Sociotechnical Theory – Psychological Safety

Sociotechnical theory views organisations as complex adaptive systems that consider both social/human factors and technical/technological factors as interdependent:

• It emerged in response to views that dismissed human factors and saw technology as the main driver of productivity.
• Joint optimisation is a key idea where optimising one subsystem likely degrades overall system performance.
• organisational change will fail if it focuses only on social or technical in isolation.
• Human values are a core part of sociotechnical theory and enhancing psychological safety optimises the social system.
• Albert Cherns outlined nine/ten sociotechnical design principles as a checklist for organisational change.
• The “forth bridge principle” emphasises that organisational transition is ongoing rather than reaching a stable end state.
• Fear-based management that keeps employees on the edge of losing their jobs often backfires and leads to high turnover.
• Data practices need to help shape meaning and reality rather than just describing the world.