Measure: PS Survey Tool
A free measurement instrument built on the argument that a survey is an intervention rather than a thermometer: observing changes what is observed, people cannot always explain their own silence, and a score locates where to look without saying what is happening or what to do about it. Three commitments separate it from most instruments in the field. It reports distributions rather than averages, on the reasoning that a team answering 3, 3, 3, 3 and a team answering 1, 2, 4, 5 share a mean and need opposite conversations, and that a team can only be as safe as its least safe member, so every report shows the spread, the lowest answer and the disagreement between colleagues, never a mean as the headline. It refuses benchmarking outright: no percentiles, no comparison with other teams, on the grounds that comparison converts a conversation-starter into a target and invites competition, complacency, anxiety and gaming in turn. And it treats anonymity as architecture rather than promise: no name, email, account or IP address; answers stored with a date but never a time, so a response cannot be correlated with who was at their desk; results sealed until the survey closes and at least four people have answered, then released once to everyone together; comments returned shuffled and detached from the answers their author gave. The question design follows the calculus of voice. Speaking up is measured directly as the outcome, since it is the behaviour psychological safety enables, while belonging, cohesion, transparency, learning and innovation are treated as the conditions that make speaking cheap or expensive. Low scores trigger questions about mechanism, distinguishing ambiguity (not being able to predict how speaking would land) from consequence (predicting it accurately and finding the cost too high) from futility (predicting it accurately and expecting nothing to change), on the basis that each calls for a different response. The power gradient is measured directly, as the degree to which what is sayable depends on who is in the room, without asking anyone to disclose their own position, and not knowing why one holds back is accepted as a real answer rather than a missing one. The instrument states its own limits plainly, which is the least common feature of tools in this space. The question bank is adapted from Edmondson's The Fearless Organization (2018) with additional sensemaking items, and adaptation is precisely what destroys validation, so anyone needing research-grade scores comparable across teams and studies is directed to Edmondson's original seven-item scale unmodified, with adaptation reserved for intervention in a single team where fit to context matters more than comparability. It also names when not to survey at all: short-lived teams that have not been together long enough to answer honestly, teams below about six people where anonymity becomes arithmetic rather than architecture, and teams in acute conflict expecting a survey to resolve it. Currently a soft-launch preview.
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