Psychological safety
Defined by Amy Edmondson in 1999 as "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," psychological safety is crucial for fostering the open communication and collaborative problem-solving necessary for fast flow.
Psychological safety has emerged as one of the strongest predictors of high organizational performance, particularly in environments focused on fast flow and innovation.
The benefits of focusing on psychological safety:
Earlier identification and resolution of issues
Increased innovation and creative problem-solving
Accelerated knowledge sharing
Improved team collaboration
Higher organizational performance overall
Explore psychological safety within the context of your organization — book your discovery call today.
Committing to psychological safety
The commitment starts at the top. Executives make regular and visible commitments to psychological safety, signaling its importance throughout the organization. This may involve making public statements, implementing policy changes, or modeling psychologically safe behaviors personally.
Interestingly, while all organizations are encouraged to address psychological safety, some are compelled by industry regulators. The UK Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) and the Australian Work Health and Safety (WHS) Regulations both recognize the importance of psychological safety in creating healthy, productive workplaces. This regulatory push can provide additional impetus for organizations to prioritize psychological safety. Beyond executive commitment and regulatory compliance, high-performing organizations actively acknowledge psychological safety as a key organizational goal, meaning it's integrated into strategic planning, performance metrics, and organizational values.
Assessing the impact of psychological safety
During the move from acknowledgment to action, organizations usually implement some form of assessment or measurement of psychological safety. This assessment might involve regular surveys, focus groups, or more innovative approaches, such as sentiment analysis of internal communications. The key is to systematically gauge the level of psychological safety across different parts of your organization.
Perhaps most importantly, organizations that excel in this area foster a community-led or practitioner-led approach to improving and maintaining psychological safety. This bottom-up approach ensures that efforts to enhance psychological safety meet the specific needs and culture of your different teams or departments.
Implementing a culture of psychological safety can be challenging, as it requires vulnerability from your leaders, a willingness to acknowledge and learn from mistakes, and often a significant shift in your organizational culture. Any ingrained habits of blaming or punishing failure may need to be unlearned.
The rewards of a safe working culture
The benefits of psychologically safe environments are profound; team members are more likely to speak up about potential problems, share innovative ideas, and take calculated risks. Psychological safety also supports other key elements of fast flow, such as Active Knowledge Diffusion and continuous improvement, which ultimately lead to better outcomes for your organization, such as:
Earlier identification and resolution of issues
More creative problem-solving
A rapid spread of best practices across your organization
Psychological safety is crucial for effective teamwork, a fundamental aspect of modern software development and knowledge work. In psychologically safe teams, members are more likely to ask for help when needed, offer assistance to others, and provide constructive feedback.
All this makes psychological safety a critical foundation for high performance in fast-flow environments. By making it a priority, measuring it, and fostering a community-led approach to improvement, you can create an environment where innovation thrives, problems are caught early, and your teams consistently deliver high value to your customers.
Conflux can help you develop psychological safety
As the leading group of industry experts around fast flow and Team Topologies, Conflux can help you to become a thriving organization, delivering at speed.
We’ve identified nine key dimensions common across organizations using fast flow to shape effectiveness and alignment, and successfully drive innovation and growth.
Book your free discovery call where we’ll take a deep dive into your key areas of focus for alignment with fast flow, including psychological safety:
Assess your organization against the nine dimensions of fast flow
Gain valuable insights into areas of strength and opportunity
Strategically prioritize initiatives for fast flow
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