In my previous post I introduced the concept of Adaptive Safety.
Adaptive Safety is the shared capability of a team to continuously create conditions of trust, connection, and inclusion – adjusting together as contexts and challenges evolve. It frames safety as an ongoing, adaptive process, not a fixed state, and recognises that teams must keep re-creating the conditions for safety as their environment shifts.
How does Adaptive Safety enable teams to gain a competitive advantage?
Adaptive Safety integrates the personal aspects of psychological safety with the collective dimensions of cultural safety and inclusion. So, while psychological safety asks whether someone feels safe to speak up or take risks, Adaptive Safety emphasises the team’s ongoing ability to generate and sustain trust, connection and inclusion in changing conditions.
Adaptive Safety is the holy grail of organisational culture and performance. This is because nine of the core drivers of high-performing cultures are either enabled or constrained by the levels of Adaptive Safety present.
1. Coaching as a pathway for development
For coaching to truly foster growth, it must be built on a foundation of Adaptive Safety. Trust and respect between coach and coachee develop only when the environment supports openness and vulnerability. Feedback, whether affirming or challenging, is vital to progress, but without sufficient Adaptive Safety, it can easily be perceived as criticism, threat, or judgment. In such conditions, its value is diminished and its potential to translate into meaningful performance improvement is lost.
2. Innovation
Cultures that are adaptively safe allow innovation and creativity to be championed, even though there may not always be a guarantee of success. True innovation requires the courage to explore territories that are yet to be traversed. Driven by a desire for excellence, and a mantra of, ‘What if?’ innovative teams can experiment with new approaches to business and performance knowing that, for every ground-breaking innovation, there may well be numerous failures. This can only happen in an environment where people feel safe to try new things, to take a risk, and have the freedom to fail, knowing that they will not be belittled or reprimanded because the culture recognises that each risk is taken on behalf of the whole team.
3. A culture of shared accountability
Having uncomfortable conversations about cultural, performance, and behavioural expectations is a critical competency for driving optimal performance. In adaptively safe environments, feedback is seen as developmental rather than personal, as a vehicle for connection, rather than a tool for confrontation; this makes accountability collective rather than divisive.
4. Collaboration and teamwork
When there is greater Adaptive Safety, team members are able to speak freely and take moderate risks both strategically and in terms of their relationships. Adaptive Safety means that interpersonal conflicts and tensions get proactively addressed and resolved, rather than them going underground and manifesting as silo-ing or passive-aggressive behaviours.
5. Attracting and retaining talent
More and more, what potential employees are looking for in an employer of choice is a culture of Adaptive Safety. Furthermore, organisations with higher levels of Adaptive Safety have better retention of talent. Consequently, team stability is enhanced, fostering stronger trust and connection, minimising the costs of recruitment and onboarding, and safeguarding the retention of industry-specific expertise and intellectual property.
6. Discretionary effort
Adaptive Safety drives engagement, and engagement drives effort beyond the minimum required. This “extra mile” – also known as discretionary effort, can account for up to 30% higher output compared to disengaged team members. Adaptively safe environments unlock this hidden capacity by enabling people to care more deeply about their work and their teammates.
7. Composure and decision-making under pressure
In unsafe environments, perceived threats activate the amygdala’s fight-or-flight response, shutting down the prefrontal cortex – the part of the brain responsible for executive functioning, emotional regulation and decision-making. By contrast, adaptively safe cultures lower perceived threat, enabling teams to remain calm, composed, and capable of making better decisions, especially under pressure, when it matters most. For more on this see here.
8. “Exploitative” Learning
High-performing teams and organisations don’t just learn from mistakes – they learn fast, and they learn deep. I call this exploitative learning. While the term “exploitative” can sound negative, in this context it refers to a team’s ability to extract every possible insight from an experience. This kind of learning ensures that lessons are embedded, applied, and that the same mistakes are far less likely to recur. However, the capacity for exploitative learning is directly correlated to the level of Adaptive Safety within the team. When Adaptive Safety is low, the honesty, vulnerability, and accountability required for deep learning can’t be sustained, causing the process to derail just as a crucial breakthrough is within reach.
9. Inclusion and belonging
Unconscious bias, discrimination and exclusion erode team cohesion, and therefore performance. These dynamics are complicated, often subtle and confronting to address. So, attempting to address these in less adaptively safe environments will usually only exacerbate the problem. In adaptively safe environments, however, people can have constructive conversations in order to foster genuine inclusion and create deep belonging.
Adaptive Safety should be seen as a capability – a kind of cultural muscle that strengthens through consistent practice and reinforcement. Because it underpins so many drivers of performance, the competitive advantage an organisation or team gains will be directly proportional to the strategic priority they place on developing it. This requires more than a one-off workshop or a pre-season briefing; it demands intertwining Adaptive Safety into daily conversations, decisions, and interactions. Its true potential to elevate performance emerges when it is integrated seamlessly with the tasks and behaviours that drive core business.