 Over the course of my working life inside organizations, I often had the opportunity to be a member of a team. And as a result, I quickly came to recognize familiar team pain points (if you’ve ever been part of a team, you these may resonate for you too):
-too much or too little communication, -not enough trust, -the challenge in valuing diversity (of opinions, strengths, values), -the ongoing quest to align around shared focus & mission, etc. Getting the team-thing right is a tricky challenge with no simple silver bullet of a solution. Turns out that Google was also seized with this challenge and in 2012 embarked on an initiative to study hundreds of teams inside their organization to learn what made some stumble and others soar. The main finding was that a team’s dynamics are more important than the talents of the individuals that make it up in determining a team’s performance. And of the 250 team-dynamics identified, psychological safety was by far the most important one. And what you may be asking yourself is psychological safety all about? Amy Edmondson, Harvard Business School professor defines psychological safety as an environment where all employees can feel safe to speak up without fear of being embarrassed or rejected. It’s a team climate characterized by trust and mutual respect where people can be themselves. Google found that when teams have psychological safety in place, team members are more likely to own up to their mistakes, be better partners to colleagues, open to diverse ideas and are less likely to leave the organization.
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