The Fearless Organization: Creating Psychological Safety in the Workplace for Learning, Innovation, and Growth

by Amy C. Edmondson

In psychologically safe workplaces, people know they might fail, they might receive performance feedback that says they're not meeting expectations, and they might lose their jobs due to changes in the industry environment or even to a lack of competence in their role. These attributes of the modern workplace are unlikely to disappear anytime soon. But in a psychologically safe workplace, people are not hindered by interpersonal fear. They feel willing and able to take the inherent interpersonal risks of candor. They fear holding back their full participation more than they fear sharing a potentially sensitive, threatening, or wrong idea. The fearless organization is one in which interpersonal fear is minimized so that team and organizational performance can be maximized in a knowledge intensive world. It is not one devoid of anxiety about the future!

interdependent environment. Figure 1.1 How Psychological Safety Relates to Performance Standards.18

Another way to think about the voice-silence asymmetry is captured in the phrase “no one was ever fired for silence.” The instinct to play it safe is powerful.

Many who analyze events leading up to tragic accidents such as this one-which could have been avoided had the junior officer spoken up-cannot help pointing out that people should demonstrate a bit more backbone. Courage. It is impossible to disagree with this assertion. Nonetheless, agreeing doesn't make it effective. Exhorting people to speak up because it's the right thing to do relies on an ethical argument but is

not a strategy for ensuring good outcomes. Insisting on acts of courage puts the onus on individuals without creating the conditions where the expectation is likely to be met.

most notably, in what Pixar calls its “Braintrust.” A small group that meets every few months or so to assess a movie in process, provide candid feedback to the director, and help solve creative problems, the Braintrust was launched in 1999, when Pixar was rushing to save Toy Story 2, which had gone off the rails. The Braintrust's recipe is fairly simple: a group of directors and storytellers watches an early run of the movie together, eats lunch together, and then provides feedback to the director about what they think worked and what did not. But the recipe's key ingredient is candor. And candor, though simple, is never easy.

Pixar's Braintrust has rules. First, feedback must be constructive – and about the project, not the person. Similarly, the filmmaker cannot be defensive or take criticism personally and must be ready to hear the truth. Second, the comments are suggestions, not prescriptions. There are no mandates, top-down or otherwise; the director is ultimately the one responsible for the movie and can take or leave solutions offered. Third, candid feedback is not a “gotcha” but must come from a place of empathy. It helps that the directors have often already gone through the process themselves. Praise and appreciation, especially for the director's vision and ambition, are doled out in heaping measures.

People sit in a circle, with the intention of de-emphasizing hierarchies and instead encouraging what's called “a leader in every chair.”34 To create the mindfulness and focus conducive to an environment where everyone collaborates and contributes, meetings begin with a minute of silence. Sometimes an object, such as a gourd, is passed from person to person; the idea is the person is allowed and expected to speak when the object is in hand.35

The company was Google X, an invention and innovation lab that operates as an independent entity within Google's parent company, Alphabet. The mission of X, as it's come to be called, is to launch “moonshot” technologies that will make the world a better place.44

Teller explained in his 2016 TED talk why and how X “make[s] it safe to fail.”

You cannot yell at people and force them to fail fast. People resist. They worry. “What will happen to me if I fail? Will people laugh at me? Will I be fired?…The only way to get people to work on big, risky things – audacious ideas – and have them run at all the hardest parts of the problem first is if you make that the path of least resistance for them. We work hard at X to make it safe to fail. Teams kill their ideas as soon as the evidence is on the table because they're rewarded for it. They get applause from their peers. Hugs and high fives from their manager, me in particular. They get promoted for it. We have bonused every single person on teams that ended their projects, from teams as small as two to teams of more than 30.48

The company honors smart failures in other ways, too. Prototypes that never made it past the Foundry stage, and thus were dropped, are showcased in the Palo Alto office.53 Since November 2016, X has held an annual celebration to hear testimonials about failed projects. (Failed relationships and personal tragedies are also welcomed.) Failed

The Great Recession of 2007–2009 presented a dramatic opportunity for Barry-Wehmiller to make good on its promise to care for people like family. When new equipment orders declined considerably and layoffs seemed inevitable, Chapman instead initiated a program of shared sacrifice. Following his principle that in a caring family “all the family members would absorb some pain so that no member of the family had to experience a dramatic loss,”59 there were no layoffs. Instead, all employees, no matter their position, took a mandatory unpaid furlough of four weeks at the time of their choosing.

With help from the unions, Anglo American leadership adopted a traditional South African method of conducting village assemblies, called lekgotla. As you will see, lekgotla seems to echo tenets and practices of psychological safety. Traditionally, in these assemblies (somewhat like meetings at Eileen Fisher), everyone sits in a circle and has a chance to speak without being interrupted or criticized; conversation continues for as long as it takes to reach consensus on whatever issue is at stake.24

Morath enhanced her invitation to participate with several structural interventions. First, she set up a core team called the Patient Safety Steering Committee (PSSC) to lead the change initiative. The PSSC was designed as a cross-functional, multilevel group to ensure that voices from all over the hospital would be heard. Each member was invited with a personal explanation for why his or her perspective was sought. Second, Morath and the PSSC introduced a new policy called “blameless reporting” – a system inviting confidential reports about risks and failures people observed. Third, as people began to feel safe enough to speak up, Morath led as many as 18 focus groups to make it easy for people throughout the organization to share concerns and experiences.

Speaking up is only the first step. The true test is how leaders respond when people actually do speak up.

Consider the “focused event analysis” (FEA), a cross-disciplinary meeting that Morath instituted at Children's to bring people together after a failure. The FEA represents a disciplined exploration of what happened from multiple perspectives – like the proverbial blind men around the elephant.

The Leader's Tool Kit for Building Psychological Safety. Category Setting the Stage Inviting Participation Responding Productively Leadership tasks Frame the Work Set expectations about failure, uncertainty, and interdependence to clarify the need for voice Emphasize Purpose Identify what's at stake, why it matters, and for whom Demonstrate Situational Humility Acknowledge gaps Practice Inquiry Ask good questions Model intense listening Set up Structures and Processes Create forums for input Provide guidelines for discussion Express Appreciation Listen Acknowledge and thank Destigmatize Failure Look forward Offer help Discuss, consider, and brainstorm next steps Sanction Clear Violations Accomplishes Shared expectations and meaning Confidence that voice is welcome Orientation toward continuous learning How to Set the Stage for

Failure Archetypes – Definitions and Implications.16 Preventable Complex Intelligent Definition Deviations from known processes that produce unwanted outcomes Unique and novel combinations of events and actions that give rise to unwanted outcomes Novel forays into new territory that lead to unwanted outcomes Common Causes Behavior, skill, and attention deficiencies Complexity, variability, and novel factors imposed on familiar situations Uncertainty, experimentation, and risk taking Descriptive Term Process deviation System breakdown Unsuccessful trial Contexts Where Each Is Most Salient Production line manufacturing Fast-food services Basic utilities and services Hospital care NASA shuttle program Aircraft carrier Nuclear power plant Drug development New product design Clarifying the Need for Voice

Inquiry is purposeful probing to learn more about an issue, situation, or person. The foundational skill lies in cultivating genuine interest in others' responses. Why is this hard? Because all adults, especially high-achieving ones, are subject to a cognitive bias called naive realism that gives us the experience of “knowing” what's going on.25 As noted in the previous section, we believe we are seeing “reality” – rather than a subjective view of reality. As a result, we often fail to wonder what others are seeing.

Self-protection remains a hollow victory compared to the fulfillment that comes from actively serving an inspiring purpose and being a part of a team that's able to accomplish an ambitious goal. It's the difference between playing not to lose and playing to win.2 Playing not to lose is a mindset that focuses, consciously or not, on protecting against the downside; playing to win, in contrast, is focused on the upside, seeks opportunity, and necessarily takes risks. When we're playing not to lose, we play it safe.

After Harvard Business School Professor Frances Frei began a nine-month tenure at Uber as an executive on loan to change the culture, she describes this incident as one of many that belong to a category she labels “Just Kidding.”11 As she explained, if someone felt the need to add the tagline “just kidding,” after a comment, it probably meant the person knew the comment was at risk of being unwelcome or inappropriate.

Her suggested response to the exchange described above was, “Wow, that felt super-inappropriate. Can we have a do-over?”

This confuses psychological safety with bad process. Just as discipline is needed for excellence in general, managing effective meetings – for decision-making, problem solving, or mere reporting – is a matter of skill, discipline, and smart process design. There are many good sources of advice on how to have effective, efficient meetings, complete with practical tools for ensuring input without unleashing chaos.19

For instance, I've studied senior management teams in which a lack of psychological safety contributed to long-winded conversations (indirect statements, with veiled criticisms and personal innuendo, take longer than candid ones), elongated meetings, and an inability to come to a resolution about crucial strategic issues.20 Decisions

Sometimes, all you have to do is ask a good question. This is truly a great place to start. A good question is one motivated by genuine curiosity or by a desire to give someone a voice. Questions cry out for answers; they create a vacuum that serves as a voice opportunity for someone. Especially when a question is directed at an individual (and expressed in a way that conveys curiosity), a small safe zone is automatically created. By asking a question, you have conveyed, “I am interested in what you have to say.” In so doing, you have created a safe space that helps one or more others to offer their thinking.

Today we know that although diversity can be created through deliberate hiring practices, inclusion does not automatically follow. To begin with, all hires may not find themselves included in important decisions and discussions. Going deeper, a diverse workforce doesn't guarantee that everyone feels a sense of belonging. For instance, when no one at the top of the organization looks like you, it can make it harder for you to feel you belong.