Most companies are reporting end of year metrics in March, but your data on absenteeism, attrition and engagement is only telling you half the story. This is because most companies don't measure the underlying drivers of these commercial outcomes. 

 

In 2012, Google undertook Project Aristotle: a deep dive into the drivers of performance across 180 teams. One factor they measured stood out as by far the strongest differentiating factor between teams who thrived and teams who under-performed: psychological safety. Teams with high psychological safety had:

🌟 19% higher productivity

🌟 27% less attrition

🌟 3.6 times more engagement

🌟 31% more creativity and innovation

 

These numbers speak for themselves. And yet most companies don't measure psychological safety, nor do they upskill leaders with the specific competencies required to create it.

 

If psychological safety isn’t shaping your 2026 people strategy, your firm is:

💠 Treating symptoms

💠 Not addressing root causes

💠 Overspending on short-term fixes

 

Empresa Psychology measures psychological safety across teams, providing you with a map of where to focus training and support.

We then deliver specialist leadership development modules that embed behavioural competencies that support thriving teams.

 

So why does psychological safety predict so much of the variance in these commercial outcomes? Because our brain can only enter a growth and performance mindset when it senses safety. Many things trigger the threat system in the brain - deadlines, workload, ill-health, but especially social threats like conflict or fear of shame and blame. 

 

In an environment of high interpersonal threat:

🧠The frontal lobe, which is responsible for your executive functions (effective communication, problem-solving, decision making), starts to shut down

➡️ performance is impaired

🧠 The 'fight or flight' response is chronically activated, causing dampened immunity, impaired concentration and social withdrawal

➡️ sickness rises, conflicts increase, productivity and engagement decline 

 

 

 

This month we focus on what leaders and successful companies have to say about psychological safety and how it has transformed their businesses:

 

💡 This inspirational article from London Business School includes this quote, which beautifully sums up our message this month:

 

💡 This article by Lockton insurance brokerage illustrates how a psychologically unsafe environment impairs an employee's performance in ways that won't show up in engagement surveys or formal HR processes. They note that:

 

💡 So many people misunderstand psychological safety. They think it is fluffy and about feeling emotionally comfortable. They are wrong. Amy Edmondson (who coined the term) says it best, speaking to Harvard Business Review: