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

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We work closely with our partners to deliver a programatic approach to measuring and improving psychological safety, based on some 25 years of experience and action research with some of the biggest and most successful organizations in the world. To get your organization started right away, y ou can try the Fearless Organization Scan customized for your needs in just a few simple steps now: Richard Rumelt wrote one of the best strategy books I’ve ever read:“ Good Strategy, Bad Strategy“, and highlights three central premises of “Guiding Policy”, “Coherent Actions”, and “Strategic Diagnosis. This is a great article by JP Castlin on Rumelt’s “Guiding Policy”. Castlin states, “ it is enough to think of guiding policies as means of resolving uncertainty about what to do, about how to compete, and about how to organize.” Leaders who are willing to say I don't know play a surprisingly powerful role in engaging the hearts and minds of employees (124) Do you know those books that upgrade your understanding of the world and enact real good changes in your life? This is what "The fearless organization" was to me.

The Fearless Organization Quotes by Amy C. Edmondson - Goodreads The Fearless Organization Quotes by Amy C. Edmondson - Goodreads

As I've written in prior books and articles, more and more of that teamwork is dynamic – occurring in constantly shifting configurations of people rather than in formal, clearly-bounded teams.4 This dynamic collaboration is called teaming.5 Teaming is the art of communicating and coordinating with people across boundaries of all kinds – expertise, status, and distance, to name the most important. But whether you're teaming with new colleagues all the time or working in a stable team, effective teamwork happens best in a psychologically safe workplace.” Workarounds can occur when workers do not feel safe enough to speak up and make suggestions to improve the system.” When you grow up in that kind of toxic environment, it has lasting effects on your life. That’s your developmental stages, you don’t have any sense of identity or confidence or of what’s right and wrong. You’re extremely vulnerable.” Here’s a powerful article about abusive practices and toxic cultures in gymnastics in Canada. Not only is this an example of an extremely psychologically unsafe environment, it’s an environment specifically for children, who will carry the emotionalbaggage ofthese experiences for a long time.The cases studies are generally flat and not very instructive. Edmonson repeats herself a lot and tends to ramble quite a bit. If you remove the roundabout sentences and stories, there are just a few key points which could’ve been presented much more clearly. There are little bits of gems hidden here and there, but overall it was a rather boring and uninspiring read. It’s important to note that working in a psychologically safe environment does not mean that people always agree with one another for the sake of being nice. It also does not mean that people offer unequivocal praise or unconditional support for everything you have to say. Psychological safety is not an “anything goes” environment where people are not expected to adhere to high standards or meet deadlines. It is not about becoming “comfortable” at work. Psychological safety enables candor and openness and, therefore, thrives in an environment of mutual respect. Thanks so much to Nora Jones for speaking at the psychological safety meetup this week! It was a fantastic event, and facilitated brilliantly by Romy and Stephanie. Nora talked to us about Human Factors, Resilience Engineering and System Safety. It was an awesome event, thanks to Nora, Romy and Stephanie, and everyone who attended. The next meetup is planned for May 31st.

The Fearless Organization, Creating Psychological Safety in The Fearless Organization, Creating Psychological Safety in

I honestly feel I could give this book 10 stars--it sure deserves them. We all should read and give away this book to our bosses.....Too bad some of our bosses do not care about reading nor learning about how to run companies better...I do like the example about health care--the example of a nurse afraid of telling the doctor anything--and what is more amazing--it keeps happening. Why? because some Doctors still not capable to understand how to work better together--how to encourage freedom of speech at work--even from our helpers. Why? Because these same helpers are the best to point us in the right direction-sometimes, if we want to improve our quality of service.

David also records these short “Leadership Nudges”, which are great, practical tips for leaders (and that includes non-managers taking on leadership behaviours too). This one is a fab exercise that I’d like to try myself, assuming I could find someone who doesn’t mind writing down all my questions in meetings!

By Amy C. Edmondson - Paul Arnold Consulting

Bizarrely, the author singles out the James Damore firing for discussion, not seeing the irony of praising Google for their research findings WHILE SIMULTANEOUSLY firing people who voice complains internally! I mean, HELLOOO! I quote her part: Conflict, in the Bridgewater culture, is conducted in the service of finding “what is true and what to do about it.” I also see parallels between psychological safety and DevOps in that they are both aspects of modern technology organizations that are essentially ‘win-win’: good for people and good for business.They both help to create more humane workplaces where people are able to focus their energy and their efforts in being creative, collaborating to solve problems and create new products and services.Because fear of (reporting) failure is such a key indicator of an environment with low levels of psychological safety, how leaders present the role of failure is essential. Astro Teller at X Development, Alphabet’s advanced research subsidiary (formerly Google X), observed that “the only way to get people to work on big, risky things...is if you make that the path of least resistance for them [and] make it safe to fail.” In other words, unless a leader expressly and actively makes it psychologically safe to fail, people will automatically seek to avoid failure. So how did Teller reframe failure to make it okay? By saying, believing, and convincing others that “I’m not pro failure, I’m pro learning.” Similarly, OpenTable CEO Christa Quarles tells employees, “Early, often, ugly. It’s okay. It doesn’t have to be perfect because then I can course-correct much, much faster.” This too is a framing statement. It says that success in the online restaurant reservation business occurs through course correction — not through magically getting it right the first time. Quarles is framing early, ugly versions as information vital to making good decisions that lead to later, beautiful versions. In her book, Amy encourages everybody to start the conversation on this topic with the help of her questionnaires. She asked a question. “Was everything as safe as you would like it to have been this week with your patients?”5 The question – genuine, curious, direct – was respectful and concrete: “this week,” “your patients.” Its very wording conveys genuine interest. Curiosity. It makes you think. Interestingly, she did not ask, “did you see lots of mistakes or harm?” Rather, she invited people to think in aspirational terms: “Was everything as safe as you would like it to be?” If leaders want to unleash individual and collective talent, they must foster a psychologically safe climate where employees feel free to contribute ideas, share information, and report mistakes. Leadership at its core is about harnessing others' efforts to achieve something no one can achieve alone.”

The Fearless Organization: Creating Psychological Safety in

One week after reading this book and I can feel positive changes on my behavior when dealing with people. early information about shortcomings can nearly always mitigate the size and impact of future, large - scale failure (71)The “performance standards” shown in this mustincludea clear vision, mission, or strategy. Essentially, the team must know what their purpose is, and what it means to be part of the team. Most of this I knew...I'm starting to think I know more about psychological safety than most. Anyway if you're not up on it this book will make sure you are now! The first half just talks about the research and the baseline. The second half was almost case studies -intriguing. Based on Edmondson's work and in collaboration with Amy C. Edmondson herself, Bright Instruments developed The Fearless Organization Scan. After completing the survey you'll see how team members experience the psychological safety within their team on four different areas. Responding productively which encompasses expressing appreciation, destigmatizing failure, and sanctioning clear violations which, in turn, should achieve company-wide orientation toward continuous learning. Psychological safety is about making people feel safe to speak up, enabling and empowering them to make full use of all their talents and creativity at work, and not be silenced by fear. To thrive in today’s complex and fast-moving world, organizations need to make the most of their people; they need them to bring their brains and their voices to work. For that to happen, they first need to create psychological safety.