Reducing Power Gradients By Jade Garratt In our experience, the most effective lever for increasing psychological safety within a team is flattening the power gradient – the gap between those with the most power and those with the least In […]...
Efficiency vs Resilience By Tom Geraghty Standardisation is often used as a way to increase organisational efficiency and scalability Through reducing variation, we can standardise our tools, training, processes and more, enabling us to optimise systems and better achieve our desired […]...
An Exploration of Dan Radecki’s SAFETY™ Model Psychological safety is a deceptively simple idea: people feel able to speak up with questions, concerns, or mistakes without fear of embarrassment or reprisal Amy Edmondson’s now-canonical definition captures this precisely, grounding dec...
The Speaking up Myth By Jade Garratt In the world of psychological safety, we focus a lot, maybe even too much, on the speaking up side of the equation How do we make sure people speak up with their ideas, […]...
Why silence often wins over voice When someone chooses not to speak up at work, whether it’s to raise a concern, ask a question, or offer a dissenting view, it’s easy to assume they’ve rationally performed the mental cost-benefit calculation […]...
Addressing Power through “Flattening” Organisations Steep power gradients are one of the most significant factors that contribute to reducing psychological safety These steep differentials in perceived power have contributed to many disasters including the Tenerife Airport disaster in 1977, Cher...
Work doesn’t have to suck By Jade Garratt The start of a new year seems like a good time to reflect on how work feels, and how we feel about work For too many of us, going to work isn’t […]...
Sometimes I Muck Up After lots of you asked for “Safe For Work” versions of our “Sometimes I Fck Up” stickers, we’ve created these “Sometimes I Muck Up” stickers available in our online shop! Delivering Effective Feedback There are still a few [&he...
By Jade Garratt How do you feel when you hear the words “You have a body“ And how do you feel when you hear it in a work context You might find it confusing – a kind of “well, obviously”, or […]...
Blametropism By Tom Geraghty, edited by Jade Garratt It’s a common fallacy that psychological safety means having a “blameless” culture Just like so many misconceptions around psychological safety, that’s not actually the case Sometimes we can’t avoid blame and, on […]...
Typologies of Power In a few previous newsletters, we’ve gotten into power dynamics, power gradients, “power over” vs “power for” and “power to” (see Mary Parker Follett) Steep power gradients are the number one inhibitor of psychological safety, and addressing […]...
We’ve been rather busy this week, in the midst of this round of psychological safety online workshops, including fundamentals, practices, leadership, measurement, advanced, and workshop design and facilitation With that in mind, we thought it would be a good time […]...
Psychological Safety Doesn’t Mean Feeling Comfortable By Jade Garratt There are many misconceptions about psychological safety One is that if we “achieve” psychological safety, it means that people will feel comfortable all the time It’s understandable to see how that […]...
The Chatham House Rule By Jade Garratt We always begin our workshops with a social contract These are important because they make sure at the very beginning, that we’re on the same page in terms of our expectations of each […]...
A team is only as safe as the least safe person When measuring the psychological safety in a team, we often are asked which measurement should be considered the “group measurement,” given that different individuals will likely experience rather different […]...
The Andon Cord It’s been a busy week with workshops and talks, so this week we’re revisiting the Andon Cord Probably my favourite real-world psychological safety practice, the Andon Cord is a brilliant approach to quality improvement A fundamental part […]...
Being Approachable By Jade Garratt Most of us would probably like to think of ourselves as approachable at work We might have bad moments, or bad days, but we will likely think that on the whole, we are approachable Approachability […]...
