Another on psychological safety (PS) to be posted in the near future.
Once again it’s in healthcare (as is much of the interesting research…) It’s a pretty specific area also – ICU teamwork.
Although they found that higher PS was associated with greater *perceived* teamwork performance, they didn’t find evidence that showed a relationship between PS and *actual* performance (as measured via two mechanical ventilation practices).
They suggest 3 reasons why PS may not have been associated with actual team performance (versus perceived performance):
1) Since PS was already high, perhaps there was insufficient variation to detect an association
2) The two practices chosen may not have been as dependent on team performance as the authors hypothesised; thus not being sensitive to PS
3) Possibly ventilation management is so protocolised that it isn’t that dependent on teamwork – see point 2
4) ** Or in my view, perhaps the follow-up period was too brief (just two weeks of observations).
Authors: Diabes, M. A., Ervin, J. N., Davis, B. S., Rak, K. J., Cohen, T. R., Weingart, L. R., & Kahn, J. M. (2021). Psychological safety in intensive care unit rounding teams. Annals of the American Thoracic Society, 18(6), 1027-1033.
SafetyInsights.org 
2 thoughts on “Psychological safety and team performance”