Psychological Safety and Micromanagement By Jade Garratt Those who have followed our work at Psych Safety for a while will know that we believe exploring not just what to do – the behaviours and practices that support psychological safety – […]
Psychological Safety
Rewetting Organisations by Tom Geraghty Allowing the system to self-organise by improving the substrate: creating the underlying conditions for change. When I was studying ecology at university, one of the activities we undertook in our field trips was helping to […]
The Spectrum of Participation by Jade Garratt Engagement and participation are terms we often throw around to mean “getting people’s take on issues that affect them.” But not all participation is created equal. Sometimes, “inviting participation” amounts to little more […]
Psychological Safety in Practice Team Learning in the Field: An Organizing Framework and Avenues for Future Research This excellent paper from Amy Edmondson and Jean-François Harvey affirms that teams learn most effectively when members feel safe to speak up, take interpersonal risks, […]
Déformation professionnelle By Tom Geraghty “Every specialist, owing to a well-known professional bias, believes that he understands the entire human being, while in reality he only grasps a tiny part of him.” Alexis Carrel, Nobel laureate We all see the […]
by Navya Adhikarla When we talk about creating inclusive workplaces, we often discuss accessibility and psychological safety as separate initiatives. Accessibility (also abbreviated as a11y) focuses on removing physical and digital barriers, while psychological safety addresses the emotional and social […]
All Models Are Wrong, and Some Are Useful By Tom Geraghty This is one of my favourite, and most often used, aphorisms. It’s attributed to George Box, a British statistician, from a 1976 paper on Science and Statistics, though the […]
by Navya Adhikarla I am a neurodivergent engineering manager who loves to innovate and solve problems. But, I am also a neurodivergent person who navigates daily hurdles that stem from processing social cues differently, managing sensory sensitivities, and requiring support […]
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 S.A.F.E.T.Y.™ 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 decades […]
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, […]
“what you love,” “what the world needs,” “what you can be paid for,” and “what you are good at”, the idea being that the intersection of all of these is where we find Ikigai.
Why Silence So Often Wins 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 weighed the pros and cons and […]
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, Chernobyl, […]
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 F*ck Up” stickers, we’ve created these “Sometimes I Muck Up” stickers available in our online shop! Delivering Effective Feedback There are still a few […]
An Exploration of The 5 Pillars of Psychological Safety (TM: Gina Battye) Psychological safety is one of those concepts that’s deceptively simple. On the surface, it’s about whether people feel able to speak up without fear of negative consequences. But […]
Exploring The Psychological Safety Index (PSI) (Trademark: The Fearless Organisation) Psychological safety is one of those concepts that’s easy to grasp intuitively, but much harder to measure. We can usually sense when a team feels open, trusting, and collaborative – […]
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 […]
The 2024 Psych Safety Book List In case you’ve managed to avoid the onslaught of marketing emails from companies trying to sell you every conceivable product, it’s Black Friday today! Instead of trying to sell to you, we thought we’d share […]
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 […]
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