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Comment by aarghh | Hacker News Reader

Indeed - what I enjoyed and got out of this article is a fairly easy correlation to what separated good teams that I have been on from bad ones. I had classified the difference as "camaraderie" - but the idea of psychological safety is a little more useful. Camaraderie is the superficial outcome, while psychological safety is the enabler.

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I call it "respect." If people on the team don't feel respected, they won't feel "psychologically safe," no matter how many rules you put down.

And if the leader of the team doesn't respect a member, he won't listen to the member, no matter how long the member gets to talk.

Psychological safety is the modern euphemism for what used to be called "culture fit".

Not really, one term is the popular term the other one is a term from behavioral psychology. So they describe the same phenomenon but by different people.

Someone could fit very nicely into a given working culture despite that culture not being 'psychologically safe' by the author's definition. They are not the same concept.

Is fitting in or the ability to fit in the same as a good cultural fit?

Never the less, one of the terms is from psychology, one of the terms is from pop culture and may not overlap completely

On the contrary. Culture fit is a pretty normative term: It says to me, we act like THIS at this company, and we're looking for more people who act like THIS. It's pretty explicitly anti-diversity, and speaks to a search for cultural homogeneity.

Psychological safety is less normative: It's about being in a space where it's safe to voice an opinion, and feel that you're heard and valued for your contributions. It's a term that can apply in a very culturally diverse team.

Maybe in theory, but in practice? Either the team has a shared culture of open-mindedness, or a culturally diverse team will have opinions which are held by some and taboo for others. Either way, you need a common culture, even if it's fairly broad and flexible.

Why would an open-minded team enforce conformity (via 'cultural fit')?

Open-mindedness is a culture trait in itself. Few people feel comfortable in an environment where nothing is off-limits.

> Why would an open-minded team enforce conformity (via 'cultural fit')?

Because being open-minded is their enforced conformity.

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