292: Why Psychological Safety Matters with Amy Edmondson

Aoife O’Brien [00:00:01]:

Today I have a very special episode for you. World renowned expert in psychological safety, Amy Edmondson is joining me on the Happier at Work podcast and we talk all things psychological safety. So very practically speaking, what does this look like, how does this show up, why is it important? And what can leaders do straight away to check whether they have psychological safety and to build psychological safety within their teams? I know you’re really going to enjoy today’s episode from me. Psychological safety and getting it right is foundational. It forms the foundation of my thriving talent model. Today’s episode is so full of wisdom and insights. I know you’re absolutely going to love it. I would love, if you get involved in the conversation, let me know what you thought, what challenges you have in relation to psychological safety, and let me know what you think of today’s episode.

Aoife O’Brien [00:00:55]:

I’m Most active on LinkedIn, so you will find me there. And if you want to reach out directly, you can get me on podcast happieratwork ie. Amy Edmondson, you’re so welcome to the Happier at Work podcast. I know we had a very brief meeting in Paris that kind of resulted in this conversation today, but I’m so delighted to have you on the podcast. For the people who haven’t heard about you or your work previously, do you want to do a brief introduction about what you do and how you got into it and what’s interesting about it?

Amy Edmondson [00:01:27]:

Yes. Well, first of all, let me just say thank you for including me in the podcast. It’s a great topic and I’m really happy to be here with you. So I’m a professor at Harvard Business School. I’ve been here for almost 30 years. I think the simplest way to put this is that I study organizational learning. Some years ago, I became absolutely fascinated by the problem of how do organizations keep learning, adapting, innovating as they must to stay relevant in a changing world. You know, I, I, I, I wanted to study that.

Amy Edmondson [00:02:00]:

So I, you know, I went back to do a PhD to sort of see if I could study that. And of course along the way I realized you can’t. It’s not easy to study that in a, you know, it’s too big. And, and so I ended up studying. I had this insight that organizations learn, it’s very abstract idea, right? Organizations learn when their teams learn. Now suddenly that’s a little more concrete. So a team could, they have to rethink the strategy. A team could be a marketing team that’s trying to understand customers needs.

Amy Edmondson [00:02:33]:

A team could be a production team in the factory all those teams matter and the work each and every one of those teams does contributes to the success of the enterprise. But if those teams aren’t learning, aren’t finding ways to do what they do better, aren’t solving problems, aren’t innovating, then the organization will be in trouble. So then I said, okay, now what I have to do is really study what is it that allows teams to work, teams to learn and that, and that became the kind of narrower playing field that I’ve been in for, you know, the last three decades.

Aoife O’Brien [00:03:11]:

Would you say that it’s looking at it from a couple of different perspectives? I know Edgar Schein used to talk about this idea of process inquiry. So it’s looking at it from how we work together, not just what we’re learning.

Amy Edmondson [00:03:22]:

Yes. In fact, I mean, part of the original puzzle for me was that how do organizations learn? Well, first of all, most of the time the evidence suggests they don’t do a good job of learning. We say, but it’s very human to learn. Human beings are good at learning. And we quickly recognize that the learning of an individual doesn’t spontaneously translate into the better action of the organization. And similarly for teams, individuals are learning things all the time. Oftentimes they’re learning the wrong things, but they’re learning things all the time. The processes by which we really mean conversations and interactions in a team are what allow the individual learning or insights or discoveries to translate into better output by the team.

Amy Edmondson [00:04:15]:

So it’s all about process. And increasingly, and following on some of my mentors work, Ed Schein, Chris Ordrus, increasingly, I think we have to zoom in on conversation. We’re having a conversation right here. But yeah, conversation is really where team learning happens. Right. I might be very quietly learning on my own in my own, you know, at my own desk, but for us to learn, we have to talk. Now that talking could be through electronic, you know, communication through email, through Slack, but we have to use words to connect with each other and build our understanding. And, and so those conversations can happen in either lower quality or higher quality forms.

Amy Edmondson [00:05:02]:

Yeah, and I think of, I mean, I guess my definition of higher quality is virtually the same as learning. It’s like if we’re, if we are, if we’re genuinely learning from each other and from the process and from the work, then that I would call that a high quality conversation.

Aoife O’Brien [00:05:18]:

Yeah, and you did, you talked about that in Paris, like the ide idea of having a high quality conversation. And what I’m taping from what you’re Saying now is the idea that we’re tapping into the learning of what’s in other people’s heads by having these high quality conversations. So one thing that I remember is the leader says something and everyone just nods or stays silent or says yes. It’s like, that’s not a high quality conversation. It’s about challenging and tapping into what people have in their heads as to why it might not be a good idea.

Amy Edmondson [00:05:51]:

That’s right. And that is such a fundamental insight. Right. It’s really one of the oldest findings in our field of organizational studies, which is that people don’t like to disagree with the boss and that, you know, if they have something that they understand to be a dissenting view, it’s far more likely that they’ll hold it, hold back than share it. Because the, you know, the, that, that feeling of, well, the, you know, the, the leader shapes the, you know, my, my career and my outcomes and I need to make the leader happy, which of course is wrongheaded. What we, we need to help the leader learn or else we’re all in trouble. Down, down, down the line. So it’s, you know, this, it’s a funny cartoon that I showed in Paris and elsewhere, which is, you know, where the, where people are holding back their truthful view of the decision that’s being made and just saying, yes, you know, yes, great idea, sir.

Amy Edmondson [00:06:46]:

Right. And inst. That won’t work because. Right. Or here’s some concerns I have about that, or here’s what customers are saying. So, you know, organizations are in trouble when we are left to our own sort of spontaneous psychological devices. Like it’s far easier to go along and to agree than to disagree and you want to be liked and all the rest. So, you know, I guess you could say it this way that, you know, most, most organizations today, really all organizations are doing knowledge work and that means they’re employing knowledge workers.

Amy Edmondson [00:07:22]:

And if those knowledge workers aren’t willing to share their knowledge, the organization is in trouble. So that is why, you know, in my interest in how organizations learn and my idea that we should really look at how teams learn in order to understand how organizations learn, I very quickly found myself with the following sort of focus or observation, which is that because people are likely to hold back the truth, we need to figure out how to create the conditions where people will, will share, will lean in. We’ll take interpersonal risks. You know, we’ll speak up with the truth. We’ll share crazy ideas, we’ll ask for help when they’re in over their head. We’ll admit mistakes. And none of those things I just said are easy for us human beings. None of them are fun really.

Amy Edmondson [00:08:21]:

Maybe sharing ideas can be a little bit fun, but not if we think someone’s going to laugh at us. And so later I gave that experience where you can speak up honestly, even though it’s not easy as called it psychological safety. And it’s not. Psychological safety doesn’t describe an environment where we’re comfortable and it describes an environment where we’re candid. And not because it’s fun or easy to be candid, but because we so passionately care about each other and about the team’s work or maybe about the customers or the patients or whoever it is we’re serving that we’re willing to be uncomfortable in order to do a good job. And I don’t think you can do knowledge work well without being uncomfortable.

Aoife O’Brien [00:09:08]:

And I know you talk about some of the things that get in the way and I suppose for me, it’s interesting to look at a. From a couple of different perspectives. So from the perspective of the boss, if everyone’s agreeing with them, you’re like, oh, that’s brilliant. My ideas are great.

Amy Edmondson [00:09:22]:

Exactly.

Aoife O’Brien [00:09:22]:

I don’t want to knock me down and you know, to pick apart my ideas. And then from an individual perspective, like you say you want to keep the boss happy, so you don’t want to make them uncomfortable or you don’t want to say bad things about their idea.

Amy Edmondson [00:09:38]:

So the deck is stacked against us being effective because the things that are comfortable and enjoyable are the things that don’t get us where we’re where we need to go in terms of excellence. Right. So, yeah, I love, I mean, not only is the boss and any one of us, right, it’s not, we’re not picking on anyone. Any one of us is happier when people agree with us. When people say that’s brilliant, we love, I love it when someone says, oh, that’s a brilliant idea. I mean, you can’t help it, you smile. Right. And, and so in a way, the, the challenge is for all of us.

Amy Edmondson [00:10:12]:

Self. Right. Self leadership, self management is about learning to equate that agreement with risk. Like, oh, wait a minute, that might not be okay. Right. You know, what are the odds that I have only brilliant ideas? Pretty low. So, you know, learning to just be a little more vigilant, a little more wary and a little more curious. Right.

Amy Edmondson [00:10:38]:

I like to say there’s a, there’s a way in which you can make this somewhat selfish. Like you can say, okay, I know I enjoy being agreed with, but I’m almost certainly missing some part of this puzzle. And selfishly, I would like to know, like I would like to know what’s in your head. Right. So I’m going to, I’m going to just pause and remind myself that actually I’m better off knowing what’s really going on.

Aoife O’Brien [00:11:10]:

Yeah. That you should see that. Well, that’s actually something bad when people are not speaking up, when they’re not challenging what’s going on. One of the roles I always enjoyed playing when I was in, you know, working in big teams was the devil’s advocate. I loved that role just so I could kind of have a license. It is, yeah.

Amy Edmondson [00:11:28]:

I mean, being yourself in sort of being the one who’s always disagreeing, that’s not so enjoyable unless you get a particular kick out of it. But if someone has said, please be the devil’s advocate for me today you’ve been tasked with this wonderful creative job. I mean, you might not even believe what you’re saying. But let me just raise this as a concern. Let me raise that as a concern. What you’re doing is kicking the tires. You’re trying to make sure the vehicle’s okay before we go out on the road with it.

Aoife O’Brien [00:12:01]:

This is it. So we’ve talked about this idea in kind of a roundabout way of impression management, which I think it’s such an interesting concept. What are the other things that you see that get in the way of us being able to create this environment of learning, you know?

Amy Edmondson [00:12:15]:

Well, I mean, the biggest impediment to an environment of learning is our taken for granted mental models of knowing. And so it’s. Yes, it’s hard to learn if you already know. And like it or not, we all have a kind of spontaneous experience of knowing. Like, I, I know I don’t know everything about, you know, whatever, higher order mathematics or physics. Right. But I, but as I look around and I see you on the screen and I look around my, my office, I mean, I, I have this very strong sense that I’m seeing reality. I’m not.

Amy Edmondson [00:12:51]:

Right. I’m seeing reality filtered through my expertise, my experience, you know, maybe even my mood. Right. So it’s, it’s learning to actively choose learning over knowing. Right. Because knowing is the default. But if I can in, you know, especially in moments that matter, it doesn’t, I don’t have to do this. What should I have for lunch today? Who cares? Right? But, but if I say, you know, here we Are making an important decision or caring for a patient or, you know, giving someone developmental feedback.

Amy Edmondson [00:13:25]:

In that moment, I have to pause and actively choose to be a learner, because a learner will. Once I choose that part of me, and we all have that part, then I will proactively ask questions. I’ll ask good questions. I’ll ask the kinds of questions that you ask when you genuinely want to find out something new, as opposed to the kind of question when you want to say, hey, I’m right. Right. That doesn’t. That doesn’t teach me anything.

Aoife O’Brien [00:13:52]:

Yeah, there’s something coming to me in relation to imposter syndrome or feeling like we should have all of the answers, and that’s getting in the way of us asking questions. We need to be the expert. We need to know everything already. And, you know, I talk all the time about leaders of how they don’t need to have all the answers, and they can ask questions if they don’t know the answer. You can coach someone, you can put the question back on someone else and have them figure things out for themselves. But as us, as individuals, when we’re faced with that idea of being a, you know, the beginner mindset or switching to curiosity rather than feeling like we have to have the answers, it’s hard.

Amy Edmondson [00:14:35]:

It is hard. And it’s. It’s funny because there was a time, let’s call it, you know, industrial era, mid industrial era, where leaders, you know, it was probably accurate and okay for them to have. Have all the answers, but in the digital era, in the knowledge era, not only can you not have all the answers, but you’re sort of foolish if you’re someone who thinks you do. Right? The script has literally flipped so that the people, and we all know them, right? The people who come, who can never be wrong, who have all the answers, who are trying to embody a command and control style, are not admirable anymore. They may sometimes be under the illusion that they are, but we. We can all see through that. And.

Amy Edmondson [00:15:26]:

And so it’s more than just, you don’t have to have all the answers. It’s like, if you think you have all the answers, you’re in trouble. So, okay, yeah, right. It’s more extreme. It’s like really pause and go, oh, I was just falling into the trap of thinking I had all the answers or I had to have all the answers, and, boy, is that wrong. And I love the connection you made to imposter syndrome. I hadn’t really connected those two things, but I think you Know many high achievers, so many leaders have some degree of imposter syndrome. Certainly I have a lot of imposter syndrome myself.

Amy Edmondson [00:16:00]:

So it is a kind of dis ease that leads you to do things that are not in your best interest. You know, to posture, to show off, to fail, to ask good questions, to not admit mistakes, to, you know, to not ask for help. And yet, you know, the real thing in any profession or leadership role are the ones who are curious. So one of the best ways to sort of overcome the imposter syndrome, don’t beat yourself up for having it, but overcome it is to kind of go, wait a minute, right? I’m not only allowed to ask questions, I’m supposed to, right? That, that’s, that’s actually what strong leaders and good professionals and great team members do.

Aoife O’Brien [00:16:40]:

Yeah, yeah. I think it ties back in with what we were talking about a second ago, this idea of impression management. And I’ve created this illusion about myself that I’m the expert and I know, you know, I have all the answers and I need to maintain that illusion for other people by managing their impression of me.

Amy Edmondson [00:16:57]:

Three incredibly powerful words to hear from a leader are I don’t know. Right. It’s just, you know, it’s like, it’s, it’s attention getting and it’s like, oh, of course you don’t. About, you know, you don’t know. I don’t know, I’ll find out or I’m interested, interested to learn more about that. Right. It’s just, you know, I don’t know. Followed quickly by I was wrong.

Amy Edmondson [00:17:18]:

Right. These are all statements of strength that many people erroneously see as statements of weakness.

Aoife O’Brien [00:17:26]:

Yeah, I think that’s, it’s a brilliant reframe.

Amy Edmondson [00:17:29]:

Yeah.

Aoife O’Brien [00:17:29]:

Are there anything, if you’re thinking, you know, I’m thinking on a day to day basis, I’m in the office or I’m having, you know, I’m working from home or I’m having zoom meetings. We kind of talked about this idea of awareness and noticing where you want to be right or you want to have all the answers. Are there any things that leaders can do practically to try and build the conditions that, that enable psychological safety?

Amy Edmondson [00:17:53]:

I think there are and I think they start with reminding, you know, and I love the word remind because it’s, you know, it’s put it back, put it back, front and center remind. Reminding the team or the town hall of fame the true nature of the work we do. Right. It’s some combination or piece of the following. It’s Uncertain, it’s interdependent, it’s challenging or it’s novel, right? It might be all of those things. But as soon as you really pause to become aware that what lies ahead is uncertain, interdependent, complex, challenging, suddenly it’s obvious, right? It’s logically obvious that everyone’s voice could matter, right? That anyone at any given time might have the game winning idea, might have, might be able to spot the concern that could have turned into a large and preventable failure, right? Because, you know, if we’re doing work, and I think the default mental model is that the work that lies ahead is execution, right? It’s, it’s get through the agenda, it’s hit your targets. One of the most destructive phrases, I think that’s still out there, but it’s, it’s, that’s actually not, you know, the work that lies ahead is problem solving. And problem solving is nearly always enhanced by teamwork and several heads are better than one and all the rest.

Amy Edmondson [00:19:17]:

So it’s step number one or idea number one is call attention to the nature of the work because that helps people see that, yes, their voice is needed if we’re going to do it. Well, number two, proactive inquiry. Just spend a great deal more of your time as a leader than is normal and natural asking good questions. And a good question is one that draws out the relevant knowledge of others. So it might be, what are customers saying about this? It might be who has a different perspective. It might be, what are competitors doing, right? And any, any one of those questions is a kind of question that reaches out and says, help us fill in the gaps. Or the kind that says, okay, that sounds like a great idea, walk me through it, right? The kind that says, go deeper, please give me, give me more of your thinking so that I can learn. Now the beauty of a good question is you don’t have to say, oh, let’s have psychological safety, blah, blah, blah, right? All you have to do is ask a question.

Amy Edmondson [00:20:20]:

You’ve been doing it. You ask me a question. I promise you it would be nearly impossible for me to sit here quietly after you ask me a question, especially after you use my name, right? So it’s, you know, it’s, it’s awkward. So the, the default is it’s awkward to speak up when you’re not, you know, when you’re lower in the hierarchy. It’s sort of, is it okay if I say something now? But, but, but if someone asks you a question, it’s mighty awkward not to respond, right? So the Leader’s most important tool in the toolkit is inquiry. It’s asking good questions.

Aoife O’Brien [00:20:57]:

Yeah.

Amy Edmondson [00:20:57]:

And finally, and this is obvious, what leaders can do more of to create candor psychological safety is to monitor their reactions. Right. Let’s say someone does disagree with you. What is your face doing? Is it annoyed? Is it frustrated? Is it curious? Is it grateful? Is it. I hadn’t thought of that. Right. Thank you so much. I mean, you don’t have to get carried away.

Amy Edmondson [00:21:21]:

Be honest, be sincere. But it’s naturally hard for people to take interpersonal risks, especially in a hierarchy. And so just making that a slightly more positive experience rather than a necessarily inherently negative experience goes a long way. So someone raises a different idea and you say, I don’t think that’s going to work, but I’m so glad you brought it up. Great. Right. You just got to value each other the way you, you know, some ways we do this, you know, if you’re ever teaching little children, you sort of, it’s. And I don’t mean be infantilizing of your colleagues, but.

Amy Edmondson [00:22:03]:

Yeah, but there’s something we will, we know how to naturally do when we know that the other person is a, is a learner, is supposed to be a learner. Like if you’re teaching a group of first graders, you tell them, you know, you explain things, thoughtful, and you ask good questions and you try to draw them out. Right. And we should do that of each other. Not from a, you know, teacher student perspective, but from a human to human perspective. Like, why are we not drawing forth the wisdom of each other?

Aoife O’Brien [00:22:33]:

Yeah. And why do you think that is, turning this question back?

Amy Edmondson [00:22:38]:

Well, let’s go back to syndrome hierarchy, that sort of erroneous belief that I’m supposed to know, you know, rather than supposed to wonder or create or problem solve. I think we just have faulty mental models.

Aoife O’Brien [00:22:54]:

Yeah. And do you think organizations and the systems that we’re working in, they kind of reinforce these beliefs that we have?

Amy Edmondson [00:23:02]:

They do. And, and I mentioned earlier, you know, hit your targets. Like that doesn’t sound to most people like a radical statement, but it is a little bit of a radical statement because if you genuinely understand that the future is quite uncertain and never has been more so the only targets that you can reliably hit. So if the organization says you must hit your targets, the only targets you could reliably hit are the very low ones. Right. Think about it. It’s just. So the instruction from that cultural meme is lowball it.

Amy Edmondson [00:23:35]:

Right. It’s not aim high, you Know, learn fast, team up. It’s, you know, set them at a level where you know, they can be reached, which means they’re essentially things you’ve done before you know how to do. They’re not as ambitious as they would otherwise be. And that kind of logic made perfect sense in the industrial era because you had a clear line of sight on the future. And it makes sense. I don’t want to get carried away. It makes sense in manufacturing environments where we do in fact know what the cycle time is of each task and we know how long the throughput time is of getting that vehicle off the line.

Amy Edmondson [00:24:17]:

And we can count on it. Like, we can literally stand there with our stopwatch and know that it will, it will work. But force yourself to step back and think like, how much of the work that we, meaning the organization does is highly routine and consistent. You know, how much of it is well understood but variable and how much of it is brand new. We’ve never done that before. Right. We’re going to be trial and failure. Right.

Amy Edmondson [00:24:47]:

So, and then once you’ve forced yourself to think about it that way, then say, well, what are the different operating modes I would need to achieve excellence in all three domains? And you’d realize it’s not exactly the same. I mean, they’re all about learning because the consistent domain is about continuous improvement. Kaizen. The variable domain is about using our knowledge and skill to solve problems that some of which we’ve seen before, some of which we haven’t. And then, you know, the other is the innovation, the sort of what will, what will next year’s products look like or, you know, 10 years from now, depending on the industry you’re in.

Aoife O’Brien [00:25:28]:

Yeah, yeah. I think it’s interesting and I did want to come back to that idea of hitting targets, because I know you’ve spoken before about how it creates competition between people, especially if they’re individual level targets. And that can kind of erode this sense of psychological safety and learning if people as individuals are just out for themselves.

Amy Edmondson [00:25:47]:

This is a tricky one because competition will never go away. And maybe we don’t even want to, but we do want to be honest and open about it. Like let’s say, you know, a professional basketball team, let’s say a very good professional basketball team. I promise you, the players feel competitive with each other. Each of them would love to have their stats be the, you know, the top of the, of the team. Right. And they also understand we will not win any games if we’re not incredibly cooperative with each other. So they manage that tension.

Amy Edmondson [00:26:22]:

And I think the great teams, both in sports and in work, manage it aloud. Right. We’re open. Like we all, of course, we’re all high achievers. We want to, we want to compete. We kind of want to be the best sometimes.

Aoife O’Brien [00:26:36]:

Yeah.

Amy Edmondson [00:26:36]:

But we also are smart enough to know where that instinct will get us in trouble and get our team in trouble. And so if we can have, if we can own both, like, I want to be, I want to be good, I want to compete, but I also want our team to win. And so I don’t want to do anything that’s going to get in the way of our team winning because that’s going to reflect badly on me. Right. And again, to sports, you know, if I’m like getting the best stats of all the entire league, but my team never wins a game, no other team is going to hire me.

Aoife O’Brien [00:27:09]:

Yeah, right.

Amy Edmondson [00:27:10]:

So you’ve got to realize that duality and make it discussable and figure out how do we make our healthy competitive instincts not end up harming us.

Aoife O’Brien [00:27:24]:

I think that’s a really great reframe because we do tend to be competitive at work. And I did wonder, how do we resolve that kind of conflict of I’m quite competitive, I’m high achieving, I want to be the best, but I actually, for the success of my team, I need to collaborate with other people for the, you know, for the best outcomes.

Amy Edmondson [00:27:44]:

I think it’s sometimes things like that. I mean, you and I, we’re human beings. We’re talking to each other. We both know this. And it’s not because we’re in on some secret. Everybody knows this. Right. So the funny part really is that it’s not discussable most of the time.

Aoife O’Brien [00:27:58]:

Yeah.

Amy Edmondson [00:27:58]:

And I think, why not? Right? Why not? Why don’t we, why don’t we say, let’s talk about this stuff?

Aoife O’Brien [00:28:05]:

Yeah.

Amy Edmondson [00:28:06]:

Because once it’s out in the open, it’s less damaging. We humans are funny because we don’t.

Aoife O’Brien [00:28:13]:

Talk about this stuff. It’s like, yeah, I mean, we’re funny, we all know it, but we just don’t say it.

Amy Edmondson [00:28:17]:

Our desires are, you know, some of our desires are helpful to the team, some of them are counterproductive. But when we’re not unique, right, we, we’re all, we’re all climbing the same mountain together to sort of become more self aware, to become more caring, inclusive, ambitious for us rather than just for me. Like the best kind of accomplishment is the accomplishment we do as a team that none of us could have Done on our own.

Aoife O’Brien [00:28:47]:

Yeah.

Amy Edmondson [00:28:48]:

You know, the things I have to do on my own, I have to write a paragraph. I mean, I have to do a bunch of things. Right? But the, you know, the things that I could never do on my own would be to have an entire university set up to, you know, educate young people to develop research and ideas that change the world. Like, I couldn’t do that by myself. And yet I get to be a part of an organization much larger than me that does these things. And I can feel, I can feel happy to be a part of it.

Aoife O’Brien [00:29:17]:

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I love that. This is bringing to my mind a big challenge that exists in organizations around performance management and ratings and things like that, because I think that breeds a lot of competition. I’ve been, let’s say, behind the curtain on those conversations where we’re essentially pitting people against each other. And it’s a very subjective conversation where managers are arguing on behalf of people in their team either for or against. Any thoughts on how that might shape how people show up at work?

Amy Edmondson [00:29:52]:

Well, thought number one is that most of those conversations are not as high quality as they could be. And by that I mean, as you said, you said, subjective and sort of, you know, little competitive and not, you know, but, but. So let’s go with subjective first, which is, of course, we all have subjective views. That’s just a fact. But what we do to overcome our subjectivity and have higher quality conversations is we, we try to connect our subjective views, assessments, conclusions to what Chris Argyrous called directly observable data. Right. We try to. The discipline is what’s the evidence? Right.

Amy Edmondson [00:30:32]:

If I say so and so is a great performer, I could just say that and expect everyone to take my word for it. Or I could say, here are some very specific things I saw this person do to help others develop their skills to solve a really tough customer problem. You name it, but make it concrete so that we can together look at it and go, yeah, you’re right. That behavior, that story does tie nicely to the conclusion. Very effective employee. And similarly, if I think this person’s not so effective again, I should be able to. And Chris Erdris called this walk down the ladder of inference. Right.

Amy Edmondson [00:31:12]:

Instead of. Instead of just sharing my conclusion, which is what most people share in most of those conversations, I should share my data, I should share my evidence. And the problem is most people don’t. They don’t do a good job of retaining the evidence in their minds. They just retain their impressions and conclusions. So we have to all discipline ourselves to get more, more scientific about it. More, more, more able to show the evidence or illustrations of the conclusions that we’re reaching. And by showing them, I’m then engaging in a learning process with you because you might say, well, huh, I’d say I see the same story happening and I label it differently.

Aoife O’Brien [00:31:55]:

Yes.

Amy Edmondson [00:31:55]:

Here’s that person taking control, not whatever it is. Right. So then we get to have a conversation where we’re learning from each other and coming to a higher quality conclusion together than either of us could have done alone.

Aoife O’Brien [00:32:10]:

Yeah. And to me that would work at that kind of senior meeting level where you’re discussing and you’re sharing like you called it data, but also in the conversations that you’re having with team members so you can share specific examples and illustrate it with. Like this is what I think now, you know, obviously those conversations should be happening throughout the year rather than all saved for the, for the.

Amy Edmondson [00:32:33]:

You say obviously, but it’s not obvious to many organizations, right?

Aoife O’Brien [00:32:37]:

Yes, yes.

Amy Edmondson [00:32:38]:

In fact the biggest problem with the performance management conversations is their infrequency or that’s one of the biggest problems. But yes, because what we really should be having ongoing cooperative, collaborative conversations about how to keep doing things better. And by the way, if you’re, if I’m your manager and you’re not doing as good a job as I wish you, I wish, you know, you were, is that your fault or mine? I kind of think it’s mine. Because presumably you’re doing what you think you’re supposed to be doing.

Aoife O’Brien [00:33:11]:

Yeah.

Amy Edmondson [00:33:11]:

And I’m the one whose job it is to help you see the gap and, and, and, and, and so it’s my job to. I haven’t been clear. Right. I either haven’t given you the right feedback or I haven’t given you the right coaching or haven’t clarify, you know, I haven’t sort of given you the resources you need. Whatever it is. Like it’s. Yeah, it’s my job. Right.

Aoife O’Brien [00:33:34]:

Whereas we tend to label people, I think, don’t we?

Amy Edmondson [00:33:37]:

Yeah.

Aoife O’Brien [00:33:37]:

Bad employee, difficult person, underperformer.

Amy Edmondson [00:33:41]:

Yeah, yeah, it’s, it’s. I mean, I’m not saying every single person you hire is always going to end up being capable of being a fabulous performer. But I am saying the first place to look when you’re concluding that they aren’t is right here. Right at yourself.

Aoife O’Brien [00:33:57]:

Yeah.

Amy Edmondson [00:33:57]:

And then the, you know, with, with then you do your hard work and of learning oriented performance conversations and mutual taking, mutual responsibility and if ultimately you can’t the, the situation doesn’t change then, then you’re, then you’re allowed to come to the conclusion that maybe this isn’t the perfect role for you, but the first step or, or idea has to be that it’s, that it’s on you, the manager, because it’s your job, not theirs to match.

Aoife O’Brien [00:34:30]:

Yeah, yeah, yeah. So if we’re starting from a default position of no or low psychological safety, which I think we are generally, but also an assumption that we do have psychological safety, we maybe mistake it for comfort or saying what we want, or we make a mistake about what it actually means. How can we test, for want of a better word, whether we have psychological safety in our teams?

Amy Edmondson [00:34:57]:

That’s a good question. And I’m glad you brought this whole topic up because it is so important that last year, last spring, I wrote an article in HBR with Michaela Kerosene called what People Get Wrong about Psychological Safety. And you’ve just alluded to some of it. But it’s that, you know, that it’s about being nice, that it’s about being comfortable, or that it’s a free for all. And, you know, psychological safety is a sense of permission for candor, but it’s, it’s, it is an incomplete recipe for learning. Right. It allows learning, but it doesn’t make it happen. What makes it happen is a compelling goal.

Amy Edmondson [00:35:35]:

Skills, resources. So let’s look at skills for a moment. Right? Because oftentimes, you know, when people are in that situation where they either think they have psychological safety but they don’t, what’s really lacking is the skills for, say, challenging conversations. Right. That willingness to take an interpersonal risk. And it’s hard to take an interpersonal risk if I just don’t know how to say it. Right. So we do have to help people.

Amy Edmondson [00:36:00]:

I talked earlier about walking down the ladder of inference. We have to help people with some of the, what I would call learning skills or high conversation, high quality conversation skills that they need to do this. Well, it’s not enough just to know, oh, yeah, we have permission. We’re supposed to, we’re supposed to share our knowledge. We’re supposed to speak up. It helps to have a little bit of skill in, in doing that in ways that won’t just, you know, make people upset at you.

Aoife O’Brien [00:36:32]:

Yeah, right.

Amy Edmondson [00:36:33]:

That you do it in a kind of thoughtful, a thoughtful, learning oriented way. So how do you know? I mean, I think like the first. I’ll say this is sort of, you know, it’s what we were talking about before, but take some time to think about how much, you know, what’s the ratio of bad news to good, you know, of dissent to agreement, of I need help to, hey, all’s well. Right. And if it’s, you know, let’s call those like red and green. And if, if you’re not hearing any red, it’s probably a sign that the psychological safety is low because there’s red everywhere, Right?

Aoife O’Brien [00:37:09]:

Yeah.

Amy Edmondson [00:37:10]:

World.

Aoife O’Brien [00:37:10]:

So, yeah.

Amy Edmondson [00:37:11]:

So if you’re not hearing it, that’s, that’s a warning sign.

Aoife O’Brien [00:37:16]:

It’s like that. It’s, it’s likely being shared somewhere else at home or with their viewers or behind. Yes, but it’s just not being shared behind closed doors.

Amy Edmondson [00:37:25]:

But you’re not hearing it. So. And then the more formal answer is, you know, you can go online and fearless organization.org I think maybe it’s.com anyway and do a little free survey and, and then get some data and then talk about it. Like, just use that as a, as a trigger for a high quality conversation. But, but I think where you started was really important with that question because assume it’s not there. Right?

Aoife O’Brien [00:37:52]:

Yeah.

Amy Edmondson [00:37:52]:

Because of human beings struggling to say difficult things. Right. Struggling to ask for help, struggling to dissent, struggling to, you know, share a wacky idea. So just assume it’s hard and do what you can to make it easier. Meaning ask good questions, call attention to the uncertainty of the work, respond productively to what people say. Yeah, it’s learning. Right. It’s all about learning and continuous learning together.

Aoife O’Brien [00:38:18]:

I love how you phrase that as making it. Basically what I heard was make it easy for people to do what you want them to do. I’m a big proponent of that. Another question that I saw or another comment that I saw during the week, which I thought was quite interesting, was this idea of saying no. So, you know, when we have a lot on our plates and we can’t take on anything additional, the default, I think usually is, or that people teach us to say no or to say no more effectively if we feel like we can’t say no to additional work. Do you think that’s a sign of a lack of psychological safety where we feel like, like we have to say yes?

Amy Edmondson [00:38:56]:

Yes, absolutely. That’s one I suspect many of our listeners have experienced.

Aoife O’Brien [00:39:01]:

Yes.

Amy Edmondson [00:39:02]:

And, and I, I think the baby step, you know, it’s hard to say no. Right. But the baby step toward that would be when you’re in a bind, say so. And so just, you know, if you feel like on the one hand, I Don’t feel I can say no. But on the other hand, if I say yes, I’m very likely to do it badly because I don’t have capacity. I mean, the one thing we really know is finite is time in the day.

Aoife O’Brien [00:39:24]:

Yeah.

Amy Edmondson [00:39:25]:

So. So just screw up your courage and make the bind itself discussable. Like, oh, everything in me wants to say yes and yet I can’t see my way forward to doing a really good job on that.

Aoife O’Brien [00:39:42]:

Yeah.

Amy Edmondson [00:39:43]:

Unless I find something else to say no to.

Aoife O’Brien [00:39:46]:

That in itself is an interesting reframe that I know I can’t do my best work. And me personally, being someone, I like to do things excellently. If I’m doing something, I want to do it really well. So a reframe. Like, if I know I can’t do, give this my best because I just don’t have the capacity right now, then it’s on me to speak up and talk about what’s going on.

Amy Edmondson [00:40:10]:

If it’s your manager asking you, I mean, it’s perfectly fine. In fact, it’s probably good practice to say, maybe you could help me prioritize. I mean, maybe there are things that I’m doing that are keeping me busy that you actually don’t think are that useful. And I, you know, the last thing you want is to keep doing things that aren’t really being read or heard or aren’t seen as adding value. So it’s, you know, sometimes if something comes along that seems quite important to whoever is bringing it to your attention, use them to help you say no to something else. If. If it’s, you know, if it’s not. If it’s not going to be this.

Amy Edmondson [00:40:47]:

Make the bind discussable.

Aoife O’Brien [00:40:50]:

Yeah. What are the biggest things that you see going wrong when there’s no psychological safety?

Amy Edmondson [00:40:58]:

You know, the two big things, and one is more visible than the other. So let me say the less visible one first. Without psychological safety, you will suffer a lack of innovation. So it won’t show up as anything in the short term. Right. Performance will be fine for the company, the team, whatever. In the short term, because we’re doing our job right. We’re executing.

Amy Edmondson [00:41:22]:

But next year or five years from now, we’ll be obsolete because we didn’t innovate. Right. Because psychological safety is necessary for innovation, because we have to take risks of trying something that might not work, of suggesting a crazy idea and all, all the rest. So bucket number one is the lack of innovation that no one will notice until it’s kind of too late.

Aoife O’Brien [00:41:44]:

Yeah. Can we just pause on that for a second because it reminds me of something you said, I think. I’m sure you said it in Paris, but you also said it in your, your brilliant book. Was this idea that if people are silent, you don’t know that they’re being silent. It’s not, you know, that. Yeah, yeah.

Amy Edmondson [00:42:02]:

So it’s holding back. It doesn’t sort of announce itself.

Aoife O’Brien [00:42:06]:

Yes.

Amy Edmondson [00:42:07]:

Right. As I’m holding back, got to say. But I’m not saying it like you’re. Silence, holding back is invisible.

Aoife O’Brien [00:42:14]:

Yeah.

Amy Edmondson [00:42:15]:

Whereas speaking up is visible. And so, yeah, you have to train yourself to, to know of that asymm and then be mighty curious about what’s going on in there that’s not being shared.

Aoife O’Brien [00:42:26]:

But much like innovation, we don’t know that we haven’t had innovation.

Amy Edmondson [00:42:30]:

Right.

Aoife O’Brien [00:42:30]:

Until it’s too late.

Amy Edmondson [00:42:32]:

Until it’s too late. Exactly.

Aoife O’Brien [00:42:33]:

Yeah.

Amy Edmondson [00:42:33]:

It’s hard to catch up. And then the other bucket too. You know, Low psychological safety is the enabling of preventable failures. So many of the cases, the deep case studies that I’ve done are of preventable failures and I call them preventable because they could have been avoided had someone spoken up. Up. Right. These are not sort of, you know, out of the blue, something comes over the transom that you never, no one saw coming. Right.

Amy Edmondson [00:43:00]:

But the kinds of things where people, you know, smart people, engineers, you know, marketers, whoever were, they knew this isn’t going to fly, but they were afraid to speak up about it. And then it’s only a matter of time before some, you know, very expensive or very reputationally harmful failure happened. That is directly attributed to the lack of psychological safety. People had to speak up in a timely way.

Aoife O’Brien [00:43:27]:

Yeah, it’s. It’s interesting. I use kind of a funny example of this in the book. It’s. I don’t know if you’ve ever seen the show Silicon Valley.

Amy Edmondson [00:43:35]:

I have not seen it.

Aoife O’Brien [00:43:36]:

I love it. It’s satire. So for me, it’s brilliant. But there is that example of no one is willing to speak up to the next level up and the delay becomes 15 weeks instead of what the CEO originally thought was two weeks. And he himself doesn’t want to speak up to the board. So it shows that, you know, it’s come from the top. I don’t want to be the person to tell the board. I don’t want to be the person to tell the CEO.

Aoife O’Brien [00:44:00]:

I don’t want to be the person to, you know, and it trickles down. Exactly. It plays out exactly like that.

Amy Edmondson [00:44:06]:

It’s Truly crazy. And yet it’s been the way of organization since the beginning of that.

Aoife O’Brien [00:44:12]:

This is it. This is it. Amy, I’ve so enjoyed our conversation. The question I ask everyone who comes on the podcast, what does being happier at work mean to you?

Amy Edmondson [00:44:21]:

To me, it’s that state of flow. It’s the Csikszentmihalyi idea that when we’re, when we’re really in a situation where our skills and the. And the challenge are in a nice, you know, a nice balance. Right. It’s something I’m doing, something hard and challenging and engaging, but I. I’m capable of doing it. So I’m in that flow state and I love. I think that’s what happy is at work.

Amy Edmondson [00:44:50]:

Right. There might be happy at home on the, you know, reading a book, but happy at work is feeling well used for this, the skills or the experience that I have that I can. That I can produce something and in almost not notice the passage of time.

Aoife O’Brien [00:45:09]:

Yeah, love that. And what gets you into that state of flow and how often do you experience it?

Amy Edmondson [00:45:15]:

Not often enough, but I think what gets it is, you know, some. Sometimes a deadline, but not too scary a deadline. Sort of a deadline that says, okay, stop messing around. It’s time to really roll up your sleeves and get to work and pull out, you know, pull out the project, pull up the, you know, the notes, the background, and just take seriously the opportunity to do something that’s useful, at least to someone.

Aoife O’Brien [00:45:46]:

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Love it. It’s kind of the impact, almost the impact of the work. That it’s going to matter to someone else.

Amy Edmondson [00:45:53]:

Yes, absolutely. Right. I mean, I think it’s true there are things you can do just for fun for yourself, but I think that flow state and that at work is about believing. I think it helps to believe that what you’re doing might matter.

Aoife O’Brien [00:46:08]:

Yeah. That it’s in service to other people. I love that.

Amy Edmondson [00:46:13]:

Exactly.

Aoife O’Brien [00:46:13]:

And if people want to find out more about you and your work, what’s the best way they can do that?

Amy Edmondson [00:46:19]:

Well, I suppose LinkedIn is a good place to go. Mecedmondson.

Aoife O’Brien [00:46:24]:

I’ve so enjoyed the conversation. Thank you so much for your time. I think we explored lots of. Of areas that I haven’t heard you talking about before, I hope.

Amy Edmondson [00:46:34]:

I think so, too.

Aoife O’Brien [00:46:35]:

Yes. We took it in a few different directions than I was expecting. So really, really enjoyed it. Thank you so much for your time.

Amy Edmondson [00:46:41]:

Thank you for having me.

Aoife O’Brien [00:46:43]:

That was Amy Edmondson talking all things psychological safety. And that website of hers is fearlessorganization.com and organization is spelt in the US weighing with a Z instead of an S. Get involved in the conversation. Let me know what you thought of today’s episode. Reach out to me on podcastappieratwork ie or head on over to LinkedIn. That’s where I’m most active. You’ll find me there talking about today’s episode. And don’t forget, there’s a bonus episode coming on Monday where I do a behind the scenes key takeaways from today’s episode.