Measuring psychological safety

A quick, simple and interactive team exercise

What is psychological safety?

How I measured psychological safety in my team

  1. If I make a mistake in this team, it is held against me.
  2. Members of this team are able to bring up problems and tough issues.
  3. People on this team sometimes reject others for being different.
  4. It is safe to take a risk in this team.
  5. It is difficult to ask other members of this team for help.
  6. No one on this team would deliberately act in a way that undermines my efforts.
  7. Working with members of this team, my unique skills and talents are valued and utilized.
A sample of how Mentimeter displays the results.

Questions to think about in advance

  • Who will facilitate the exercise? The team leader, a team member, an HR colleague, or an external facilitator? Are they experienced with handling this sort of exercise?
  • How will you create the right conditions/environment in the room to discuss your results? The discussion could be very sensitive, so what guardrails will you have in place to set expectations and support people (eg a set of principles, rules of engagement, or a “safe space agreement”)?
  • How will you facilitate the discussion if your scores show that people feel a lack of psychological safety?
  • How will you facilitate the discussion if the majority of people score one way on a particular question and there is someone whose score is an outlier and very different from the rest?
  • How will you protect respondents’ anonymity?
  • How will you ensure that no-one is singled out?

Tips

Things I’d do differently next time

Further reading/viewing

Footnote:

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Chief of staff (Academic & Government group) @ElsevierConnect. Mainly writing about getting from A to B, teams, & digital product stuff. Personal accountt.

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Richard McLean

Chief of staff (Academic & Government group) @ElsevierConnect. Mainly writing about getting from A to B, teams, & digital product stuff. Personal accountt.