Photo by Fancycrave on Unsplash

Psychological Safety At Work: what do psychologically safe work teams look like?

[This text would not have been written without the support of Helen Sanderson (Twitter: @HelenWBTeam), a pragmatic and practical dreamer and founder of Wellbeing Teams, a revolutionary re-imagining of social care in England in the direction of humanity, hope, compassion and justice. I am grateful to Helen for her support to me and for her efforts to save us all in England from the indignities and suffering of the existing broken social care system. You can find more about Helen and Wellbeing Teams, at the end of this text. I am responsible for all mistakes and weaknesses in this text.]

1. Is your team at work psychologically safe?

Think for a moment about your work and the work team you are a part of. Ask yourself the following questions:

• Do people feel comfortable in team meetings asking about things they do not know or they do not understand, or do they generally try to maintain an image of perfect knowledge about work matters?
• Do people feel comfortable in team meetings raising difficult issues, concerns and reservations about specific pieces of work, about ‘how things are done here’ or about how well the team works together or do these conversations take place informally outside team meetings?