Psychological safety at work is a shared belief that it's safe to speak up, ask questions, admit mistakes and offer ideas without being embarrassed or punished. Teams build it by agreeing how they'll treat each other, then practising until it's a habit. PowerProv builds it into every workshop.
- Psychological safety is a shared belief that a team is safe for interpersonal risk taking. The term comes from Harvard's Amy Edmondson.
- Google's Project Aristotle ranked psychological safety first among the five dynamics of effective teams.
- PowerProv describes it as a we, not me agreement: everyone on the team has each other's backs.
- The agreement only works when people have the tools and practice to deliver on it.
- PowerProv tracks the results through its Personal Power Index™, a longitudinal study running since 2023.
What Is Psychological Safety at Work?
Psychological safety at work is the belief, shared by everyone on a team, that it's safe to take interpersonal risks. Harvard's Amy Edmondson introduced the idea and defined it as "a shared belief" held by members of a team that the team is safe for interpersonal risk taking.
An interpersonal risk is anything that might make you look bad in front of colleagues. Asking a basic question. Admitting you got something wrong. Disagreeing with the boss. Suggesting an idea that might not work.
On a team with psychological safety, people do those things anyway, because they trust they won't be embarrassed or punished for it. On a team without it, people stay quiet, and the team loses the questions, warnings and ideas it most needs.
What Did Google's Project Aristotle Find?
Google's Project Aristotle found that how a team works together matters more than who is on it. Of the five dynamics that set effective teams apart, psychological safety came first.
Google's re:Work guide lists the five in order of importance:
- Psychological safety. Teammates feel safe to take risks and be vulnerable in front of each other.
- Dependability. People reliably do quality work on time.
- Structure and clarity. Roles, goals and plans are clear.
- Meaning. The work matters personally to the people doing it.
- Impact. People believe their work makes a difference.
The research reached a wide audience through a New York Times feature on Google's search for the perfect team, and psychological safety has been part of the workplace conversation ever since.
What Does Psychological Safety Look Like on a Team?
On a team, psychological safety looks like an agreement. Eran Thomson, founder of PowerProv, calls it a "we, not me" mindset, or an ensemble mindset. Everyone agrees to:
- Have each other's backs
- Support each other's choices, actions and decisions
- Make each other look good whenever they can
- Treat failure and mistakes as opportunities for growth and learning, not finger-pointing and blame
“Imagine walking into work every day knowing, trusting, believing and accepting that everyone there has your back.”— Eran Thomson, founder of PowerProv
Psychological safety is also the middle of a longer chain. Dara Blumenthal, PhD, maps it this way. If you want innovation and change, you need teamwork and collaboration. That requires communication, which requires psychological safety and trust. And those rest on active listening, empathy, vulnerability and self-awareness.
Most conversations about psychological safety stop at the middle of that chain. The skills underneath it are where the work is, and they're the skills PowerProv trains.
What Is the Difference Between Psychological Safety and Psychosocial Safety?
Psychological safety is about a team. Psychosocial safety is about an employer's legal duty. The two overlap, but they aren't the same thing.
Psychological safety describes whether the people on a team believe it's safe to speak up. Psychosocial safety is a workplace health and safety term. Safe Work Australia defines a psychosocial hazard as anything that could cause psychological harm, and says employers must manage the risk of those hazards at work. In NSW, a Code of Practice makes that an enforceable obligation, which PowerProv covers in its guide to psychosocial safety obligations.
A team with strong psychological safety raises concerns early and directly, which can help an employer meet those wider obligations.
How Do You Build Psychological Safety Into a Team?
You build psychological safety by getting the agreement in place, then giving people the tools to keep it. A poster on the wall won't do it. People need to practise backing each other, and to feel what it's like when others back them.
Eran describes PowerProv's approach as getting everyone "out of their heads and into the room, auditing what's happening rather than editing." Auditing means being present and aware of the people around you. Editing means getting caught up with the voice in your own head.
PowerProv's exercises make that practical. They're built so that a group only succeeds when its people listen, support each other's ideas, and recover from mistakes together. Nobody is asked to perform or be funny, and the format is introvert-friendly.
“We learned to accept and embrace failure and to be receptive, and adaptive to when problems arise.”
There's research behind the method too. A controlled study in the Journal of Creativity in Mental Health compared 30 people who took a six-week improv workshop with a control group of 28. As Psychology Today reported, the improv group became more creative and improved their self-esteem and self-efficacy.
How Do You Know Psychological Safety Is Improving?
You know it's improving when people's behaviour changes, and you measure that. PowerProv's Personal Power Index™ is a longitudinal study, running since 2023, that tracks participants' skills before and after training.
PowerProv Personal Power Index™, ongoing study since 2023
Back at work, the signs are simple. People ask more questions. Mistakes get raised earlier. Meetings have more voices in them.
“It's a safe, fast-paced, mind-expanding environment and gets you thinking differently about how to solve problems.”
When Should You Bring in Psychological Safety Training?
Bring in training when a team agrees with the idea but can't make it stick. That's common. Most teams know they should support each other. Fewer have practised it under pressure.
PowerProv has run workshops for 13+ years for teams of 10 or more, in person across Australia and online. For how a program works and what it covers, see PowerProv's guide to psychological safety training.
- Psychological safety is an agreement, kept through practice. Teams with it speak up, ask questions and recover from mistakes faster. Google ranked it first for team effectiveness.
- PowerProv builds it into every workshop, and measures it. The ensemble mindset gives a team the agreement. The exercises give them the practice. The Personal Power Index™ shows the change.
Want a team where everyone has each other's backs? Book a discovery call, or see how it works first.
Read the full video transcript
Psychological safety. Psychological safety at work, or in the workplace, has become more and more talked about ever since Google's famous study. There's going to be a link somewhere down below to that study and to more information about psychological safety. But for now, what I want to do is talk a little bit about how we build psychological safety, or psychosocial safety, into everything we do at PowerProv.
So much of what we do hinges on what I call a "we, not me" mindset, or an ensemble mindset. What that really is, is an agreement amongst everyone on your team that they will have each other's backs, that they will support each other's choices, actions and decisions, and make each other look good whenever they can. And also embrace failure and mistakes as opportunities for growth and learning rather than finger-pointing and blame.
Once you have that agreement, and people have the tools and techniques to deliver on that agreement, the workplace environment and culture can change drastically for the better. Imagine walking into work every day knowing, trusting, believing and accepting that everyone there has your back, will make you look good, and will support your choices, actions and decisions. That's an awesome feeling. What a wonderful work environment to stroll into every day. I would wish that for you and your team.
Psychosocial safety and psychological safety have been debated and discussed ad nauseam. I don't want to add too much to the conversation here, other than to say we take it very seriously at PowerProv. One of the fundamental ways that we teach people to have it for themselves, and that we build it into every workshop, is by using proven exercises and a proven curriculum that gets everyone out of their heads and into the room, auditing what's happening rather than editing. Auditing is being present and aware. Editing is getting caught up with that voice in your head. It's about really connecting with each other in a real, authentic way that leads to trust and collaboration and connection that you just don't see in most other team building activities.
And best of all, I can prove it to you, because in 2023 we started a longitudinal study called the Personal Power Index, which tracks the transformation of people who've been through our program. Without a doubt, the data shows that what we do works.
So anyway, that's my short spiel on psychological safety. There's so much more that's been written about it. There are heaps of articles about it on our blog. I invite you to check them out. Take a look and see for yourself if PowerProv feels like a fit for you and your team.
Sources
- Psychological Safety and Learning Behavior in Work Teams · Administrative Science Quarterly (Edmondson, 1999)
- Understand Team Effectiveness (Project Aristotle) · Google re:Work
- What Google Learned From Its Quest to Build the Perfect Team · The New York Times
- Improv to Improve: The Impact of Improvisational Theater on Creativity, Acceptance, and Psychological Well-Being · Journal of Creativity in Mental Health
- Generative Team Design · Dara Blumenthal, PhD
- Personal Power Index™ · PowerProv
Frequently asked questions
How do I create psychological safety?
Create psychological safety by getting a team to agree on how it will treat each other, then practising it. PowerProv calls this the ensemble mindset: have each other's backs, support each other's choices, make each other look good, and treat mistakes as chances to learn. The agreement only sticks when people have tools to deliver on it.
What did Google learn from its quest to build the perfect team?
Google's Project Aristotle found that who is on a team matters less than how the team works together. Its researchers identified five dynamics of effective teams and ranked psychological safety first. On teams with high psychological safety, people feel safe to take risks, admit mistakes, ask questions and offer new ideas.
What does psychosocial safety mean?
Psychosocial safety is a workplace health and safety term. It refers to an employer's duty to identify and manage psychosocial hazards at work. Psychological safety is narrower. It describes whether the people on one team believe it's safe to speak up and take interpersonal risks. Workplaces need both.
What are the five best practices to promote psychological safety in the workplace?
PowerProv teaches five practices that build psychological safety at work. Have each other's backs. Support each other's actions, choices and decisions. Make each other look good. Treat mistakes and failure as opportunities to learn, not reasons for blame. And stay present with the people in the room, which PowerProv calls auditing, not editing.
