Psychological Safety

A team’s success is a recipe that has to be enjoyed once the dish is served. But what is that recipe? What are the ingredients? How about the quantity and the preparation time? Well, if that were easy, we would have only high-performing teams. One ingredient that we in Web and App Studio believe in to create a high-performing team is the need for Psychological Safety. Paul Santagata from HBR reveals, “There’s no team without trust”, and he couldn’t be more correct. But what is psychological safety, and why is it important? Psychological safety is the conviction that you won't suffer the consequences of the mistakes that have occurred. If we get to our unsafe zone, our thinking brains shut off, and our primal instincts take over, leading to nothing productive. And that's why psychological safety is so important. Psychological safety empowers employees to take risks and speak their minds. Team members who are quick to point the finger at one another when something goes wrong, team members who have different values or beliefs than others, and teams with a conflict-ridden culture are all signs of poor psychological safety. So rather than developing a compete-with-each-other mindset, we must never forget that it’s the team vs the problem. Blame can become a curiosity. Ask for feedback to improve on your own. When people feel connected to each other, they know that they're safe to step outside of their comfort zone. And yes, Feeling safe is a fundamental human need. Once this is covered, any performance will scale higher