetings, and they excelled at reading nonverbal cues, such as tone of voice and facial expressions, to understand how team members felt. This revelation underscores the fact that good managers have intuitively known for ages—listening to one another and showing sensitivity to feelings and needs are essential traits of successful teams.

Enter the concept of psychological safety, catapulted into prominence by Amy Edmondson of Harvard Business School in 1999. She defined psychological safety as the belief that one will not face punishment or humiliation for expressing ideas, questions, concerns, or admitting mistakes—a belief that the team is a safe space for interpersonal risk-taking.

Google's study was a natural progression from Silicon Valley's relentless pursuit of personal effectiveness. Having meticulously measured, analyzed, and enhanced individual productivity, the logical next step was to unravel the secret to forming the most effective teams. This journey led them to a paradoxical conclusion: building psychological safety within a team isn't merely a matter of better recruitment or carefully crafting teams with extroverted, high performing people. It hinges on the group's willingness to be vulnerable and stand by one another.

As a people specialist, this research has always been a profound source of inspiration. It reaffirmed what I had always believed: a safe environment is the fertile soil in which growth and innovation flourish.

Today, Locus Quest is on a mission to empower remote and distributed teams by fostering a profound sense of belonging, building trust, and nurturing a next-level company culture. We recognize that psychological safety is the linchpin of these aspirations, and we are dedicated to helping organizations achieve it. In a world driven by rapid change and collaboration, investing in psychological safety is not just an option; it's a necessity for achieving excellence in team dynamics and overall success.