The Fearless Organization

About the Author

Amy C. Edmondson is a leadership, teaming, and organizational learning scholar. She is currently the Novartis Professor of Leadership and Management at the Harvard Business School. She has written seven books and over 75 articles on the dynamic forms of collaboration needed in work environments characterized by uncertainty and ambiguity. She is best known for her pioneering work on psychological safety in the context of structural dynamics, teamwork, and innovation.

Edmondson earned a Ph.D. in organizational behavior, a Masters’ degree in psychology and a Bachelors’ degree in engineering and design from Harvard university. Before working at Harvard, she was Director of Research at Pecos River Learning Centers. She was also Chief Engineer for architect/inventor Buckminster Fuller.

In 2019, Edmondson was selected the most influential thinker in Human Resources by HR Magazine. She is also currently ranked #1 on the Thinkers 50 list.

Sources: Wikipedia and “About the Author” section of the book

Our one-sentence book summary

In modern times, knowledge workers need to collaborate to drive organizational success, and without psychological safety, such collaboration is compromised, as fear and silence overtake productivity.

Publisher’s Summary

“Written for leaders and teams, The Fearless Organization is a practical guide for creating cultures where knowledge and innovation flourish as people feel safe to contribute their ideas.

While many companies are investing in talent to compete in today’s knowledge economy, the best talent is wasted if people are not able to speak up. The human instinct to “fit in” and “go along” works against the continuous flow of new ideas, new solutions, and critical thought necessary for companies to innovate. While not every idea will hit a home run, an organization’s culture must not suppress, silence, ridicule or intimidate.

Based on 20 years of research, this book helps companies tackle the people side of the innovation equation to create workplaces that are safe, fearless, and empowered to win with unbridled ideas.

The Fearless Organization offers a step-by-step framework for establishing a level of psychological safety within a team and an organization. It is filled with examples and provides a clear path forward for implementing a culture that thrives on the free expression of ideas and engagement.

The Fearless Organization can give leaders the confidence they need to unleash individual and collective talent and create the type of work environments that helps everyone succeed and their organizations to thrive.”

Source: Book Jacket

Detailed Summary

Introduction:

• The work environment now requires that people collaborate and put their minds together to solve problems. Organizations create value through the talent of teams, but they need to make sure their abilities are put to the highest use.
• The goal of this book is to shed light on the dynamics of a healthy work environment and to provide insights into strategies that make organizations work better.
  • It isn’t enough to hire the best, smartest people. The workplace must be a place where people feel comfortable sharing their knowledge, asking questions, and sharing concerns.
• In her research, Edmondson continually proves that psychological safety is essential for any form of workplace, from hospitals to government agencies to financial institutions, to improve performance.
• Teaming refers to dynamic collaborations that require communication and coordination across the distinct roles each employee may have within an organization. In a psychologically safe space, people are not intimidated. There’s no fear of embarrassment or retribution, as people feel comfortable being themselves and sharing mistakes or concerns.
• This book is divided into three parts:
  • Part one covers the concept of psychological safety, offering a brief history of how it was discovered and investigated.
  • Part two describes real-life case studies of organizations that benefited from psychological safety, comparing them to others in which its absence negatively impacted their performance.
  • Part three describes what leaders can do to create this type of atmosphere.
• In an era in which not one worker can do all that’s required to finish up any type of work, people need to speak up, share information, contribute, take risks, and collaborate. A healthy dynamic like this will only occur in places where fear does not limit ability.
• Leaders need to learn to create environments that boost learning, innovation, and growth.

Part I – The Power of Psychological Safety

Chapter 1: The Underpinning

• When we feel intimidated in the work environment and hesitate to speak up, we make a quick, not necessarily conscious, risk calculation – this is called interpersonal risk. E.g., we weigh the risk of being yelled at against the risk of a negative outcome.
  • Discounting the future happens when we underweight that risk because it will take some time to happen and overweigh our boss’s immediate response.
  • This tendency leads to a prevalence of unhelpful and unhealthy behaviors, typical of an environment that lacks psychological safety. Avoiding behaviors that might lead others to think less of us is second nature in many organizations.
• Fear is not an effective motivator. Employees are no longer assembly line workers rewarded based on speed. Now, we need thinking and collaboration, two factors inhibited by fear.
• In a psychologically safe environment, there’s trust and respect. Companies grow and employees learn because people are motivated to give and receive feedback, raise different points of view, and admit problems. There’s respect but candid communication.
• Edmondson accidentally discovered psychological safety when performing her Ph.D. dissertation. She observed hospital teams and found what appeared like a contradiction: better teams were making more mistakes. Upon further investigation, she discovered they weren’t making more mistakes; they were reporting more mistakes. She found that the better the dynamic, the more comfortable the team felt with talking about mistakes.
• Since her dissertation, she has continued to study psychological safety and continues to find the same tendency in many industry settings. Over the years she has expanded on her research and determined that leaders play a key role in setting such an environment.
• Because more and more professionals are now talking about psychological safety, Edmonson clarifies common misconceptions:
  • Psychological safety is not about being nice or unconditionally supportive. It’s about candor, willingness to engage, manage conflict, and learning.
  • Psychological safety is not a personality trait. It’s not synonymous with extroversion. It’s a climate that affects all types of personalities.
  • Psychological safety is not another term for trust. We can only experience it at a group level. Trust is among two individuals.
  • Psychological safety is not lowering or relaxing performance standards. The table below describes how psychological safety relates to performance standards. 

Source: The Fearless Organization p. 18

• Psychological safety, while essential, is not all you need for high performance. “[I]t takes off the brakes that keep people from achieving… but does not fuel the car” (p.21).
• Leaders have two vital tasks. They must build psychological safety. And they must set high standards and inspire and enable people to reach them.

Chapter 2: The Paper Trail

• Psychological safety is a leader’s responsibility. As a CEO, a big fear should be people not telling you the truth, as their observations, questions, ideas, etc. all provide vital information.
• With an increase in the recognition of psychological safety, there has also been an increase in research demonstrating the effectiveness of psychological safety. The following are five main categories in which Edmondson classified and organized such research findings.

1. 1. An Epidemic of Silence. This category encompasses research on the effects of a lack of psychological safety in the workplace.

• • • We’ve all had an experience at work in which we did not ask the question we wanted to ask or kept silent instead of sharing an idea. Studies have shown this is a particularly common tendency in organizations.
    • The problem with silence is that no one gains anything from it. Most people who remain silent regret it, and the company is deprived of improvement opportunities.
    • Some of the reasons why people remain silent include fear of being seen in a bad light, not wanting to embarrass or upset someone else, a sense that it won’t matter anyway, fear of damaging work relationships, lack of confidence, and self-protection. These beliefs shouldn’t be present in a fearless organization.

1. 2. A Work Environment that Supports Learning. This group represents all the relationships that have been found between psychological safety and learning.

• • • Psychological safety can exist in any organization. When it does, people speak up, share ideas, report errors, and learn. People learn from their mistakes and improve. They also feel comfortable asking for help.
    • Psychological safety has been found to reduce workarounds – the tendency to take shortcuts and solve issues silently, without considering the effect a solution might have on others. It achieves short-term goals but doesn’t solve the main problem.
      • E.g., a nurse might find that she has a shortage of linens in her unit, so she borrows some from another unit instead of speaking up. She leaves the other unit with a shortage and leaders blind to the problem that created the shortage in the first place.
    • Psychological safety also increases confidence. People are less likely to share their ideas if they don’t think they are extremely valuable. In a safe environment, confidence increases, and people share ideas, even if they’re not 100% sure of their value.

1. 3. Psychological Safety and Performance. This category covers the research finding relationships between psychological safety and performance.

• • • As more tasks in today’s work environment require judgment, communication, and coping with uncertainty, intelligence alone is not enough to predict performance.
    • Project Aristotle (a study of team dynamics at Google) found that psychological safety was the best predictor of performance. It was also the underpinning of all the other factors they found played a significant role: clear goals, dependable colleagues, meaningful work, and the belief that their effort has an impact.

1. 4. Psychologically Safe Employees. In this classification, Edmonson covers the research that found relationships between psychological safety and employee engagement.

• • • Engagement refers to the extent an employee feels passionate and committed to the job and organization. Engagement is more important than satisfaction.

1. 5. Psychological Safety as the Extra Ingredient. This group encompasses studies that show how psychological safety modifies other typical relationships (e.g., psychological safety strengthens the relationship between expertise and performance).

• • • Psychological safety helps teams overcome geographic dispersion, manage conflict (putting it to good use – as a learning experience), and leverage diversity.

Part II – Psychological Safety at Work 

Chapter 3: Avoidable Failure

• Volkswagen (VW) was the center of a scandal when it was discovered that the emissions data for their diesel engines was falsified. A group of engineers created software so that when the cars were tested for emissions in a lab (so that they could be sold in the US), only two wheels would rotate, producing lower levels of NOx than would be produced in real-world use.
  • When a group of researchers tested VW cars to compare in-lab with road emissions, the fraud came to light, impacting the company’s performance and reputation.
  • Research examining how such a failure could have been avoided found that a big part of the problem was the atmosphere in the company created by the CEO, Martin Winterkorn. Under the tutelage of the previous CEO, Ferdinand Piech, Winterkorn learned to lead by terrorizing subordinates. Piech, in turn, learned from his grandfather, Ferdinand Porsche, who imitated his hero, Henry Ford.
    • During the golden age of manufacturing, fear and intimidation were common managerial techniques. Leaders needed to motivate speed. But in modern times, fear does not work and it can lead to catastrophes.
  • With constant messages such as “If you don’t have the body fits in six weeks, I will replace all of you,” Winterkorn created a silent firm that would never inform him about problems. Even worse, by demanding unreachable goals, he urged employees to find other, less honest ways to meet his expectations.
• Wells Fargo put its employees in a similar situation. Superiors at the bank demanded higher cross-selling via an initiative called “Going for Gr-Eight.” Personnel were asked to meet unattainable target goals, were constantly being monitored, and were often fired for not selling.
  • In fear of losing their jobs, personnel resorted to opening accounts without people’s consent, lying to customers by saying that certain products could only be purchased together, and creating fake email addresses to enroll customers in online banking.
  • Wells Fargo addressed these problems with ethics training and similar strategies, but did not make any changes to the “Going for Gr-Eight” program itself. Eventually, the company was investigated and federal and state regulators discovered the fraud.
• Nokia lost the smartphone battle, in part because of a culture where people were afraid to tell the truth. In a rapidly changing, knowledge-intensive industry such as this one, Nokia would have benefited from collaboration, communication, and innovation. But, lacking a psychologically safe environment, and in a culture where everything revolved around pleasing senior management, no one felt comfortable telling them the truth: they were falling behind, they needed to improve their platforms, and they should implement touchscreens.
• The Federal Bank Reserve of New York (FBRNY) received a lot of criticism after the 2008-2009 financial crisis due to its failure to regulate the extreme financial risk-taking of the US banks. A series of interviews with people who had worked there revealed that the culture of fear not only affected the FBRNY but its relationship with the banks it was supposed to regulate. Throughout, there was a common fear of speaking up which led to regulatory capture (where regulators enact rules in favor of the regulated industry).
• These case studies demonstrate how problems like these are avoidable, at least to a degree, by having a culture where people feel comfortable talking and sharing ideas. Edmondson suggests that leaders can adopt another form of approaching strategy. If a strategy is seen as a hypothesis that needs to be continually tested, you will more easily create a culture of communication, learning, and improvement.

Chapter 4: Dangerous Silence

• Aside from business failure, low psychological safety can lead to serious harm. NASA’s Columbia space shuttle’s reentry to Earth in 2003 was catastrophic, leading to the death of seven astronauts. Before the accident, engineer Rodney Rocha noticed something was wrong, but needed satellite photos to make sure. His request for these photos was denied, as his boss thought it unnecessary and as it would require NASA to ask the Department of Defense for help.
  • A week later, in a manager and leadership meeting, when briefly discussing possibilities of a strike, Rocha, sitting on the periphery, remained silent. After the accident, when asked why he didn’t speak up, he explained that he was unable to talk. This is a very common psychological experience that happens to many employees, especially in environments where hierarchy is made extremely salient.
• A similar scenario, where silence took over, led to the collision of two Boeing 747 jets and over 500 deaths. In a small airport on the island of Tenerife, excessive fog and a bomb scare had the crew of a KLM flight stressed. However, the incident could have been avoided, had the crew felt comfortable speaking up and pushing back.
  • The captain was a widely respected pilot, with years of experience and the power to issue licenses. Despite the copilot’s and engineer’s instructions not to take off, the captain insisted, as he misunderstood the air traffic control (ATC) instructions.
  • Neither the copilot nor the engineer felt psychologically safe enough to push back or assert that ATC had not yet given clearance, nor to ask for further confirmation by asking ATC whether a Pan Am flight had cleared the runaway.
• Silence is also a problem when it arises from excessive confidence in authority. A cancer patient died at the Dana-Faber Cancer Institute because no one questioned anyone.
  • Having 30% of patients enrolled in clinical trials, staff members were used to unusual drug combinations and dosages. But when Betsy Lehman was accidentally provided four times the dosage she was supposed to receive and presented extreme, horrific side effects, eventually dying, no one questioned whether there had been a mistake.
  • Where psychological safety is lacking, it’s common for people to favor self-protection and hold back questioning, even when raising a concern clearly leads to better outcomes.
• Cassandra, in Greek mythology, was given the gift of prophecy along with the curse that no one would ever believe her. Cassandra cultures are characterized by failing to listen to those who speak up.
  • Such was the case of the 1986 Challenger explosion at NASA. Because his data was incomplete, no one listened to engineer Roger Boisjoly when he warned superiors that the cold temperatures could lead to a malfunction in the fuel tanks.
  • Similarly, in 2011, an earthquake led to a tsunami that destroyed Japan’s Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant. While the natural catastrophe was unavoidable, the nuclear plant’s destruction and its horrific consequences could have been prevented. Several Cassandra-like individuals warned officials of the possibility of such an accident. But warnings were all dismissed. Japan’s government had established such high aspirations for nuclear energy that many voices, particularly those of outsiders, were deemed invaluable.
• In the era of social media, breaking through silence becomes somewhat easier. Susan Fowler wrote a blog post that changed Uber’s reputation and hierarchy. In it, she told about how she had been sexually harassed and how HR had covered for the aggressor. She also found out she was not the only one who had been harassed by the same man or ignored by HR. After her post, many Uber employees came forward describing the unrestrained toxic work environment. Uber faced multiple lawsuits and lost several employees.
• For speaking up to become routine, psychological safety needs to be institutionalized. But that will only happen in an environment where listening is the norm.

Chapter 5: The Fearless Workplace

• Many leaders are working hard to make their workplaces a fearless organization. Pixar is particularly successful, with most of its films becoming critical triumphs. Co-founder Ed Catmull argues that candor has a lot to do with the studio’s success. Communicating honest feedback is done in an institutionalized and controlled manner – the Brainstrust.
  • During a Braintrust, directors, and storytellers watch an early version of a film and provide feedback. They’re respectful but honest. Catmull believes that polite praise is a detriment to a successful movie. Rather, he encourages constructive critiques.
  • The criticism must be about the movie and not the people. They must make suggestions and not just comments. Candid feedback must come from empathy. And teams must embrace failure as a path to success. Pixar encourages a freedom to fail to avoid people simply repeating what previously worked and failing to innovate.
• Bridgewater Associates is another company that promotes radical truth and transparency. Founder Ray Dalio created a set of Principles (now a best-selling book), in which he explains how leaders promote learning and innovation. He contends that no one can have critical opinions without sharing them. He frames silence as unethical, suggesting that while candor can be painful, only by facing the truth can the company produce good outcomes.
  • Dalio prohibits talking about other people when they are not present because they cannot learn if they don’t hear the feedback directly. While he understands that it is an innate tendency to treat conflict as a contest, his view is that no one has to win the argument, but rather, that they should embrace mistakes so that there is growth.
  • Dalio also distinguishes between debate, discussion, and teaching, and he has managers evaluate which of the three is the correct method of discourse to face any issue or problem. This differentiation helps maintain a degree of hierarchical structure without compromising psychological safety.
• Eileen Fisher founded her fashion company with little knowledge about sewing, fashion, or business. She believes her embracing her lack of knowledge allowed her to lead with vulnerability and humility, creating psychological safety in the workplace. This is a very successful company that continuously grows, is clear of financial and legal failures, and is recognized as one of the best companies to work for.
  • Fisher believes that listening is what allowed her to build such as successful brand. She argues that when people listen intently, others will naturally want to help. And, when you accept that you don’t know, people feel safe to explore and propose.
  • To institutionalize psychological safety, Fisher promotes open spaces (e.g., meetings are held in a circle to de-emphasize hierarchy), and gives permission to care (e.g., she says yes to initiatives that come from employees even if the idea was not hers, such as a clothing line entirely made of sustainable material.)
• Google X, a company that invests technology that will make the world a better place, has a very specific strategy to promote a culture where it is safe to fail. Project Foghorn was an initiative that sought to turn seawater into fuel. While the technology exists, the team wasn’t able to make the costs low enough to make the fuel commercially available. When they terminated the project, each member was given a bonus.
  • CEO Astro Teller believes that rewarding people for killing their projects is a superior economic strategy to having employees work for years on ideas that are not going to work. Having people feel free to fail encourages them to work on big, risky ideas.
  • The company focuses on finding evidence that an idea will not work so that the project can end sooner rather than later. To make sure the projects are promising ideas, the company has institutionalized processes where teams evaluate proposals and develop prototypes.
• Barry-Wehmiller developed a psychologically safe environment by focusing on employees. CEO Bob Chapman published a book called Everybody Matters. In it, he describes how success is a measure of how much his company touches the lives of his employees. E.g., during the 2007-2009 recession, instead of firing people, employees all shared a sacrifice. He had everyone take mandatory unpaid leave for four weeks at their convenience. Some employees voluntarily took more leave in exchange for those who couldn’t afford it. Barry-Wehmiller recovered easily, and by 2010, reported record financial results.
  • He developed an internal document called Guiding Principles of Leadership, where he explains how to create an environment that brings out the best in people. In it, he includes policies such as listening sessions where members speak their minds and the worker who will be affected by the decision is included in the deciding meeting.
• These companies are examples of organizations that successfully created practices and cultures that promote psychological safety.

Chapter 6: Safe and Sound

• While psychological safety helps organizations become successful, it can also improve human health, dignity, and safety. In 2009, Captain Chesley “Sully” Sullenberger and First Officer Jeffrey Skiles faced what became an extraordinary, zero-fatality experience, in great length due to fearless communication.
  • Combined bird strikes caused two airplane engine failures. Instead of panic-driven interaction, pilot and copilot each communicated effectively on their respective responsibilities. Sully and Skiles, along with Patrick Harten (air traffic controller) and the crew, successfully landed the plane in the Hudson River.
  • Unlike the KLM incident described in Ch. 4, each of these characters felt safe to express their ideas, assess interpersonal risk, communicate only essential information, and collaborate accordingly.
• DaVita Kidney Care is an organization that helps people with kidney failure. Dialysis is a very difficult experience, one in which many patients give up. It is also emotionally hard for employees to care for such patients. CEO and Chairman Kent Thiry created an organization where staff felt supported, which has resulted in patients feeling psychologically safe too.
  • This has led to an increase in the likelihood that DaVita patients comply with treatment plans.
  • DaVita created such an environment by including staff in important company decisions, giving them a voice, and providing morale-increasing conditions.
• When Anglo American, one of the world’s largest mines, appointed Cynthia Carroll as CEO, she was horrified to learn how common worker fatalities were within the company. She immediately set a new objective of zero fatalities and worked extremely hard to achieve it. At first, she faced resistance from managers who deemed her demands unrealistic. Her response was to shut down one of the most problematic mines. She wouldn’t restart it until she heard from the workers about how to improve safety.
  • Through repeated efforts, she was able to have the workers open up and provide ideas on how to improve safety. In 2008 and 2011, the company achieved the highest profits in its history. Carroll, by increasing worker safety, was able to change the mine’s environment and the overall culture. With the safety ideas eventually also came process and technical improvement suggestions.
• In 2011, during the tsunami in Japan described in Ch. 4, another power plant faced severe damage due to the waves and earthquakes. However, unlike Daiichi, thanks to the plant superintendent, Naohiro Masuda, the Fukushima Daini plant was not destroyed nor did it release nuclear material into the air and sea. Masuda managed over 500 employees through shutting down the plant’s reactors in 48 hours without sleep and under extreme uncertainty and fear.
  • At some point, Masuda realized his plan was not going to work. But he admitted his mistake and by doing so, increased psychological safety throughout. Consulting with his team and workers, they adjusted the plans and safely shut down all the reactors before the tsunami hit.

Part III – Creating a Fearless Organization

Chapter 7: Making it Happen

• When Julie Morath became the chief operating officer at Children’s Hospital and Clinics in Minneapolis, her goal was to achieve 100% patient safety. Accomplishing such a goal was complicated because of the culture in the hospital. When something went wrong, someone was to blame, and because of that, people refused to speak up or even report mistakes.
• Based on her research, Edmonson developed the Leader’s Tool Kit to help create psychological safety in a work environment. The Tool Kit has three categories:

1. Setting the Stage.
   1. Frame the Work – there are two steps here:
      • Reframe Failure – Failure is a source of valuable data, but most people will automatically seek to avoid it. Thus, leaders must make an effort to reframe failure.
        • There are different typologies of failure. Deviations such as failing to properly install an airbag in a car can be reframed as a “good catch.”
        • Failure in the context of research and innovation can be celebrated as an integral part of the road to success.
      • Clarify the Need for a Voice – Emphasize uncertainty to remind people about the importance of being curious and staying alert. Focus on the role of interdependence to let people know their actions affect those of others, and point to the importance of communication. Constantly remind people about the stakes at play (e.g., passenger safety on an airline flight) to reduce the perceived interpersonal risk in speaking up and increase the chances that someone will do so, even when it may be uncomfortable.
      • Going back to the example, to alter the tendency to blame others (rather than a flaw in the system), Morath began talking about how complex the hospital system is. She also changed terms such as “investigation” into “study,” and “error” to “accident.” By doing this, she reframed the work.
   2. Emphasize Purpose to motivate purpose. Remind people why their work matters. Anyone can get tired, distracted, or frustrated. These sentiments make you lose sight of the larger picture, but leaders should often remind teams of their importance and clarify the rationale for their work.
      • Morath emphasized the urgency of the 100% patient safety goal. She reminded workers why they went into healthcare: to save lives. In doing so, she motivated people to do the work of reporting and analyzing ways to prevent harm.
2. Inviting Participation.
   1. Demonstrate Situational Humility – A mindset of learning, curiosity, and humility will mitigate the risk of people staying silent. Remember that humility and confidence are not opposites. Leaders who express humility will have more engaged teams. Edmondson found three qualities of inclusive leadership:
      • Approachability and accessibility,
      • Fallibility acknowledgment, and
      • Proactive invitation of others’ input
   2. Practice Inquiry is purposeful probing with the goal of learning. It requires genuine interest and curiosity. Questions must convey interest and respect. Contrary to popular belief, leaders who ask questions aren’t perceived as weak but rather wise.
      • At first, the hospital employees’ reaction was to hold on to the belief that nothing was really wrong. So Morath, instead started asking, “Was everything as safe as you would like it to have been this week with your patients?” She invited people to think.
   3. Set Up Structure and Processes where employees can feel safe sharing input.
      • To ensure that voices were heard, Morath developed a committee in charge of leading an initiative that introduced blameless reporting. She also held focus groups to make it easier for people to express their concerns.
3. Responding Productively.
   1. Express Appreciation – It doesn’t matter whether as a leader you think the suggestion was good or bad. The initial response must be to thank the person for bringing up the issue. Then you can teach if necessary. But you must provide a reward in a tone of appreciation for people to feel comfortable again in the future.
   2. Destigmatize Failure – Always voice and reinforce the idea that failure is necessary to learn. Failure is natural, an opportunity to learn and share lessons, and it promotes growth and innovation. Also, open up discussions.
      • Morath instituted the Focused Event Analysis (FEA), a disciplined exploration of how an event was perceived from different viewpoints, to identify what contributed to the event and to improve the system.
   3. Sanction Clear Violations – There will be instances in which you’ll have to fire someone. This won’t affect the sense of psychological safety if the person clearly violated a rule, company policy, or value, or if they put themselves or others at risk. Psychological safety can be reinforced by fair responses to threatening behavior.

Chapter 8: What’s Next?

• Leaders can create fearless organizations by designing systems that engage people in conversation. It isn’t easy, but company cultures can change for good:
  • Nokia made a comeback. Instead of cellphones, it focused on manufacturing equipment and software, among others. This shift was a result of a change in their Board’s way of doing things. They established rules for discussion and included basic norms of psychological safety so that everyone’s voices would be heard.
  • NASA also implemented workshops that focused on teaching every employee and leader about the importance of speaking up and listening. They implemented several strategies to alter NASA’s culture.
  • Uber changed its CEO. Dara Khosrowshahi completely shifted the company’s values and included all employees in the process, altering its overall atmosphere.
• Some FAQs about psychological safety include:

1. 1. Can you have too much psychological safety? No, but you could lack discipline. Psychological safety reduces interpersonal fear, but you still need to work on all other aspects of a healthy organization.
   2. Won’t having psychological safety in the workplace take too much time? Used correctly, psychological safety can save time and become a source of efficiency. It takes effort to establish strategies that work, but once they do, you’ll end up saving time.
   3. Do we have to be transparent about everything? That psychological safety can’t be too high doesn’t mean that transparency is always better. It may depend on the industry, but there are instances in which extreme transparency can backfire – such as commenting on another person’s attire.
   4. I am not the boss. Is there anything I can do to promote psychological safety? You can start by asking good questions. Listen actively. And remind people of their purpose.
   5. What’s the relationship between psychological safety and diversity? In a psychologically safe environment, inclusion and belonging are inherently characteristic.
   6. Is psychological safety about whistle-blowing? You are not reporting mistakes to external authorities or the press. In a healthy organizational culture, you are voicing concerns and thoughts with teammates and leaders.
   7. What about the successful companies that are run by arrogant dictators? Several factors, including luck, can explain their success. But we also don’t know what would have happened and how much further they would have gotten had these companies had psychological safety. Steve Jobs is an example of the rare case of a genius at the helm who was successful despite his leadership style.
   8. Help! My colleague is bringing his true self to work and it’s driving me crazy. In a psychologically safe environment, you should be able to provide your colleague with some feedback. If they aren’t being helpful, they need to know.
   9. Help! I am being myself and no one likes me anymore. Consider this as a learning opportunity and ask for feedback.
   10. What advice can you give to people who report to bosses who won’t change? Edmondson recommends curiosity, compassion, and commitment. Create your own team. Don’t always look up. You can have psychological safety within your team.
   11. Can anyone learn to be a successful leader? Yes, most people can. It will be harder for some than for others. And those with narcissistic tendencies or borderline personality disorders might have even more difficulty.
   12. What about cross-cultural differences? Some cultures have more “power distance,” such as Japan, but it can be done. Toyota did it. It’s not easy, but it is doable.

• Creating psychological safety is a constant process. It entails continual corrections, whether large or small, that all add up to progress.