Over the past few months, stunning images have emerged from NASA’s new James Webb Space Telescope. The excitement in the scientific community has been incredible. It’s opened up a world we couldn’t see before. Scientists hope it will let us see all the way back to when the first stars and galaxies were forming 13.7 billion years ago. The telescope has shown us stars that shine like jewels.
And now this month, NASA released jaw-dropping images of the planet Jupiter, with its many beautiful layers and its Great Red Spot, ‘a storm big enough to swallow Earth’.
You might reasonably be thinking at this point ‘But what does this have to do with psychological safety?’
To find the link to that story, we need to meet Gregory Robinson. Gregory Robinson took over as director of the James Webb Space Telescope Program in March 2018. According to the New York Times, he was busy enjoying another job when NASA persuaded him to take on this incredible astronomy project – one that was billions of dollars over budget and years behind schedule.
Calling the Webb Space Telescope Program an enormous project is no exaggeration. America’s National Public Radio (NPR) nicely sums it up, describing it as a project worth around $US10 billion which was decades in the making, involved a partnership with the European Space Agency and the Canadian Space Agency, and included some 20,000 collaborators across 29 countries. That’s a lot of stakeholder management. The program suffered many setbacks and delays; some feared it might never get off the ground.
Gregory Robinson’s story is one of someone who excels at project delivery. It is also a story of someone who creates psychological safety at work.
But before we look at Gregory’s approach in more detail, it’s worth exploring what we mean by psychological safety, and why it matters.
What is psychological safety?
According to Amy Edmondson, author of The Fearless Organization and Professor of Leadership at Harvard Business School, psychological safety is a climate where people feel safe to speak up and to share concerns, questions and ideas. It is the belief that the workplace is safe for interpersonal risk taking (Edmondson, 2019).
When psychological safety exists, colleagues trust and respect each other and they know it’s okay to be candid. They are more likely to speak up and have open authentic conversations about problems, mistakes and opportunities for improvement. And they’re more likely to share knowledge and ideas.
Why does psychological safety matter?
Research on psychological safety has flourished in recent years and the evidence shows that psychological safety plays an important role in the workplace. It can impact performance, learning, employee engagement, information sharing, and satisfaction and commitment. It’s no wonder it has moved up many CEO’s agendas.
So how did psychological safety help NASA reach the stars?
When Gregory Robinson took over the Webb Space Telescope Program, it was described as ‘being full of smart, skilled people who had become wary of raising criticism’. As director, he spent time getting to know people, gained the trust of the team, and strengthened communications.
Within a few months of him joining, the pace of work dramatically increased (the New York Times reports that schedule efficiency rose from 55% to 95%) and there were better communications and managers were more willing to share bad news. It’s not to say challenges didn’t arise or that human mistakes didn’t occur, it’s more that people were willing to speak up about them.
Gregory Robinson has been recognised as one of the most influential people of 2022 (TIME magazine). Their featured quote, in our opinion, sums up what psychological safety is all about: ‘Our teams orbit around Greg, because we trust him to ask questions and understand our concerns and respect our opinions … I admire him tremendously for it.’
When talking about Gregory, colleagues tell a story of someone who creates a climate of trust, where people feel safe to speak up, share their concerns, and feel heard. And that approach is credited with helping the team overcome adversity and metaphorically, reach for the stars.
So how can we create psychological safety in our teams?
There are many ways that leaders can help promote psychological safety at work. To narrow it down to just three, we like these tips provided by Amy Edmondson in a recent interview with HRM:
1. Remain curious and show vulnerability as a leader – Spend time thinking about what questions you can ask (as opposed to what statements you can make). Admitting you don’t know everything and owning up to your mistakes makes it okay for your team to do the same.
2. Frame the work – Be explicit about the challenges ahead, that you’re looking for people to ask questions, that the work is important or that you want people to rely on each other. It will help people get on the same page.
3. Be mindful how you respond to others’ mistakes – Is your initial response annoyance, disappointment or frustration? Or do you show appreciation that the person has spoken up, and use it as an opportunity to understand and improve? It can make the difference between that person approaching you the next time they make a mistake or thinking twice about it.
Or, for more ideas, take a look at Forbes list of 15 practical ways businesses can accomplish this task.
Whether you use Amy’s top 3 tips or Forbes’ 15 ways to promote psychological safety, we think that creating psychological safety at work is powerful, gets results and increasingly, is what leading CEO’s and high performers are focusing on.
Want to find out more?
Contact us at YES Psychology to learn how we can assist you in managing Psychosocial Risks and Hazards and promote Psychological Safety.
This is a great article and so relevant in times of change. Thank you