Archive - September 2020

Psychological safety: the secret weapon of effective teamwork

Amy Edmondson, Novartis Professor of Leadership and Management at Harvard Business School, has been researching psychological safety for 20 years, and defines it as is a shared belief that you will not be punished, ignored or humiliated for speaking up with ideas, questions, concerns or mistakes.  Because in a climate of psychological safety, people feel free to put forward new, and even seemingly crazy, ideas, because they feel free to point out errors and risks to each other (including their seniors) and because they feel free to ask for help and surface failure, rates of creativity and innovation rise significantly.  So too do trust, collaboration, engagement and discretionary effort, which link with another benefit: inclusion and the authentic embrace of diversity.  I’m  accredited as a Licenced Psychological Safety Guardian, which allows me to administer and debrief the Psychological Safety Index, based on Amy Edmondson’s work.