Use cases / Software company
Client case
Deepler Culture · Culture
Making psychological safety in teams visible
A fast-growing software company wanted a culture in which teams dare to share mistakes and hold each other accountable. But how safe did employees really feel? With Deepler Culture, the company mapped psychological safety per team, next to the culture leadership had in mind.
Sector
IT
Target group
All teams
Solution
Deepler Culture
Application
Psychological safety
In brief
The question
Do teams dare to share mistakes and hold each other accountable?
The insight
Big differences between teams, even within the same department.
The result
Teams discuss what safety means for them.
The question: how safe do teams really feel?
The company grew fast, and with growth came new teams and new managers. The management team noticed that problems sometimes surfaced late. The question was whether employees felt safe enough to report mistakes and give criticism.
The approach: a culture survey with safety as a tension field
The culture survey looked at opposites that belong to psychological safety, such as hiding mistakes versus sharing mistakes, and keeping harmony versus holding each other accountable. Employees indicated where their team stands now and where they want to go. The management team indicated its ambition on the same opposites.
Culture as a tension field
Opposites instead of one score
Current and desired
Where is the team, where does it want to go?
Ambition of the MT
Next to the experience of the teams
The insight: safety differs per team
At organisation level the picture looked positive. Per team the results varied widely, even within the same department. In some teams mistakes were discussed openly, in others they were preferably kept hidden. The difference was often related to how the manager responded to bad news.
Culture map: one team, current, desired and ambition
The team wants to share mistakes more often: that is where the conversation starts.
Illustrative view
The result: safety open for discussion per team
Every team discussed its own culture map, with the question of what is needed to share mistakes sooner. Managers gained insight into the effect of their response to bad news. The management team uses the results to let the culture grow consciously with the company.
- Psychological safety visible per team
- A conversation about behaviour, not about a number
- Managers aware of their role
Working on psychological safety: three lessons
What this company learned about safety in teams:
Look per team
An average hides the teams where it pinches.
Discuss behaviour
What do we do when something goes wrong? That is the core.
Start with the manager
The response to bad news determines whether people share it.
Read more about measuring organisational culture, or see how a housing association makes culture change measurable.
Frequently asked questions
Frequently asked questions about psychological safety
What is psychological safety?
The shared feeling in a team that you can report a mistake, ask a question or give criticism without risk.
How do you measure psychological safety?
With questions about concrete behaviour in the team, such as sharing mistakes and holding each other accountable. By comparing the current and desired situation, you see where a team wants to go.
Why measure per team?
Because psychological safety differs greatly per team. An average at organisation level can hide the teams where it pinches.
What is the role of the manager?
Large. How a manager responds to mistakes and bad news determines whether employees share them next time.
Are the answers anonymous?
Yes. Results per team are only shown with sufficient response, so nobody can be identified.