Fostering Psychological Safety In The Workplace

Amy Edmondson is a management professor at Harvard Business School and has done a tremendous amount of work in the area of psychological safety.

In her Tedx Talk, she describes psychological safety as “a shared belief that the team is safe for interpersonal risk taking.” Psychological safety is a critical yet often overlooked concept, and one which underpins Edmondson’s latest book, The Fearless Organization – Creating Psychological Safety in the Workplace for Learning, Innovation, and Growth.

Psychological safety is not a personality difference but rather a feature of the workplace that leaders can and must help create.

Most companies do not pay adequate attention to the need for psychological safety to help people cope with the uncertainty and anxiety of organizational change. Psychological safety at any company is vital for helping people overcome the defensiveness and “learning anxiety” they face at work, especially when something doesn’t go as they’d hoped or expected.

Being able to say that you don’t know and driving participation through inquiry are two strong tenets of psychological safety.

Amy Edmondson shares some rules of thumb for asking a good question: One, you don’t know the answer; two, you ask questions that don’t limit responses to Yes or No, and three, you phrase the question in a way that helps others share their thinking in a focused way.