Part 1: The Power and Peril of Naming Over the past five years of our work in psychological safety, it has transformed from a little-known term, understood and explicitly practised by only a small group of researchers and practitioners, to […] The post Reflections on Psychological Safety: Five Years of Learning appeared first on Psych Safety.| Psych Safety
Not Feeling Seen: Eye Contact and Psychological Safety There really is some bad advice and research around in respect to psychological safety, in particular how it relates to aspects of neurodiversity and culture. In this piece, we’re going to dive […]| Psych Safety
This blog provides guidelines and tips for observing user research sessions ethically. It emphasises the importance of respecting participants and maintaining the integrity of the research process.| Digital trade
How tailored team-building experiences can contribute to the collective capacity of society to solve big problems.| www.catalystglobal.com
In this episode of The Inclusion Bites Podcast, Joanne Lockwood explores the realities of building bridges in a biased world with guest Sonia Pérez. They uncover the subtle and overt barriers that neurodivergent and minoritised people face in traditionally male-dominated sectors, particularly engineering and energy. Sonia offers candid reflections on navigating complex identities, masking in the workplace, and the intersection of motherhood, neurodiversity, and professional ambition. The con...| SEE Change Happen: The Inclusive Culture Experts
Psychological Safety Isn’t Enough We hear this sometimes, and well… Obviously. It’s rather like saying that having a fully functioning car isn’t enough to make a road trip – and of course it isn’t. We need lots more things to […] The post Psychological Safety Isn’t Enough appeared first on Psych Safety.| Psych Safety
Every year we hold Psych Safety Days and other events for our wonderful community to come together, share insights, learn new practices and examine emergent research and evidence. We’re currently putting together ideas for Psych Safety Day 2026, so if […] The post Psych Safety Day 2026 appeared first on Psych Safety.| Psych Safety
The Amagasaki Derailment In our workshops and training, we often use real-world stories as a way to explore the dynamics of both failure and success. Stories are a powerful tool to help us reflect on our own experiences, and sometimes […] The post The Amagasaki Disaster appeared first on Psych Safety.| Psych Safety
There isn’t a “one-size-fits-all”, cookie-cutter, road map approach to psychological safety. There are some foundational practices and principles, but the experience of psychological safety, and how it manifests, is different for everyone. Our background, culture, neurodiversities, abilities, needs and preferences […] The post Psychological safety isn’t the same for everyone appeared first on Psych Safety.| Psych Safety
Psychological Safety Books for Children In 2020, we shared a collection of the best books about psychological safety. As new books were published (and there have been a lot of them about psychological safety!), we’ve added to and refined the […] The post Psychological Safety Books for Children appeared first on Psych Safety.| Psych Safety
Welcome to The State of Psychological Safety Survey 2025 – the largest global survey on psychological safety ever! Psychological safety is the core ingredient behind high-performing, innovative, and happy teams. It shapes whether we feel safe speaking up, sharing ideas, […] The post The State of Psychological Safety Survey: 2025 appeared first on Psych Safety.| Psych Safety
In today’s fast-paced business world, innovation isn’t just a luxury—it’s a necessity. Companies that foster fresh thinking, celebrate new ideas, and encourage risk-taking are the ones that thrive. But what’s the key to unlocking creativity in the workplace? The answer lies in psychological safety—an environment where individuals feel free to speak up, share unconventional ideas,… The post How to Use Creativity to Drive Success: 4 Strategies to Unlock Innovation appeared first o...| SpeakersOffice
Or is it Leadership *and* Management? I created this graphic in 2019 as part of a presentation on High Performing Teams for the IT Leaders Conference. Inspired by Grace Hopper’s “You manage things, you lead people” quote, I wanted to make the point that great leadership also requires great management skills. You can be … Continue reading "Leadership vs Management" The post Leadership vs Management first appeared on Tom Geraghty.| Tom Geraghty
Organisations are complex sociotechnical systems. And all organisations exist in various states of dysfunction all the time. Some parts of the organisation may briefly reach a “functional” state where everything works effectively, and everyone knows what is happening. But those states don’t exist for long. We can think of this as the organisational entropic force … Continue reading "There is no such thing as a “functional organisation”." The post There is no such thing as a "funct...| Tom Geraghty
Hybrid work is upon us. Hybridisation in biological systems often creates a phenomena known as heterosis (also known as “hybrid vigour”): where the combining of two distinct varieties or genotypes results in a far stronger, more vigorous offspring, even though the resulting hybrid is usually sterile. Many commercial crop varieties are based on this principle, … Continue reading "Hybridisation and the heterosis of hybrid work." The post Hybridisation and the heterosis of hybrid work. f...| Tom Geraghty
To optimize employee wellness, companies must not only create a safe space for all employees but also ensure it is ingrained in their company culture.| Retail TouchPoints
By Jade Garratt It will probably come as no great surprise to those of us who work with the concept of psychological safety that one of the earliest references to the term in academic and psychological literature comes from Carl […] The post Psychological Safety and Creativity appeared first on Psych Safety.| Psych Safety
Barriers to Psychological Safety There are many team-level, organisation-level and broader barriers to speaking up, including (most significantly) steep power gradients, cultural norms (organisational or otherwise), and others. But in this research we wanted to examine the experiential barriers to […] The post Barriers to Psychological Safety appeared first on Psych Safety.| Psych Safety
We’re currently planning Psych Safety Day 2025! Likely location is Malaga, Spain, in September or October. Contact us for more information and to be on the “find out first” list!| Psych Safety
Growth mindset, psychological safety, and accountability must work together for effective leadership.| NeuroLeadership Institute
The NeuroLeadership Institute’s DEI Pulse Survey revealed that organizations are continuing their diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives — but they struggle with communication. The post Taking the Pulse of DEI Initiatives: Are They Thriving or Flatlining? appeared first on NeuroLeadership Institute.| NeuroLeadership Institute
Many organizations mistakenly equate psychological safety with being nice, getting your way, or letting performance slide. The post Is Your Company Getting Psych Safety All Wrong? appeared first on NeuroLeadership Institute.| NeuroLeadership Institute
Learn about the three essential priorities for modern leaders with NLI’s new Leadership GPA quiz and webinar series. The post Boost Your Organization’s Leadership GPA appeared first on NeuroLeadership Institute.| NeuroLeadership Institute
Two images that are worth a thousand words.| Amy C. Edmondson
This is the article I’d have written myself, if only I knew things about improv! FANTASTIC table here expressly linking #improv to concepts from my book #TheFearlessOrganization. You won’t regret taking a peek. psychologicalsafety #intelligentfailure| Amy C. Edmondson
A common misperception about psychological safety is that it means lowering standards, giving up on accountability, or “wrapping teams in cotton wool,” as Dan Cable of London Business School puts it. I have spilled a great deal of ink correcting this notion. Being a social scientist, I also love a good 2 x 2 matrix. …| Amy C. Edmondson
How a leader takes responsibility: They admit fallibility. They ask forgiveness. They explicitly create space for speaking up. And they mean it! It’s almost like #TedLasso has been studying The Fearless Organization. Chapter 7, The Leader’s Toolkit, to be precise. If only. But the message is there and that’s what counts.| Amy C. Edmondson
I’ve been thinking about #TedLasso’s biscuits with the boss. It’s a pretty bold culture change initiative that goes in a non-traditional direction: upwards. In real life, managing up is tricky. It helps to have Ted’s fearlessness and force of personality; it helps to have Ted’s race and gender. It helps to be in upper management, like …| Amy C. Edmondson
Learn actionable strategies to create psychological safety in your workplace. Boost trust, innovation, and mental health with MLW-certified methods.| Most Loved Workplace®
How you respond matters. “Everything you do is important to your organization. People are watching you. The people in your organization determine how to move forward after both successful work and how to recover after failure by watching how you […] The post How you respond matters. appeared first on Psych Safety.| Psych Safety
Practices that Foster Psychological Safety There are many behaviours that (depending on the context) can help to foster psychological safety, over 170 of which are listed in our big list of psychological safety behaviours. However, there are also many practices […] The post Practices that Foster Psychological Safety appeared first on Psych Safety.| Psych Safety
Feedback in the workplace In our “Delivering Effective Feedback” workshops, we explore participants’ experiences of feedback, and we find, of all the feedback they’ve received so far in their career, roughly: So this seemed like an excellent avenue to explore […]| Psych Safety
More than ever, we testing and quality professionals need to be quality leaders for our teams. The job title or role doesn’t matter, competencies and energy to influence do. Too many “agile” teams still struggle along in a mini waterfall. Testers may be embedded on cross-functional teams, but developers still throw testing to the testers […] The post Some ways we can lead for quality appeared first on Holistic Testing with Lisa Crispin.| Holistic Testing with Lisa Crispin
In this thought-provoking episode of The Inclusion Bites Podcast, Joanne Lockwood welcomes Alexandra Bellitter to discuss "Unlocking Neurodivergent Potential". The conversation examines the limitations of traditional coaching methods for neurodivergent individuals, particularly those with ADHD, and spotlights the importance of genuinely adaptive, person-centred approaches. Joanne and Alex challenge the assumption that neurodivergence should be ‘fixed’. Instead, they explore how embracing ...| SEE Change Happen: The Inclusive Culture Experts
Job Security and Psychological Safety In a lot of “What Psychological Safety Is Not” articles, we often come across statements like “psychological safety is not job security”. And that’s true, to a degree. Psychological safety is not the same as […] The post Job Security and Psychological Safety appeared first on Psych Safety.| Psych Safety
Psychological Safety Research Pulse Last week, we asked “Typically, how familiar are people in your workplace with the concept of psychological safety?”. 121 people responded, and the distribution across the whole sample looked like this. The most common responses were […] The post Research: how familiar are people with the concept of psychological safety? appeared first on Psych Safety.| Psych Safety
How We Think About Learning at Psych Safety At Psych Safety, we care deeply about how learning happens. Not just what people take away from a session, but how it feels to be there – what kind of space it […]| Psych Safety
It’s easy to see Getting Things Done—both the book and the concept—as being only about making lists and setting reminders. They are the easiest parts of GTD to describe, which makes it easy to find articles about them, but they’re not the most powerful benefits. Unfortunately, when we write and talk about Big Picture Issues, such as figuring out what you really want to do in life and cultivating “the courage to say ‘No’”, we run the risk of sounding like Woo Merchants with Big...| jbrains.ca
To avoid arguments with strangers who are wrong on the internet, consider the following substitution in your mind as you read. “You shouldn’t do X” or “Don’t do X” or “Stop doing X” becomes “You might not need to do X (especially merely because some book seems to recommend it). You might still choose to do X, but ask yourself whether that was a conscious choice, and if it wasn’t, then reconsider.” Not as pithy, but much more accurate. And no need to correct internet stra...| jbrains.ca
Why do We Foster Psychological Safety? By Tom Geraghty and Jade Garratt It’s easy, when considering why we should work on psychological safety, to go straight to the organisational benefits: improved learning, greater innovation, higher quality products or services and […] The post Why do We Foster Psychological Safety? appeared first on Psych Safety.| Psych Safety
Cultural Diversity and Cockpit Communication Here’s a classic paper from 1999 – Cultural diversity and crew communication, by Fischer and Orasanu. They examined how cultural background, rank and gender influence pilots’ corrective communications in the cockpit. Analysing over 500 pilots […] The post Psychological Safety in Aviation – Special Edition appeared first on Psych Safety.| Psych Safety
By Jade Garratt Which of these do you think might damage psychological safety in a team? The answer, of course, is that all of them can. Sometimes it’s individual behaviours that cause harm to the psychological safety experienced by members […]| Psych Safety
Read how well-crafted check-in and check-out questions can turn awkward meetings to awesome ones and boost engagement and safety.| TeamRetro
Why Just Culture Isn’t Sticking by Tom Geraghty What Do We Mean by “Just” Culture? The concept of a “Just Culture” was first developed in James Reason’s 1997 book Managing the Risks of Organisational Accidents. When we say “Just Culture”, […] The post Just Culture appeared first on Psych Safety.| Psych Safety
By Jade Garratt Have you ever found yourself reacting to something a colleague said as if you were a child being told off by their parents, even though you’re both adults and peers? Or ever said something to a teammate […] The post Transactional Analysis appeared first on Psych Safety.| Psych Safety
Comfort vs Need by Tom Geraghty What do we do when the things that help some people in the team feel psychologically safer don’t work for everyone? Perhaps one person says they need time away from the main meeting group […]| Psych Safety
“Sociological” Safety By Tom Geraghty The term psychological safety has been in use since Carl Rogers’ work in the 1950s and was applied to organisational contexts by Schein and Bennis (among others) in the 1960s. Since Amy Edmondson’s influential research […] The post Sociological Safety appeared first on Psych Safety.| Psych Safety
Guest Post By Jason Rawding Humour and Psychological Safety Being funny at work can feel a bit risky – especially in front of a group, or in an email that many people will see. In trying to make others laugh, […] The post Humour and Psychological Safety appeared first on Psych Safety.| Psych Safety
Do you know that your words matter? That they have impact and carry weight? Let's make sure they carry truth and grace.| MunWai Consulting
Creating a psychologically safe workplace is the secret sauce for any organization looking to adapt effectively to change. At ExperiencePoint, we know that this kind of safety fosters open communication and shared responsibility for those experiencing the change firsthand.| The Prototype
The Organisational Fabric of Psychological Safety (AKA psychological safety is more than just a team phenomenon) By Tom Geraghty When we talk about psychological safety, the definition we usually use is something along the lines of “a shared belief that […]| Psych Safety
All Feedback Is Subjective By Jade Garratt … And Why That Matters for Psychological Safety “No person in the world is so privileged as to have access to a ‘ground truth’ against which all other people’s understanding can be proven […]| Psych Safety
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 […]| Psych Safety
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 […]| Psych Safety
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 […]| Psych Safety
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 […]| Psych Safety
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 […]| Psych Safety
The goal of scaling agility is to enable an organisation to increase value generation without adding more people and processes than necessary... The post Scaling Agility (CASP 1) appeared first on Ripple Rock.| Ripple Rock
Evolve your leadership capabilities to build a more resilient organisation and team... The post CERTIFIED AGILE LEADERSHIP (CAL) appeared first on Ripple Rock.| Ripple Rock
Explore and embed deeper principles, along with simple and effective... The post CULTIVATING PSYCHOLOGICAL SAFETY appeared first on Ripple Rock.| Ripple Rock
Raise awareness and understanding for leadership, teams or the wider organisation... The post PSYCHOLOGICAL SAFETY BRIEFING appeared first on Ripple Rock.| Ripple Rock
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 – […]| Psych Safety
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 […]| Psych Safety
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, […]| Psych Safety
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 […]| Psych Safety
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 practice, this usually […]| Psych Safety
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, […]| Psych Safety
The Highest Paid Person’s Opinion. One of the (many) barriers to speaking up is the knowledge or perception that your voice doesn’t carry as much weight as someone else’s. This can be particularly common when in the presence of those […]| Psych Safety
“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.| Psych Safety
Psychological safety describes a workplace environment where individuals feel safe to take risks, share ideas, and experiment without fear of judgment or punishment. It’s not just a buzzword—it’s foundational to fostering creativity, collaboration, and innovation. Why does psychological safety matter? Because when team members don’t feel safe, they hold back. Fear stifles creativity and [...] The post How to Tell if Your Team Feels Psychologically Safe appeared first on TeamRetro.| TeamRetro
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, […]| Psych Safety
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 […]| Psych Safety
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 […]| Psych Safety
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 […]| Psych Safety
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 […]| Psych Safety
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 […]| Psych Safety
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 […]| Psych Safety
The Definition Of Psychological Safety Psychological safety is defined as the belief, in a group, that we are safe to take interpersonal risks. It’s the belief that we are able to speak up with ideas, questions, concerns and mistakes, and […]| Psych Safety
How to foster psychological safety with your own manager. By Jade Garratt Psychological safety isn’t only the responsibility of those in leadership positions. We believe that if you have the power to destroy psychological safety for someone – if you […]| Psych Safety
By Jade Garratt, Bea Poyton and Tom Geraghty In our leadership workshops, we often talk about failures of psychological safety – what happens when, in an absence of psychological safety, concerns are not raised, questions remain unasked, mistakes are hidden […]| Psych Safety
Experiments, bets and probes One of our mottos at PsychSafety is “everything is an experiment”. The outcome of work shouldn’t just be getting the thing done, it should be learning how to do it better next time. Experiments don’t mean […]| Psych Safety
(DEI stands for Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion) We’ve recently seen more and more people (almost always white, straight men) jumping on the “DEI didn’t work” bandwagon, even some who are prominent in the psychological safety domain. And it’s really worrying, so […]| Psych Safety
As complaints about ill effects fuel criticism of diversity, equity, and inclusion—and companies “rebrand” their efforts to render them less obtrusive—is DEI destined to follow ESG in becoming the “latest dirty word in corporate America”? The post Detoxifying DEI: How to Clean Up the Reality and Perception of DEI first appeared on Ethical Systems.| Ethical Systems
Detoxifying DEI: As complaints about ill effects fuel criticism of diversity, equity, and inclusion—and companies “rebrand” their efforts to render them less obtrusive—is DEI destined to follow ESG in becoming the “latest dirty word in corporate America”?| Ethical Systems
Experiments, bets and probes One of our mottos at PsychSafety is “everything is an experiment”. The outcome of work shouldn’t just be getting the thing done, it should be learning how to do it better next time. Experiments don’t mean […]| Psych Safety
The Johari Window By Jade Garratt, Director of Education Like many, I was first introduced to the Johari Window in leadership development training. It was presented as a tool to understand yourself, and it was used to demonstrate how feedback […]| Psych Safety
Join Mark Graban on Lean Blog Interviews as he talks with Steve Pereira and Andrew Davis, authors of "Flow Engineering: From Value Stream Mapping to Effective Action." Discover insights on improving workflows, the importance of psychological safety, and lessons from their collaborative writing process.| Lean Blog
My guest for Episode #271 of the My Favorite Mistake podcast is Andrew Davis, Chief Product Officer at AutoRABIT and the author of Mastering Salesforce DevOps. He's also co-author of the new book Flow Engineering: From Value Stream Mapping to Effective Action - with Steve Pereira.| Mark Graban
When we read advice that ignores our context, we have a choice: ignore it, refute it, or allow it to help us. Here, we explore a way to get more value from t...| blog.jbrains.ca
How psychological safety emerges and changes over time in the workplace. Given that psychological safety itself is a relatively young field, there’s not a huge amount of published research that addresses the longitudinal dynamics of psychological safety in the workplace: […]| Psych Safety
The Interrelationship between Psychological Safety And Wellbeing When we talk about psychological safety in our workshops and sessions, the concept of wellbeing almost always comes up. This makes sense, since psychological safety is essentially about how people feel at work. […]| Psych Safety
Is DEI a long-overdue solution for centuries of prejudice or a diabolical power grab by underqualified progressives? Is it a way to enable a more empowered and effective generation of corporate leaders or a way to define and categorize human beings in limited, simplistic, social identity categories? No one agrees, but everyone is sure they […] The post Rethinking DEI in an Era of Outrage first appeared on Ethical Systems.| Ethical Systems
Approaching opposing views with empathy and effort can increase civility and understanding, leading to reduced tensions in the workplace. The post Good vs. Good: Using Empathy and Effort to Grasp Opposing Views first appeared on Ethical Systems.| Ethical Systems
In Part 1 of this two-part series, I wrote about identifying and removing toxic elements from diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) efforts. However, it isn’t just DEI’s combative issues or toxic approaches that can be problematic. Crudely spotlighting diversity and asking employees to take part in the process of enhancing it can cause threats to safety . . . The post Advancing DEI With More Psychological Safety and Authenticity first appeared on Ethical Systems.| Ethical Systems
The Pac-Man rule One of the main reasons to go to a conference, event or meetup is to meet people and have interesting conversations. I’ve found myself at day-long conferences where I’ve not attended a single talk, and instead found […]| Psych Safety
Ten Ways to Foster Psychological Safety in the Workplace We’ve been reflecting on our last few years of experience delivering psychological safety workshops, training and consultancy in organisations around the world. Based on all those wonderful experiences, working with industries […]| Psych Safety
We love to measure stuff, don’t we? Maybe it’s human nature, but we seem to have a strong desire to make the intangible tangible, and we tend (or at least many of us do) to believe in the robustness of […]| Psych Safety
Psychological Safety and Safeguarding Article by Jade Garratt Imagine suspecting, or even knowing, that something is terribly wrong, but feeling unable to speak up about your concerns. This feeling can be all too real in environments where safeguarding is essential, […]| Psych Safety
The Workplace Psychological Safety Act (WPSA) is proposed USA legislation aimed at addressing and mitigating psychological abuse, including bullying and mobbing, in the workplace. This act seeks to provide comprehensive protection for all employees, regardless of their membership in a […]| Psych Safety
The online Psychological Safety Community has been live since early 2021, and currently has around 800 members. It’s completely free to join, and we have some great conversations there. A lot of newsletter topics and sharing items come from discussions […]| Psych Safety
