We're on a little mission to make psychological safety a little more practical, so you can actually go and work on it if there's something at stake in your organization. So here we're going to share six different red flags (or indications) that there might be low psychological safety in your team. Finally, here's an important note to remember when it comes to working with psychological safety.
If you'd like an introduction to the concept before you get started, you can read this article on psychological safety for a start.
1) Boring conversations
The first thing you might notice is if there are some incredibly boring conversations going on out there in the meeting rooms. Just like small talk, where the conversation can easily turn to the weather, you don't want it to be like that when you invite your team to brainstorm. If we're trying to solve difficult problems, we need creative ideas, quirky input and wild solutions.
If that's not the case and you're falling asleep because everyone is saying the same things as usual, it could be a sign of low psychological safety. Because when you share crazy ideas, you need to be confident that the team will respond in an appropriate and respectful way - otherwise you keep them to yourself.
2) The same few talk a lot
We take on the familiar roles when working in a low psychological safety environment. You may recognize the scenario by the fact that the same three people speak first. On top of that, they may say the same boring and trivial things as always.
When there is a high level of psychological safety and people are not afraid to speak up, we will experience a broader participation from several different fronts. When the topic of conversation in the group changes, so do the primary participants. In this way, roles will be distributed more dynamically, depending on who is a specialist in the field, who is involved in the project or who is passionate about the cause.
3) The talk in the corners
It may also be that you simply find that information is coming through some crazy channels. You might be wondering why the topic is more like chatter in the corners than real input in your meetings? Maybe it's because the meeting room is a low-safety environment that pushes people to find other "safer spaces" (a confidential colleague talk in a corner) to share concerns?
We want to foster an environment where difficult but important topics can be talked about when the whole team is present.
Important note: There is no point in blaming people for talking in the corners, because it is quite natural. Instead, we should look inwards and do our part to create psychological safety in team meetings.
4) The feeling that we are talking out of turn
Now it's getting a bit vague, we need to get our gut feeling in play. Are we really talking about what is important to the team right now? Or are we having another, less relevant, but "accessible" conversation instead? We are not hitting the nail on the head. If there is low psychological safety, it can be difficult, or impossible, for the team to talk about what is actually important for the task solution.
Example:
The other day I was out with a team where we had to start their "team agreements" on how they would work together. I asked the team to start from the parts of the collaboration where there is friction/tension. In this way, we make agreements that actually help to align expectations and create direction in our collaboration. The team started working while I was watching them, and during the first 15 minutes I had this feeling that we didn't really get to anything important.
- Morten, Consultant in Feedwork
Conversations may feel stuck and as if they are not moving anywhere. It's not always easy to seize the situation while it's happening, but if you do, approach it with curiosity.
You could say:
- I have my own doubts about this, but are we really talking about what is important?
- If we were to talk about something that is even more important for the team right now, what would it be?
- Can we talk about a timeout. There are 15 minutes left of the meeting, what would be good for us to talk about in that time?
Try reading about Radical Candor
5) You never disagree
When deeply professional people, with diverse skills and experience, come together to solve a task, it would be strange if they never disagreed on anything. The absence of conflict or disagreement may indicate that people are afraid to bring original ideas or honest perspectives to the discussion.
When working with complex issues, it is absolutely essential to be able to engage in respectful disagreement or constructive conflict in order to get the job done in the best way. After the professional discussion, you should of course still be good friends and go to lunch together as good colleagues. It is important to be able to engage in task-focused disagreement without it having a negative impact on your relationship.
Studies also show that a high level of psychological safety can help you get the benefits of having diversity in your team. Read more here about the link between diversity, high performance and psychological safety.
6) Loud silence, or excessive pressure to speak
It may seem a bit crazy, but actually "deafening" silence AND noise can be a sign of low psychological safety. Either no one dares to say anything. Or you have an environment where everyone talks a lot, loudly and in each other's mouths, which has the consequence that no one really listens to each other, asks questions or thinks about what is being said.
Some teams find that as confidence increases, it becomes permissible to calm down and just listen if you don't have anything to offer at the moment. You don't have to (like in primary school...) raise your hand and open your mouth to show that you understand what's going on in the room. We are all different, and there must be room for that.
In this video, Morten here from Feedwork has summarized the 6 indications above:
None of these things are evidence of low psychological safety
Finally, we would like to remind you that all the above items are NOT evidence that you have low psychological safety in your team. However, if you can check off several of the items on your list, we would be aware of the actual state of psychological safety in your team. As mentioned, all of the above can be indications of low psychological safety.
To geek out even more on the topic, you can read our article on: mental work environment here.
How to increase psychological safety?
We could write many long articles about this, but instead we have a number of other resources. Check them out here:
Webinars
Customer case study
Read about how we helped Novozymes increase psychological safety:
How Novozymes' 6,500 employees learn about psychological safety through a customized online course
Digital team approach to psychological safety
We've developed a digital team course to strengthen your psychological safety as a team, so you can talk about the difficult things, learn from each other and make better decisions. You can find it right here.
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