The most dangerous teams are the quiet teams. There are no disagreements, no bad news, no conflicts. Looks like harmony until the real incident.
That's the topic of the book The Fearless Organization: Creating Psychological Safety in the Workplace for Learning, Innovation, and Growth by Amy C. Edmondson.
Amy is a professor of Leadership and Management at the Harvard Business School. She has studied the phenomenon of psychological safety and its impact on team performance for many years across different organizations.
She defines psychological safety as follows:
a belief that one will not be punished or humiliated for speaking up with ideas, questions, concerns, or mistakes, and that the team is safe for inter-personal risk taking.
What it means in practice:
- people are not afraid to ask questions
- they do not hide problems
- they are not afraid to look stupid
- they do not avoid conflicts
- they can freely express their opinions and bring suggestions
Why does it matter?
There is a good example from the book that explains that. Imagine a doctor prescribes treatment for a child. A nurse notices that doctors usually prescribe drug A in such cases, but this time it is missing.
In a team with high psychological safety, the nurse will clarify this with the doctor and may help prevent a medical error.
In a team with low psychological safety, she may be afraid to ask. And the consequences can be dramatic.
The core idea is simple. But the book contains a lot of real stories where a low level of psychological safety leads to dramatic results (e.g. Volkswagen emission scandal, pilot mistakes that caused plane crashes). The author repeatedly highlights that the more complex and critical the profession is, the more important psychological safety becomes.
How does this relate to our daily work?
We as leaders are responsible for the psychological climate in the team: how well we listen to people, accept different opinions, react to questions, mistakes, or bad news. It's our daily routine that either helps the team become more effective, or leads people to hide problems and the real state of things.
Overall, I really liked the book. It explains the idea in simple language with many real examples. And what is important for me, all arguments and recommendations are supported by sociological research, experiments and practical psychology.
So psychological safety is not just an idea. It is a proven behavioral model and set of practices that can actually help leaders build better teams.
P.S. One of the best real examples of psychological safety is Pixar. I wrote about it earlier in overview of Creativity, Inc.: Overcoming the Unseen Forces That Stand in the Way of True Inspiration: parts 1,2,3.
#booknook #softskills #leadership