iSAQB Software Architecture Gathering
1. Let's clarify: Psychological Safety is not about making everyone feel comfortable all the time, is it?
No, it is not 🙂 On the contrary, part of psychological safety is that you feel safe enough to be uncomfortable. The first mentioning that I have found of the term “psychological safety” is from Edgar Schein & Warren Bennis in 1965, where they wrote about how psychological safety is necessary for discomfort to lead to an increased desire to learn.
Taking risks, making mistakes, having different opinions and different background are things that contribute to developing great creative and innovative product, and which can all be uncomfortable. Making mistakes and discussing them to learn from them are other things that can be uncomfortable.
It must feel safe for us to do these things, but it does not have to be comfortable.
That being said, I would very strongly recommend that you go back to your comfort zone on regular basis. It is not healthy for our brains to be in discomfort all the time, so sometimes we need to be in comfort to rest so to say.
2. Would you say that younger people in the workplace (stereotypically, “Gen Z”) have higher expectations of psychological safety from the outset? Do they know more about it?
As a stereotype, yes, I would say that they do. I don’t think it is a conscious expectation, nor do I think that they know more than other generations.
What they do expect is to be treated properly and with respect, and that their voice is heard. And it would be great if this was what people of all ages could expect, but alas: not yet.
As I said, this is a stereotype, and there are differences within each generation, so there will be differences in the expectations of young people as well. 🙂
3. Can you measure psychological safety in an organisation? What number is good enough? Where can I get a certificate? (😉)
4. Have you encountered organisations that outright reject the relevance of psychological safety?
Oh yes. I have encountered organisations and individuals, who reject it. In 2019 I read a LinkedIn post about psychological safety being something that consultants had invented to make more money, and that led to my first talk about if psychological safety was overprotection or not.
I think something that contributes to people rejecting the relevance of psychological safety is confusing safety with comfort. I have met people who think it is all about making employees comfortable, so never giving them negative feedback, setting expectations, or challenging them. And that would not be helpful for a company or for an individual for that matter.
I have also met companies and individuals who think it is enough to state “This is a safe environment” and thus not putting in the work to actually create that safety.
I have not worked with any of these companies. I don’t want to impose help on organisations, especially when there are many other organisations that want to put in the effort to create safety. My time is much better spent there. 🙂
5. Are there limits to psychological safety when psychological well-being is negatively affected by factors outside the organisation — the political landscape, overall stress, private crises? Can an employer/organisation/group not care?
To take the last question first: I think that an organisation can not care. It would be a mistake, because outside things will negatively affect the organisation in different ways. And that in turn will affect the working results.
Are there limits to physical safety? Yes, there are.
An organisation can use the fact that they have psychological safety to address their employees and help them. If you have safety, it is easier for an employee to talk to their manager if something is going on privately, and easier for the manager to talk to an employee who is visibly struggling.
With bigger things like war, covid, political landscape, or layoffs, the organisation can use the safety as leverage to discuss these things, figure out how people are doing, set rules, support people. When the war broke out in Ukraine, I spent most of that day with a Ukrainian developer to support and listen, which was possible because we had built psychological safety and they trusted me.
It does not mean that the bad things will go away or not affect the organisation, but it does mean that there is a space to handle things together and possibly dampen the effect.
6. I know it's not that simple, but: Do you have one "behaviour hack" that you can recommend to anyone who wants to improve others' psychological safety, even just a little bit?
Amy Edmondson talks about three things a leader can do: Show fallibility, be curious, frame things as learning.
Framing things might be difficult if you are not in a leadership position, but the other two is something that everyone can do.
Speaking up about making and finding some things hard will show others that it is okay to make mistakes and share them to learn from them. This is especially effective if you are in some sort of “higher” position like more senior, a manager, an expert etc. Knowing and seeing that you too make mistakes is very helpful.
And the other part is about how you speak and react to people. If you see them doing something in a wrong way, be curious about it and ask them to talk you through the thought process, thereby showing that it is okay to have a different perspective and showing that you are interested. If you just tell them that it is wrong, you shut down the conversation, and the other person will probably find that it is not safe to have a different opinion.
I will sometimes thank people when they say no to something like “Thank you for setting a clear boundary”, “thank you for taking care of yourself” etc.
Being curious and changing our language a bit can lead to huge effects.
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