What makes a successful team? Learning Effects of Psychological Safety on Teams

by | Dec 15, 2020 | Casestudy, Communication , Organization , Teams | 0 comments

This is Shibako from Goalous editorial department.

As I work in human resources, I often use the word “team”.

By the way, what is a “team”?

Just a group of people is just a “group. It is only when people come together with the same goal that they can be called a “team”.

What makes a successful team?

So what kind of team should a team be in order to produce results?

It is natural that as the number of people increases, the results become greater. An effective team is one that not only adds up, but also shows synergy.

In order to create synergy in a team, it is necessary to be a “learning team”.

For example, if an individual learns something, it is only an individual learning. In other words, an individual’s learning is not the team’s learning.

However, if an individual shares what he or she has learned with the team, the team will also be able to learn.

Furthermore, if the team’s learning influences the entire organization, organizational change will occur, and as a result, the organization will evolve into a “learning organization.

The fact that one person’s failure can lead to everyone’s learning can be called a synergistic effect.

To Survive in the Age of VUCA

As you all know, today’s world is a world of uncertainty.

Have you ever heard of the term “VUCA,” which is an acronym for the four words “Volatility,” “Uncertainty,” “Complexity,” and “Ambiguity”? The term VUCA refers to a situation where the complexity of the surrounding social environment is increasing, unexpected events are occurring one after another, and the future is difficult to predict.

In the past, it was a simpler world where the more you made, the more you sold.

In such a world, it was important to do exactly what you were told, to follow the manual without variation, and to make products quickly, cheaply, and without mistakes.

In the age of VUCA, however, it is not easy to know what is right. In such a situation, we need to take action to find answers, challenge ourselves, learn from our mistakes, and create something new.

How to build a learning team

So how do you create a learning team?

The answer lies in psychological safety.

Team psychological safety is the shared belief among team members that it is okay to take risks within the team.

Since the research results of a project called “Project Aristotle” conducted by Google’s research team showed that psychological safety is the most important factor in creating a productive team, psychological safety has attracted attention in various countries.

You can admit mistakes. You can ask for help. You can give your honest opinion.

It is important to be in a state where you can express yourself honestly without putting the brakes on your mind.

Teams with a high level of psychological safety make more mistakes. Why is that?

Because they can report their mistakes without hiding them. A team that makes few mistakes may be one that manages to deal with mistakes on an individual basis before they are discovered and hides them from the team by not reporting them.

This is not a “learning team”, is it?

What is a psychologically safe and learning organization?

How do you build a relationship where people respect and trust each other, and where they can honestly share their opinions?

You can’t create that state right away. It needs to be built up day by day.

Psychological safety is the result of how the people in the team respond to each other when something happens.

  • The boss asked me for my opinion, so I told him/her honestly, but he/she didn’t listen to me and denied it completely.
  • The boss asked me to tell him/her about an issue, so I told him/her, but he/she blamed me for why I knew and didn’t deal with it.
  • When I reported the mistake to the boss, my salary was reduced.

Is any of this happening in your company?

## Create a sense of security for your team through social networking

Goalous, which makes it easy to share information and react, may help create psychological safety.

Speaking for myself, I recently had an opportunity to give an internal presentation in English. When I posted about it, I received comments from foreigners saying, “Thank you for presenting in English,” and comments from Japanese saying, “The results of your practice were evident.

It made me feel positive to receive such feedback as a result of sharing my challenge. “Okay! I’ll try harder next time!

At Colorkrew, we share not only our successes, but also our failures. By sharing the things that go wrong and giving positive feedback on them, we can create an atmosphere where it is okay to share failure experiences. This creates an atmosphere where it is okay to share failure experiences, and other members can also learn from those failures.

Let’s become a team that learns by sharing our failures and learnings, rather than keeping them to ourselves!

Goalous is now offering a 15-day free trial plan.

If you are interested in this program, please feel free to contact us.

We also hold free seminars every month.