Summary
The highest-performing teams have one thing in common: psychological safety — the shared belief that no one on the team will embarrass or punish anyone else for admitting a mistake, asking a question, or offering a new idea. Studies show that psychological safety allows for moderate risk-taking, speaking your mind, creativity, and collaboration — just the types of behavior that lead to successful products and services. Creating psychological safety in a workplace - although at times a challenge - can be done. This interactive talk will present the key action steps that DesignOps professionals can immediately take to boost psychological safety in their design teams and create psychological safety between cross-functional teams.
Key Insights
-
•
Psychological safety is a neurophysiological state in the autonomic nervous system where individuals feel connected and calm, enabling optimal cognitive function.
-
•
The autonomic nervous system has three states: safe, mobilized (fight or flight), and immobilized (shutdown), through which individuals move constantly.
-
•
Triggers in the workplace, such as unexpected meetings or aggressive behavior, push people down the autonomic ladder and reduce their thinking capacity.
-
•
Connection with others is key to psychological safety and helps people co-regulate to move back up to a safe state.
-
•
Google’s Project Aristotle found psychological safety to be the number one factor in team effectiveness, outweighing individual traits or skills.
-
•
Trust is relational and context-dependent, but cannot exist without some level of psychological safety, which is neurobiological.
-
•
Teams can create psychological safety by collaboratively identifying specific behaviors that make members feel safe and converting these into explicit, observable agreements.
-
•
Protections (e.g., against retaliation) are needed alongside connection for marginalized people to safely participate in teams.
-
•
Rebuilding trust after leadership missteps requires vulnerability, accountability, and collective communication from the team.
-
•
Remote work amplifies existing cultural dynamics; strong psychological safety cultures can adapt remotely while toxic cultures worsen.
Notable Quotes
"Safety is a state of our nervous system, specifically the autonomic nervous system being in a safe state."
"The autonomic nervous system doesn’t know the difference between a tiger and an angry email, it just feels danger."
"If I make a mistake on our team, it’s not going to be held against me or disconnect me from the group."
"Connection is the energy that exists between people when they feel seen, heard, and valued."
"When we don’t feel safe, our thinking brain, the neocortex, gets shut down and our operating IQ drops by half or more."
"People of color often face additional triggers entering meetings with predominantly white participants; turning cameras on simultaneously reduces this threat."
"Psychological safety is the foundation to creating anything else you want in your organization or team culture."
"If the leader doesn’t realize their impact on team safety, the team should collectively communicate this, not rely on one individual."
"We want to change how people interact with each other from transactional to connected."
"Remote work didn’t create psychological safety or toxicity; it just amplified what was already there."
Or choose a question:
More Videos
"The time for debate has passed; we need to act decisively and collaboratively."
Alex Hurworth Bonnie John Fahd Arshad Antoine MarinDesigning a Contact Tracing App for Universal Access
October 23, 2020
"These brand new practitioners can bring fresh perspectives and new ways of thinking to hopefully see current problems in a new light."
Laine Riley Prokay Lisa GordonCarving a Path for Early Career DesignOps Practitioners
September 9, 2022
"If you come with a big idea, they’ll try to dial you back to the smallest iota you can test first."
Eniola OluwoleLessons From the DesignOps Journey of the World's Largest Travel Site
October 24, 2019
"Living personas refreshed constantly with new research allow others to connect with real customer behaviors."
Nathan ShedroffDouble Your Mileage: Use Your Research Strategically
March 31, 2020
"Apple premiered mobile accessibility in a very exciting way with the iPhone 3GS and VoiceOver announcement at WWDC."
Sam ProulxMobile Accessibility: Why Moving Accessibility Beyond the Desktop is Critical in a Mobile-first World
November 17, 2022
"If your design team cannot act quickly on findings, rapid research is not the method for you."
Feleesha SterlingBuilding a Rapid Research Program (Videoconference)
May 18, 2023
"Culture is the most influential factor impacting people's perceptions and values today."
Neil BarrieWidening the Aperture: The Case for Taking a Broader Lens to the Dialogue between Products and Culture
March 25, 2024
"The real question is what is it about delivering the value of design at scale."
John DevanneyThe Design Management Office
November 6, 2017
"One analyst became our research associate by diving deep into the diary videos and organizing the data."
Katy MogalBut Do Your Insights Scale?
March 12, 2021