This is a guest blog post by Mehmet Baha, who authored Creating Psychological Safety at Work. In this blog post, Baha explores his story and journey at Facebook and shares his lessons on establishing a culture (and more) that leads to psychological safety at work.
“Our international company is going through a transformation…We have a company event and we are considering inviting you as a speaker on the topic of psychological safety.” was written in the email. I was excited about the opportunity and replied immediately to arrange an online meeting.
In that online meeting, one of the senior leaders of the organization said, “We already have some knowledge about psychological safety. We did a few workshops on the topic. However, we do not know if there are organizations with high levels of psychological safety. If yes, what do they do to achieve this?” I get the same question from other business leaders from time to time.
My Experience at Facebook: A Case Study in Psychological Safety
I was lucky to be one of the first Facebook employees in Europe where I contributed to its success from 2009 until 2013. Across those years, Facebook was growing exponentially and there was a high degree of psychological safety. Of course, Facebook wasn’t paradise; it had its own challenges.
However, a substantial number of employees felt safe to express their questions, concerns, ideas, and make mistakes. It was a workplace of innovation and high employee engagement. Here you can see a photo of Mark Zuckerberg talking with a group of Facebook employees in Dublin, Ireland. I am the person at the far left of the photograph, directly next to him.
FIGURE 3.1: Mehmet Baha (the author) with Facebook’s CEO and former Facebook employeesAlthough Facebook and its senior leaders did not use the phrase “psychological safety” at that time, they had in fact created a workplace of psychological safety. To understand how Facebook then scaled psychological safety, we need to understand three aspects of an organization: culture, power, and strategic design created by Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT)(1).
Culture: The Foundation of Psychological Safety
Continue reading How Facebook Scaled Psychological Safety – Mehmet Baha Shares Their Journey
