The document discusses the importance of psychological safety for building high-performing teams, especially remote teams. It defines psychological safety as a belief that one will not be punished for mistakes or new ideas. Leaders must prioritize psychological safety through open communication, empathy, and setting an example of respect. For remote teams, intentional efforts like personal sharing and recognizing interdependence are needed to foster connection and break down barriers. When implemented properly, psychological safety can improve engagement, performance, and well-being.

1. Psychological Safety:
Unlocking the True Potential of
Your Team
Insights and strategies the concept of
psychological safety and its profound impact on
team dynamics and performance from Barbra
Gago, Founder & CEO of Pando, Mark Frein, Chief
Workplace Officer at Oyster, and Steve Peralta,
Chief Wellness Officer at Unmind.

2. "Psychological safety supports
high-performing teams."
- Steve Peralta
In today's highly-distributed world, fostering psychological
safety is becoming a table-stake for team members who
may never meet in person. In order to unlock your team's
full potential, speed up connections, ramp time and impact
employees have, leaders need to build a true culture of
psychological safety so employees can thrive.
Psychological safety is crucial for
building high-performing teams
and organizations.
● What does psychological safety mean, especially for remote teams
● How psychological safety can more effectively promotes collaboration, innovation, and employee well-being
● Why psychological is critical for building high performing teams
● Tactical ways to build a culture of psychological safety
This playbook Includes:

3. What is psychological safety and
why is it important? Psychological safety goes beyond just
acknowledging failures; it encompasses
creating an environment where individuals
feel valued and respected as human
beings.
"Psychological safety is a reflection of the
culture of the organization and how
people treat one another." - Steve Peralta
Psychological Safety: “A belief that one
will not be punished or humiliated for
speaking up with ideas, questions,
concerns, mistakes, and that the team is
safe for interpersonal risk taking.”
- Amy C. Edmonson
Safety is a foundational human need at work, and when it is lacking, it can result in poor
engagement, burnout, and low performance. When people don't feel safe or valued as a
human being at work, it's a recipe for poor engagement and poor performance.

4. Leading change
Managing and leading with psychological safety
takes tremendous courage. While we may feel good
about intellectually managing with an eye towards
psychological safety. Requires caring a lot of weight.
One simple thing for those who manage, managers:
recognize and tell your leaders how courageous
they are.
● Some leaders believe in leading in fear, but
often people are on a spectrum and they
don’t know how to lead in another way.
● Leading through crisis, you often don’t
check back with the team on the
experience. We need to check in with
people after the crisis, but we’re often not
good at doing this in startups. There’s
often crisis after crisis after crisis. Often very
autocratic.
● Give people a voice and be able to share
during crisis. There is a cascading effect on
your emotional state. People are able to be
more resilient.
Managers, especially first-time managers, need to
develop the skills to navigate psychological safety
effectively. It can be a learning process that
requires finding the right balance in opening
oneself to create trust.

5. The era of remote
Creating psychological safety in remote teams requires
intentional efforts to connect on a human level, breaking
through the digital two-dimensionality.
"Even in the digital realm, it starts
with an interest, a willingness, and
intentionality to reach through the
screen and create humanity."
- Mark Frein
● Psychological safety is not a one-size-fits-all solution and
can be challenging in a remote or distributed team setup.
● Cultural differences and communication dynamics add
complexity to creating psychological safety in remote
teams.
● Building trust and psychological safety in remote teams
requires recognizing and respecting the
interdependence of team members and their diverse
perspectives.

6. How to approach psychological
safety with remote teams
● Understand the challenges of a high-performance environment
and extra layers of challenge from remote and other factors.
● Develop a multi-pronged approach to ensuring psychological
safety in a remote environment.
● Set up best practices for cultural and communication dynamics,
time zone overlaps, and through a digital medium.
● Recognize that people are interdependent parts of an ecosystem
of human beings.
● Remote-first companies need to create opportunities for team
members to share personal stories and interests, fostering
connection and breaking down barriers.
"You get habituated
to open up the
emotional realm,
even in the digital
realm." - Mark Frein

7. How to build the culture of psychological safety
As a leader openly admit that you don’t have all of the answers. Invite participation, active listening, being
curious, not asking rhetorical questions, but pointed ones. There’s a time for care and there’s a time for
harder lines. Think of it as coaching as opposed to dictatorial invites the person to show up more
authentically to talk through failures, mistakes. Invite them to share their thoughts.
Prioritize wellbeing
Ensure that leaders
prioritize. Point out the risks
of not ensuring this culture..
Call out behaviors that break
psychological safety and
measure it:
A. Capability
B. Opportunity
C. Motivation
Find the time
It needs to be done along
with people - not done to
people. The first response to
people’s challenges is
empathy, help support.
We’re still professionals and
we can’t aspire to be a
family.
Be in touch
Power dynamics can make it
difficult to speak truth to
power. Each step leaders get
away from the front line the
more work required to
ensure people feel
psychological safety.

8. Start at the top
Leaders play a vital role in setting the example for
psychological safety. They should demonstrate
behaviors that align with the value of safety, such as
respecting vacation time and boundaries.
"Leaders setting the
example is the key to
success." - Barbra Gago
Psychological safety is the road to business
outcomes - it’s not a balancing act, it is a
requirement for the business outcomes. Mission and
value-oriented organizations need to commit to
psychological safety.

9. Prioritizing psychological safety
Steve Peralta shares the need to prioritize
“Psychological safety is not just about
productivity and efficiency; it is about
creating an environment where people
can fully engage and flourish. "This
flourish concept is important. It's both
well-being and performance."
“Organizations should prioritize psychological safety as a foundational need for teams and provide the necessary support
and resources to foster it. "Psychological safety should be table stakes for teams and organizations."
“Train you mind to find ways to
connect with people to learn who
people are. Even in the digital
realm, be intentional and curiosity
in creating humanity in a digital
world. Step by step to build up
this habit.
The challenge of having someone
feeling safe - remote teams have
so many additional challenges, but
there are easy things to start with.
Create connection.”

10. Conclusion
Key points to remember:
● Psychological safety is a must-have for every
organization
● A lack of psychological safety will create poor
engagement and poor performance
● Leaders must prioritize, set the example, and lead
the change while managers must be trained to
support the initiative
● Employees need a voice in psychological safety
● Remote environments and cultural differences
must be accounted for in the planning of
psychological safety
● Set up best practices and multi-pronged
approaches to account for various situations
Pando Blog: Safe results: Creating a
culture of psychological safety to drive
team performance
Oyster Blog: How to increase psychological
safety on remote teams
Unmind Blog: Who drives psychological
safety at Unmind?
More insights & info:
Resources
Learn how Pando’s continuous feedback
and progression platform helps you build
psychological safety: Request a Demo or
reach out at hello@pando.com