The Fearless Organization - Creating Psychological Safety in the workplace for Learning, Innovation and Growth

The Fearless organization – creating Phycological safety in the workplace for learning, innovation and Growth

Author- Amy C Edmondson

In the organization, employees always waited for the much-anticipated event – Townhall Meeting. It was one of the event where free and frank exchange of conversations would happen. Most of the questions that was raised in the townhalls was very relevant to both employee experience as well as for the organization growth, the method adopted to raise was through Slips without names – anonymous. The leadership refused to respond to these questions, reasoning that employees do not have trust and questions will be responded only, when they are asked directly.  Few gathered strengths and raised their concerns, after a month there was a gossip that the employee was transferred. Next townhall, there was silence and even though leadership requested to raise the questions, the hall filled with people, but all were silent. Might be the fear of raising the question / concern will hit the ego and get reprimanded.  Fear in the organization, even to raise the needs.  A culture of silence is a dangerous culture.

The fearless organization is one where interpersonal fear is minimised, allowing a freer flow of knowledge. It’s an environment where a person feels able to express their views on something openly and honestly without fear of recrimination, abuse, putdown or humiliation. Google study on team effectiveness – Project Aristotle observed that the psychological safety was the key factor that led to high performing teams. Teaming is the art of communicating and coordinating with people across boundaries of all kinds – expertise, status and distance. This was supported by four other features:

1.       Clear goals

2.      Dependable colleagues

3.      Personally meaningful work

4.      Belief that the work has impact

 

Psychological safety is not about being nice. It’s about being able to speak the truth. And it’s okay to disagree. Psychological safety is crucial source of value creation in organization operating in a complex, changing environment.  Fearless organization is not only a better place for employees, it is also a place where innovation, growth and performance take hold.

Psychological safety is essential for communicating, collaborating, experimenting and ensuring the well being of others in a wide variety of teams and organizational settings. Lack of psychological safety can create an illusion of success that eventually turns into serious business failures.

Today’s leaders must be willing to take on the of of driving fear out of the organization to create a condition of learning, innovation and growth. Leaders need to take two vital steps to achieve fearless organization

1.       Build phycological safety to spur learning and avoid preventable failures by

a.      Setting stage

b.      Inviting participation

                                                              i.      Situational Humility

                                                           ii.      Proactive Inquiry

                                                         iii.      Designing structures for input

c.      Responding productively by Focused Event Analysis (FEA)

                                                              i.      Express Appreciation

d.     Destigmatize Failure

                                                              i.      Reframing the failure

e.      Motivating the efforts

 2.      Set high standards and inspire and enable people to reach them.