These days, psychological safety is a topic that we hear about often. What does this mean?
Google’s team study has attracted a lot of attention to psychological safety. Google researchers looked at a variety of companies to find out what makes them successful. They discovered that psychological safety is the key ingredient to successful teams.
Psychological safety is a combination of a few key elements.
The first is psychological safety. If members are comfortable sharing their opinions with others, giving suggestions, and providing constructive criticism, they have psychological safety. The team members feel confident that other people will consider their ideas and listen to them.
Second, team members believe they are able to take reasonable risks. Psychologically safe teams understand that mistakes are part learning and growth. Therefore, team members don’t feel punished if they make or say something wrong.
Because you want your team members to be their best, psychological safety is essential. They’ll be more cautious if they feel unsafe. They will choose to stay silent instead of presenting an original idea, or stick with the same path rather than trying something different. This can cause team dysfunction.
If your team doesn’t have psychological safety, it’s not fully leveraging its resources.
Startups must get the best out of their employees in order to survive and thrive. Startups have limited resources and can’t afford to hire teams that work below their potential. Startups should prioritize psychological safety in order to maximize their performance.
These are three things you and your team can do together to promote psychological safety.
1. Keep your teams small
Research shows that larger teams are less psychologically secure. This is something to keep in mind as you form your teams. Each member of your team should play an important, distinct role.
It is important to clearly define your team in order to prevent it from growing too large. Every member of the team must know who is a member of their team and should agree to it. One study that included 120 top teams found that less than 10% of the team agreed on who was on their team.
2. Create a team charter
A team charter is a written agreement between team members that describes how the team operates. It should contain rules that describe how team members interact with one another.
These team rules can be made explicit to help create psychological safety. One example of a team rule is that members must respect each other’s opinions.
Because it increases team members’ confidence in their ideas, this rule provides psychological safety. They can also call out others when they don’t follow the rules.
3. Encourage feedback culture
Psychologically safe teams are not always in agreement. If team members agree with one another, it is likely that they are feeling pressure to conform.
Healthy teams have team members who feel comfortable arguing with one another and protecting minority positions. If you encourage feedback in your team members will become more comfortable giving and receiving constructive criticism. Also, you show that constructive criticism can be accepted and is important.
These tips can be applied by teams using Grow. Contact us to learn more about Grow and how it can help your team.
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Rudi Ramin also published this article on LinkedIn
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By: Kiss Tañedo
Title: Psychological Safety for Your Startup Team
Sourced From: grow360.com/blog/psychological-safety-for-your-startup-team
Published Date: Thu, 25 Jun 2020 15:17:00 +0000
