The model
The Safety Staircase
Five steps from shared task to effect
Better results, greater wellbeing and stronger learning come from how we set the work up, so that we actually use each other’s experience, knowledge and attention.
Most organisations go wrong by skipping steps 1 and 2 and going straight to dialogue, involvement and feedback. It is like building a house without a foundation.
The Task Effect
Safety rises when the task becomes clear. Not the other way around. Christian calls this the Task Effect, and it is why the Staircase starts with the task and not with the feelings.
A model for collaboration
The Staircase is not a leadership checklist. It is for anyone who works with other people, and it fits almost anything you work on together: a project group, a management team, a shift, a board, a merger, a cross-functional task force.
It combines two things that are usually treated separately. Structure: how the work is set up, who does what, how you decide. Behaviour: how you respond to each other when something difficult is said. Neither works without the other.
A tool kit tells you what to reach for. A staircase tells you whether you are ready for the next step.
What the Staircase leads to
- Better results
- Greater wellbeing
- Stronger learning
The Psychological Safety Staircase is built on more than 15,000 responses from over 170 organisations, collected in practice since 2014, and on Amy Edmondson’s research. Christian Ørsted is the Danish editor of The Fearless Organization and wrote its foreword. Steps 1 and 5 are his own, and so are the tests between the steps. More on the relationship to Edmondson’s work.
The data shows a clear pattern: 47 per cent of teams are helpful but silent. Helping each other scores 5.7 out of 7. Talking openly about what is difficult scores 4.9. This is not a courage problem. It is a task problem. People do not know what the difficult thing is that they are supposed to say out loud, because the task was never defined clearly enough.
That is why the Staircase begins with the task, not with the feelings. The steps build on each other, and between each one stands a test that shows whether you are ready for the next. Click a step to see what it consists of.
1Define the task›
Psychological safety does not start with psychology. It starts with the task. Before dialogue makes any sense, everyone has to see the same picture of what you are in this together for, and why.
1ADescribe the situation as it is
A shared understanding of where you actually are, so the team sees the same picture and can act on it together. Not the situation as we hope it is.
1BMake the purpose explicit
Why the task matters and what it makes a difference to. The because that gives the work direction.
1CSpell out the standard
What done well means here. Criteria and requirements everyone can hold the work up against.
The test for step 2: The Recognition Test
Does the task describe reality as it looks to the people who have to do it? Not as we hope it is, and not as it looks from the top. If no, go back to the description. The task is not shared yet.
2Agree the frame›
The frame is not what is written on the poster. It is what is actually done and tolerated. A good frame is understood, it is held to, and it supports getting the work done, sharing what you know and working together.
2ARoles and responsibility
Who does what, including when things go wrong. Clarity about responsibility is what makes it safe to act.
2BHow you work
Decision processes and deliverables. How you work, decide and deliver together.
2CNorms and ground rules
The norms that actually apply day to day, and that the team is willing to hold each other to.
The test for step 3: The Back-Brief
Can you hear that the frame landed? Ask for it back, and let the team play the task and the frame back to you in their own words. What comes back is what landed. If you hear something other than what you said, the team did not mishear. The briefing needs doing again. Back to steps 1 and 2.
3Invite participation›
Participation is mostly about the quality of the relationships, not just about asking questions. This is where courses and team days usually begin. It works, but only on top of the foundation from steps 1 and 2.
3AStructure for contribution
Design turn-taking and check-in rounds so everyone gets heard. Online, use the chat deliberately.
3BCuriosity and perspectives
Go after what you do not know. Challenge the harmony, and invite the critical voices in.
3CBalance of airtime and involvement
Contribution is action and responsibility too, not only words. Involvement commits both ways.
The test for step 4: The Insight Test
Does what matters come out, and are you any wiser for it? Are the decisions better, and can you act on them? It is not enough that something difficult gets said. If no, the invitation is not real yet, or the room has been designed so that people talk without anyone learning anything. Back to the structure for contribution and to the frame.
4Respond constructively›
This is where it most often goes wrong. A destructive response shuts things down faster than people think, and it is the response to the difficult thing that decides whether anyone says it again.
4AAcknowledge and build on it
The contribution has to be met, so it is obvious it was heard. Destigmatise mistakes, and build on what gets brought in.
4BHandle problems with dignity and respect
Undramatic, expected and dignified. Watch the micro-behaviour. That is what people read.
4CRepair and protect the relationships
The kintsugi principle: relationships that have been properly repaired are stronger than those never put to the test.
The test for step 5: The Three Responses
Was it acknowledged, handled and repaired? The response has to make the collaboration more robust, not settle the account. Acknowledgement without handling is politeness. Handling without repair leaves a bill that gets paid later. If no, it is the response that needs practising.
5Make it last›
The aim: you should be able to do more next time, and still be able to sustain it.
5AMake progress visible
So it can be used instead of just disappearing. If the gain never becomes visible, nobody keeps it up.
5BBuild capacity
Including the ability to form new collaborations quickly. Capacity is an ability, not a routine.
5CProtect your ability to keep going
As a team, as an organisation and as people. Capacity is built in the relationships, and wanting to continue together is the condition for results and capacity arriving in more than one round.
The test back to step 1: The Teaming Test
Can you do more now than you could before? Can you set up a new collaboration faster than last time, including with people you have not worked with before? Or did this round weaken the collaboration and your belief in what you can do together? If no, the capacity sat in that particular constellation, not in you. The Staircase is self-correcting: if momentum drops, go back to the task and the frame.
The model is built on more than 15,000 responses about psychological safety from over 170 measurements, collected in practice since 2014.
On the relationship to Amy Edmondson’s work
Steps 2, 3 and 4 build on Amy Edmondson’s leader’s tool kit: setting the stage, inviting participation and responding productively. Christian Ørsted has changed both what is inside them and who they are for. Her tool kit describes what a leader does. His describes what a group does together.
Framing the work and making the purpose explicit sit inside her first category. Here they become a step of their own, because the measurement data kept pointing to that as the place where collaboration breaks down. Step 2 then covers roles and responsibility, ways of working and ground rules, which her tool kit does not address. And responding constructively adds repair, which is not part of her framework.
Steps 1 and 5 are his own, and so are the tests between the steps. Where a tool kit gives you things to reach for, the Staircase adds sequence and dependency: each step rests on the one below it, and a test tells you whether you are ready to move up.
Amy C. Edmondson, The Fearless Organization, Wiley, 2019. Christian Ørsted is the Danish editor of the book and wrote its foreword, and has taught alongside Edmondson in Denmark and abroad.
Want to work through the five steps?
The Staircase is the core of the keynote and the workshop Psychological Safety in Practice, and it can be combined with a measurement of your own team. Call or text +45 23 90 27 00, or write to cor@christianorsted.com.