Building a psychologically safe workplace | Amy Edmondson | TEDxHGSE

Summary

This script delves into the concept of workplace silence and its detrimental effects on innovation and learning. It introduces 'psychological safety' as a key to fostering an environment where employees feel comfortable voicing concerns and ideas. The speaker, through examples and research, illustrates the importance of psychological safety in high-performing teams and provides actionable steps for leaders to cultivate it, emphasizing that it is not a trade-off with excellence but a complementary approach to enhancing performance.

Takeaways

• 🤔 Workplace silence can lead to missed opportunities for learning and innovation, as well as potential disasters.
• 😣 The fear of appearing ignorant, incompetent, intrusive, or negative often prevents individuals from speaking up in the workplace.
• 🧠 'Impression management' is a psychological concept where people avoid actions that might negatively affect how they are perceived by others.
• 🏥 The study of medical errors revealed that better teams were not making fewer mistakes but were more willing to discuss them openly.
• 🔑 Psychological safety is defined as a belief that it is acceptable and expected to voice concerns, questions, ideas, and mistakes without fear of repercussions.
• 🤝 Creating psychological safety involves framing work as a learning problem, acknowledging one's own fallibility, and modeling curiosity through asking questions.
• 🛑 Leaders play a crucial role in fostering psychological safety by setting the example and encouraging open communication.
• 🚀 Psychological safety is not about reducing excellence or accountability but rather about removing barriers to engagement and learning.
• 📈 The presence of psychological safety can lead to higher performance, especially in environments characterized by uncertainty and interdependence.
• 🚧 Without psychological safety, workplaces may fall into an 'anxiety zone' where fear stifles communication and innovation.
• 🌟 The ultimate goal is to create a 'learning zone' where individuals feel safe to contribute fully to their work, leading to high performance and innovation.

Q & A

What is the main issue discussed in the script?

The script discusses the issue of workplace silence, particularly the reluctance of employees to speak up due to fear of appearing ignorant, incompetent, intrusive, or negative, and how this impacts the workplace environment and innovation.

What are the three scenarios presented in the script to illustrate workplace silence?

The three scenarios are: 1) A nurse who notices a possibly high dosage for a patient but doesn't call the doctor due to fear of his comments. 2) A young pilot who notices a potential error in judgment by a senior officer but doesn't speak up. 3) A senior executive with reservations about a planned takeover who remains silent due to feeling like an outsider.

What is the term used to describe the tendency to avoid actions that might make one appear less competent or capable in the workplace?

The term used is 'impression management,' which is a psychological concept referring to how individuals try to control the impressions others form of them.

Why do people engage in impression management according to the script?

People engage in impression management to avoid looking ignorant, incompetent, intrusive, or negative. They prefer to appear smart, helpful, and positive to protect their self-image and social standing in the workplace.

What is the term used to describe a workplace where employees feel safe to express concerns, questions, ideas, and mistakes?

The term used is 'psychological safety,' which is defined as a belief that it is acceptable and expected to speak up with concerns, questions, ideas, and mistakes.

How did the speaker become interested in the concept of psychological safety?

The speaker became interested in psychological safety quite by accident when she joined a team of physicians and nurses to assess the rate of medication errors in hospitals and found that better teams were not necessarily making fewer mistakes.

What was the unexpected finding from the research on medication errors conducted by the speaker?

The unexpected finding was that better teams, as measured by a standard team survey, were making more medication errors, not fewer. This led the speaker to hypothesize that better teams might be more willing to discuss and report their mistakes.

What are the three simple things a leader can do to create psychological safety in the workplace according to the script?

The three things are: 1) Frame work as a learning problem, acknowledging uncertainty and interdependence. 2) Acknowledge one's own fallibility and express the need to hear from others. 3) Model curiosity by asking a lot of questions, creating a necessity for voice.

How does the speaker differentiate psychological safety from motivation?

The speaker differentiates psychological safety as letting up on the brakes, allowing people to engage without fear, while motivation is about pushing the gas, driving performance, which is a separate and equally important aspect.

What are the potential negative outcomes of focusing solely on accountability for excellence without ensuring psychological safety?

Focusing solely on accountability without ensuring psychological safety can lead to an 'anxiety zone,' where employees are afraid to speak up, potentially leading to errors and a lack of innovation.

What is the 'learning zone' and why is it important for high performance, especially in workplaces with uncertainty and interdependence?

The 'learning zone' is a state where employees are encouraged to learn, make mistakes, and speak up without fear. It is important for high performance because it fosters an environment of continuous improvement and innovation, which is vital in workplaces characterized by uncertainty and interdependence.

Outlines

00:00

🤔 Workplace Silence and Its Impact

The first paragraph introduces the concept of workplace silence, where individuals refrain from voicing concerns due to fear of appearing ignorant, incompetent, intrusive, or negative. It presents three scenarios: a nurse avoiding questioning a medication dosage, a pilot not speaking up about a potential error, and an executive withholding reservations about a takeover. The speaker reflects on the prevalence of this issue and its root cause in impression management, suggesting that people's desire to avoid negative perceptions leads to missed opportunities for learning and innovation.

05:03

🔍 Uncovering the Role of Psychological Safety

The second paragraph delves into the speaker's research on medication errors in hospitals, where she unexpectedly found that teams perceived as better were reporting more errors. This led to the hypothesis that these teams might have a higher level of psychological safety, encouraging open discussion of mistakes. The speaker describes sending a research assistant to observe these teams, confirming that units with a culture of openness were more willing to discuss and learn from errors, which she later termed 'psychological safety.' She also outlines three steps leaders can take to foster this environment: framing work as a learning problem, acknowledging fallibility, and modeling curiosity.

10:04

🚀 Balancing Psychological Safety with Accountability

The final paragraph addresses potential concerns about the trade-off between psychological safety and excellence. The speaker argues that these are not mutually exclusive but rather two separate dimensions that should be balanced. She emphasizes that psychological safety is about removing barriers to engagement, not reducing motivation or accountability. The speaker introduces the concept of the 'learning zone,' where high performance is achieved through a combination of safety and accountability, contrasting it with the 'anxiety zone,' where fear stifles contribution. She concludes by urging the creation of workplaces that promote learning and full contribution in the face of complexity and interdependence.

Keywords

💡Workplace Silence

Workplace silence refers to the phenomenon where individuals in a professional setting choose not to voice their opinions, concerns, or ideas due to various reasons such as fear of judgment or retribution. In the video, this concept is illustrated through three scenarios where silence leads to potential risks or missed opportunities for improvement. The nurse, pilot, and executive all exemplify workplace silence by not speaking up despite having concerns.

💡Impression Management

Impression management is a psychological concept where individuals attempt to control the impressions others form of them, often by modifying their behavior to appear more competent or likable. The speaker mentions this as a reason for workplace silence, as people avoid actions that might make them seem ignorant, incompetent, intrusive, or negative. This behavior is linked to the overarching theme of how fear of negative impressions can hinder open communication and innovation.

💡Psychological Safety

Psychological safety is defined in the video as a shared belief that it is safe to take interpersonal risks, such as speaking up with concerns, questions, ideas, or mistakes. It is a key concept because it is presented as the antidote to workplace silence, fostering an environment where team members feel comfortable contributing their thoughts and insights, which is critical for learning and innovation.

💡Learning Problem

A learning problem is framed in the video as a situation where there is significant uncertainty and interdependence, necessitating a collective effort to explore and understand the challenges at hand. The speaker suggests that leaders should view their work as a learning problem to encourage team members to speak up and contribute their perspectives, which is essential for navigating complex and dynamic environments.

💡Accountability

Accountability in the video refers to holding individuals responsible for achieving high standards and results. The speaker addresses a common concern that promoting psychological safety might compromise excellence by reducing accountability. However, she argues that accountability and psychological safety are not mutually exclusive but rather complementary, both being necessary for high performance, especially in conditions of uncertainty and interdependence.

💡Curiosity

Curiosity, as discussed in the video, is the act of asking questions and seeking new information or knowledge. The speaker suggests that modeling curiosity by asking many questions can create a necessity for voice and encourage a culture of inquiry. This behavior is part of creating psychological safety by demonstrating that all ideas and perspectives are valued.

💡Fallibility

Fallibility is the human quality of being prone to making mistakes or being imperfect. The speaker recommends that leaders acknowledge their own fallibility to create a safer environment for others to speak up. By admitting that they may miss something and need to hear from their team, leaders can reduce the fear associated with voicing concerns or mistakes.

💡Interdependence

Interdependence in the context of the video refers to the reliance on one another within a team or workplace, where individual actions and decisions affect the collective outcome. The speaker emphasizes that in situations of high uncertainty and interdependence, psychological safety is vital because it allows for the necessary collaboration and communication to navigate complex challenges effectively.

💡Uncertainty

Uncertainty in the video represents the unpredictable and unknown aspects of work environments, particularly in modern and complex settings. The speaker argues that acknowledging uncertainty is important for framing work as a learning problem and for creating psychological safety, as it establishes the need for diverse inputs and perspectives to address the unknown.

💡Innovation

Innovation is the process of generating new ideas, devices, or methods, and the speaker implies that workplace silence can stifle innovation by preventing the sharing of diverse thoughts and perspectives. The video suggests that environments with psychological safety are more conducive to innovation because they encourage open communication and the exploration of new approaches.

💡High Performance

High performance in the video is associated with the ability of a team or organization to achieve excellent results, particularly in conditions of uncertainty and interdependence. The speaker argues that psychological safety is a key component of high performance because it enables team members to fully engage and contribute their best efforts without fear of negative repercussions.

Highlights

A nurse hesitates to call a doctor about a high dosage due to fear of criticism, illustrating workplace silence.

A pilot chooses not to voice concerns about a superior's error during a military training flight.

A senior executive withholds reservations about a company takeover due to feeling like an outsider.

Workplace silence occurs when individuals avoid speaking up to prevent appearing ignorant, incompetent, intrusive, or negative.

Impression management is a psychological concept where individuals manage how they are perceived by others.

Withholding questions or ideas in the workplace hinders learning and innovation.

Psychological safety is defined as a belief that it's acceptable to express concerns, questions, ideas, and mistakes.

The speaker's interest in psychological safety began with a study on medication errors in hospitals.

Initial research findings showed a counterintuitive relationship between team effectiveness and error rates.

Better teams were found to discuss errors more openly, leading to the concept of psychological safety.

Leaders can foster psychological safety by framing work as a learning problem, acknowledging fallibility, and modeling curiosity.

Psychological safety is not about reducing excellence but about removing barriers to engagement and learning.

The speaker introduces a model with two dimensions: psychological safety and accountability for excellence.

Creating a high-performance workplace requires balancing psychological safety with a drive for excellence.

The absence of psychological safety can lead to an anxiety zone where individuals are afraid to communicate.

A workplace with high psychological safety and accountability is referred to as the learning zone.

In complex and interdependent work environments, psychological safety is vital for optimal performance.

The speaker calls for the creation of workplaces that encourage full participation and contribution from individuals.

Transcripts

Translator: Gabriela Imhoff Reviewer: Peter van de Ven

A nurse on the night shift in a busy urban hospital

notices that the dosage for a particular patient

seems a bit high.

Fleetingly, she considers calling the doctor at home,

to check the order.

Just as fleetingly,

she recalls his disparaging comments about her abilities,

last time she called him at home.

All but certain the dose is in fact fine -

the patient is, after all, on an experimental protocol,

which justifies the high dose -

she hits for the cart, gets the med and goes towards the patient's bed.

Quite far from the urban hospital,

a young pilot in a military training flight

notices that his senior officer might have made a crucial misjudgement.

He lets the moment go by.

Far from both of those stories,

a senior executive who has recently been hired

by a very successful consumer product's company

to join the top management team,

has grave reservations about a planned take over.

New to the team, feeling like an outsider,

everyone else is so enthusiastic about the plan,

he doesn't say anything.

These are three episodes of workplace silence

when voice was necessary.

Voice would have been helpful.

Now, you may think,

"If I were in their shoes, I wouldn't do that."

Or you may be aware, as I am,

of just how often this happens in the modern workplace.

I've been fascinated by this problem for a long time.

Why does this happen?

It's quite simple, actually.

It turns out that no one wakes up in the morning

and jumps out of bed because they can't wait to get to work today

to look ignorant, incompetent, intrusive or negative, right?

(Laughter)

No, on average we'd prefer to look smart and helpful

and, you know, positive and helpful.

So the good news about all this is that it's very easy to manage.

Don't want to look ignorant? Don't ask questions.

Don't want to look incompetent? Don't admit weakness or mistake.

Don't want to look intrusive? Don't offer ideas.

And if you don't want to look negative, by all means,

don't criticize the status quo.

Now,

this strategy -

The good news about this very successful strategy

is that it works for self protection.

The psychologists call this "impression management,"

and there's a great deal of evidence that we're quite good at it.

We learn how to do this sometime in grade school.

By the time we're working adults, it's all but second nature.

Have you ever had a question,

and you look around, and you don't ask it?

No one else seems to be asking.

Maybe you're supposed to know.

You think, "I'll figure it out later."

So why does this matter?

It matters because every one of these moments,

everytime we withhold,

we rob ourselves and our colleagues of small moments of learning,

and we don't innovate.

We don't come up with new ideas.

We are so busy, unconsciously, for the most part,

managing impressions

that we don't contribute to creating a better organization.

The nurses don't call, the pilot doesn't speak up,

the executive doesn't say anything.

The good news is that not every workplace is in fact this way.

There are some workplaces

where people absolutely wake up in the morning,

if not eager, at least willing and ready

to take the interpersonal risks of learning.

I call these special workplaces ones that have psychological safety.

I'll define psychological safety as a belief

that it's absolutely okay, in fact it's expected,

to speak up with concerns, with questions, with ideas, with mistakes.

I got into this, I got interested in this, actually, quite by accident.

Let me tell you how it happened.

I joined a team of mostly physicians and nurses,

and the job of that team was to find out, to asses,

they hoped conclusively,

what the actual rate of medication errors was

in, let's say, some modern tertiary care hospitals.

So their job was to set out to collect data on drug errors,

human related drug errors.

My little part was very simple:

I was going to ask the question, and answer the question,

"Do better teams, better hospital patient care teams make fewer mistakes?"

I used a standard team survey measure to asses the team effectiveness,

and trained nurse investigators visited a number of units in two hospitals

every couple of days for six months.

These were the data that they came up with.

These are adverse drug events, errors, let's just call them medication errors

that were deem to be based on human error,

expressed in terms of errors per thousand patient dates.

Now, here's where the story gets a little weird.

I got the data, waited patiently,

I got the data on the teams, I got the data on the errors,

and I ran my analysis.

And what did I find?

The results were exactly the opposite of what I had expected.

It appeared that better teams were making more mistakes, not fewer.

From the point of view of a young researcher

wanting to publish a paper, this was a real problem.

Never mind the other problems, right?

So this was a problem. No, this was a puzzle.

So I sat down to think: why else?

I thought about the need for coordination between physicians and nurses.

I though about the need for team work on the fly,

for speaking up, for double checking.

And I thought, "Maybe" -

in a kind of blinding flash of the obvious -

I thought, "Maybe the better teams aren't making more mistakes,

maybe they're more willing to discuss them."

What if the better teams have a climate of openness

that allows them to report

and even get to the bottom of these things?

Now, having that insight was a far cry from proving it.

So what did I do?

I sent out a young research assistant to study these units very carefully.

He had to have no preconceptions, he didn't know the error rates,

he didn't know how they scored on the team survey,

he didn't even know my hypothesis.

And I said, "What did you learn?"

And you know what he found?

He found that these units, these eight units were wildly different

in terms of whether they were willing and able

and did in fact talk about errors.

Some of them were actually actively talking about them all the time

and in the process of trying together to work together to find new ways

of reducing them.

Much later, I called this psychological safety.

Now, you might want to know, What was the sorting rule in this chart?

It looked at first

like I was trying to get it from highest error rates to lowest,

and I'm just not very good at math and got mixed up in the middle.

No.

These are sorted

by the research assistant's ratings of the openness of the climate.

As you can see, the correlation is very high indeed.

Okay, so how do you build it? What do you do?

If you're a leader and you say, "Wow,

I want to have psychological safety in my workplace"?

Let me just suggest three simple things you can do

so that that nurse does make the call,

the pilot does speak up,

the executive even reveals his concern about the takeover.

First, frame the work as a learning problem,

not an execution problem.

Recognize, make explicit that there's enormous uncertainty ahead

and enormous interdependence.

Given those two things, we've never been here before.

We can't know what will happen.

We've got to have everybody's brains and voices in the game.

That creates the rationale for speaking up.

Second, acknowledge your own fallibility.

You know you're fallible.

Say simple things like,

"I may miss something I need to hear from you."

This goes, by the way, for subordinates and colleagues, peers alike.

That creates more safety for speaking up.

And third, model curiosity. Ask a lot of questions.

That actually creates a necessity for voice.

And so, these three simple things can go a long way

towards creating the kind of workplace

where we can avoid the catastrophes you saw coming

in those three opening vignettes.

Now, at this point in describing and teaching about these things

most managers I talk to start to get a little nervous.

They say, "I get it, I understand how this could really help people learn.

I understand, and I don't want to hear about errors.

But are you saying I have to dial back a little on excellence?

Is it not longer possible

to hold people accountable for great results?

To hold their feet close to the fire?"

And I say, "No, in fact, I don't think it's a trade-off.

I think it's two separate dimensions.

Two dimensions that you have to think about."

In fact, when I'm talking about psychological safety,

I'm essentially talking about letting up on the breaks.

I'm not talking about ...

the gas.

I'm not talking about motivation.

There's a lot out there on motivation,

and it's really important, and it's important to understand it.

But I'm talking about it's equally important to free people up,

to really engage and not be afraid of each other.

So if you don't do either, by the way,

that's the apathy zone and that's quite sad, so let's move on.

If you only do psychological safety, yes, well, it's possible,

you're creating a comfort zone, leaving money on the table.

But this is the one I'm more worried about,

and I wish more managers were worried about it too.

If you're only talking about people's accountability for excellence

and not making sure they're not afraid to talk to each other,

then they're in the anxiety zone.

This is were the nurse was, this is were that young pilot was,

even the senior executive was in this place,

and that's a very dangerous place to be.

Of course, where do I want you to be?

I want you to be high, high in the learning zone.

And let me just say, in case it wasn't clear yet,

that this is also one and the same as the high performance zone

as long as there's uncertainty and interdependence.

If you have no uncertainty and no interdependence, it's fine.

You don't need psychological safety.

It's fun to have, but not necessary.

But if you have both uncertainty and interdependence,

it's absolutely vital that you have psychological safety.

So the workplace out there, the complexity, the interdependence,

it's not going to go away any time soon.

We need people to bring their absolute full selves

to the challenging jobs ahead,

and I hope you will help me create those kinds of workplaces

so that they can learn and become their full and most contributing selves.

Thank you.

(Applause)