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PSYCHOLOGICAL SAFETY

“It's not psychological safety if people can only voice what you want to hear. The goal is not to be comfortable. It's to create a climate where people can speak up without fear. Psychological safety begins with admitting our own mistakes and welcoming criticism from others.” - Adam Grant, Organizational psychologist at Wharton, #1 NYT bestselling author of THINK AGAIN, and host of the TED podcast WorkLife



A book by Amy C. Edmondson, November 20, 2018

The Fearless Organization: Creating Psychological Safety in the Workplace for Learning, Innovation, and Growth (write-up by Amazon) offers practical guidance for teams and organizations who are serious about success in the modern economy. With so much riding on innovation, creativity, and spark, it is essential to attract and retain quality talent—but what good does this talent do if no one is able to speak their mind? The traditional culture of "fitting in" and "going along" spells doom in the knowledge economy. Success requires a continuous influx of new ideas, new challenges, and critical thought, and the interpersonal climate must not suppress, silence, ridicule or intimidate. Not every idea is good, and yes there are stupid questions, and yes dissent can slow things down, but talking through these things is an essential part of the creative process. People must be allowed to voice half-finished thoughts, ask questions from left field, and brainstorm out loud; it creates a culture in which a minor flub or momentary lapse is no big deal, and where actual mistakes are owned and corrected, and where the next left-field idea could be the next big thing. 

This book explores this culture of psychological safety, and provides a blueprint for bringing it to life. The road is sometimes bumpy, but succinct and informative scenario-based explanations provide a clear path forward to constant learning and healthy innovation.

  • Explore the link between psychological safety and high performance
  • Create a culture where it’s “safe” to express ideas, ask questions, and admit mistakes
  • Nurture the level of engagement and candor required in today’s knowledge economy
  • Follow a step-by-step framework for establishing psychological safety in your team or organization

Shed the "yes-men" approach and step into real performance. Fertilize creativity, clarify goals, achieve accountability, redefine leadership, and much more. The Fearless Organization helps you bring about this most critical transformation.



A Psychological Safety "How to do it" easy to follow diagram by Tanmay Vora who facilitates leadership, learning and change capability through visual learning tools.




This holds true for workplace harassment whether it is of a personal and/or Human Rights nature or a sexual nature.  Employees must feel free to identify and report their harassment early and without recrimination. Workplaces must implement air-tight harassment policies which need to be effectively communicated to all managers and employees, training on workplace harassment prevention must be given to each and every manager and employee, systems and procedures need to be implement for creating a safe, clear, uncomplicated, and confidential path for reporting all harassment including sexual harassment, with prompt and efficient investigation, and recommended actions taken and communicated to both the victim and the harasser.

Workplaces need to be unwavering in holding managers and employees accountable in workplace harassment prevention right from the outset.

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