Read the qualitative responses

Scores tell you where psychological safety is thin. The qualitative questions tell you why. Every PSindex® survey asks one open-ended question per stage, and the answers appear in the survey’s report as verbatim responses.

Before you start

You need the admin role and a survey with responses in it. Verbatims are admin-only, like scores. Participants never see them.

The four questions

One question per stage of The 4 Stages of Psychological Safety™:

• Inclusion safety: What is one thing that would help you feel more included on your team?
• Learner safety: What is one thing that would make it safer for you to learn on your team?
• Contributor safety: What is one thing that would make it safer for you to contribute on your team?
• Challenger safety: What is one thing that would make it safer for you to challenge the status quo on your team?

Each answer holds up to 500 characters. The questions are translated, so respondents answer in the language they pick when they open the survey.

Read them in the report

Open the survey’s report. Verbatims appear in two places:

• The overall section shows one response at a time in large type, drawn at random. Use the shuffle button in the corner of the panel to pull the next one. It reads well out loud in a debrief.
• Each stage section has a panel for that stage’s question, with the responses laid out in columns and a count of how many are available.

In a stage panel:

1. Select Show More to expand the panel and scroll the full list.
2. Select Download All Responses to export that question’s answers as a CSV. It is one download per question.

Verbatims follow the report’s segment filters and hierarchy view, so set the view you want before you read or export. See Segment, filter, and save views.

What the panels leave out

• Answers shorter than 5 characters, and answers that just say “none”, are left out of the panels and the response counts. They carry no signal. The CSV contains everything collected for the question.
• The shuffle panel is a fixed size, so a long answer is cut at a word boundary and ends with an ellipsis. The full text is in the stage panel and the CSV.

A question marked as reworded

An information icon appears next to a qualitative question when the report contains answers collected under an earlier version of that question. Hover the icon to read the previous wording.

The report always shows the current wording of a question. The marker is what explains an answer that reads like a reply to something else.

When verbatims are hidden

A survey can have its text responses removed from its reports and exports for everyone except org admins. The control is Hide Verbatim Comments in the survey’s settings, and it is managed by LeaderFactor. To turn it on or off for a survey, contact the LeaderFactor Solutions Team at [email protected].

Handle them like scores

Verbatims are the most identifiable data a survey produces. One answer can name a person or a team. Give an export the same care you give the heatmap: scrub small segments before you circulate it, and keep the file inside your organization. See Compare surveys and export results and Read the heatmap.