Elevator Pitch

Psychological safety is an essential part of a healthy organization. This talk looks at what it is, what the impact on teams is, why leaders should care about it, and what they can to to instill psychological safety in their own environments.

Description

Teams play a crucial role in highly effective and innovative organizations. Teams perform better than individuals, and high performing teams are the competitive advantage that every company wants. Successful team collaborations require psychological safety. Organizational behavioral scientist Amy Edmondson of Harvard first introduced the construct of “team psychological safety” and defined it as “a shared belief held by members of a team that the team is safe for interpersonal risk taking.” With psychological safety in place the individuals on a team are allowed be comfortable being themselves and communicate more freely.

There is overwhelming empirical evidence to show that psychological safety has a direct influence on task performance. Innovation suffers when designers are afraid to take risks. High performing teams start to shut down and perform less efficiently. We will talk about what psychological safety is, why it matters, and how you can take steps to help build psychological safety in your own work environment.