Psychological Safety
The #1 predictor of team effectiveness.
Feeling included, safe and supported when sharing ideas, asking questions, expressing concerns or even failing, is a cornerstone of a high-performing team. In fact, it should be the baseline for every team.
Measure yours with the Fearless Organisation scan.
What is psychological safety?
Psychological safety is "a belief that one will not be punished or humiliated for speaking up with ideas, questions, concerns or mistakes" (Professor Amy C. Edmondson, 1999).
Psychological safety supports a productive and constructive culture of error – being able to openly discuss mistakes and learning from failure.
In relation to fostering a culture of inclusion, psychological safety acts as a foundational building block.
When you’re building an environment of psychological safety, everyone needs to feel included – that they’re safe to be on the team, safe to be their true selves, and safe in the knowledge that others on the team will not reject them on the basis of their differences.
Those differences may include ethnicity, gender, age, sexuality, social background, ability, or any other of the myriad ways in which we’re all different. This is why it’s so important, when building a psychologically safe team, to define the team’s values and behaviours early on – also known as a social contract or team charter – so that this inclusion is made explicit.
We fundamentally believe that psychological safety is a precursor not only to performance, but to inclusion and diversity. How can we truly leverage the diversity of a team if we’re not inclusive? And how can we be inclusive if we don’t foster psychological safety?
Available solutions
Whether you're already familiar with the concept of Psychological Safety (PS), or just getting started, we have a solution for every stage or size of your team.Â
From equipping leaders on how to increase psychological safety, collaboration, innovation and performance, to organisational-level scans and taking individual teams through a complete journey to improve PS.Â
We provide services in English, French, German, Spanish and Italian.
PSI: Anonymous Team & Organisation Scan
Amy Edmondson's research focuses on the impact of psychological safety (or the lack of it) on team and organizational performance. We are accredited to leverage the tool developed by this research.
You can get started by measuring the level of psychological safety of your organisation, department or team with a one-time Fearless Organisation Scan of up to 50 participants.
You receive an anonymous PSI (Psychological Safety Index) report that shows how your team or organisation stacks up against the global benchmark data. One of our team coaches will debrief the report with you and guide you on how to shape the next steps.
EUR 40 per participant in completing the Scan and EUR 500 for a 90-minute debrief.
The Leader's Toolkit
This highly experiential half-day workshop cuts to the heart of how to increase psychological safety, collaboration, innovation and performance in your team and organization.
The session draws on Professor Amy Edmondson’s ‘Leader’s Toolkit’ and will introduce you to three practical and easy to apply practices that are guaranteed to increase psychological safety.
Can be customised to be run as a lunch-and-learn or webinar.
- 3-hour workshop EUR 3'500 for up to 20 participants
- Lunch-and-learn EUR 1'525 (limited interaction) up to 200 participants
Team Journey
Each facilitated team journey explores current levels of psychological safety, what’s working, and where there are opportunities to improve.
Sessions are facilitated by an experienced team coach with deep expertise in psychological safety. The debrief leads to actionable insight that is unique to the team’s context, members and dynamic. Here are the specific steps to the journey:
- 1:1 with team leader (1h)
- Team session nr. 1 (briefing of up to 1.5h)
- Run the PSI & coach checks for red flags
- Team session nr. 2 (cca. 4h)
- Debrief with team leader (1h)
EUR 5'500 per journey
What our clients are saying
Feedback from the teams we’ve supported:
"Great balance of facilitating, holding, creating space and intuitively jump in. I especially liked our facilitator, her energy, flexibility and insight. Debbie easily connected with the group as a person. She was patient and conducted the whole retreat with respect and humility."
"I found the exercise to share positive things about colleagues very useful. It helped create more of a "safe space" in the team, in particular as there is a mix of permanent staff (who probably feel a huge pressure on them), consultants (who may feel stressed about the temporary nature of their contracts) and interns, who are looking for opportunities and to form their careers."
"It was very important that the CORE Team had such a retreat. The facilitators and team leaders did an excellent job in adapting the agenda to a virtual meeting."