The Fearless Organization!

There is a robust body of research around the importance of psychological safety

Amy Edmondson created the first research paper* in 1999 on the role of psychological safety in organisations showing, in a medical context, that there were fewer mistakes and fewer adverse consequences for patients where psychological safety was higher amongst medical staff.  In short, teams learnt better practices.

Her 2018 book – the fearless organization – pulls together her considerable body of work along with parallel research by others.  A clear outcome is that having psychological safety enhances engagement, learning and performance.

It is thus not surprising that psychological safety is at the heart of generating student engagement, learning and performance.

The paper that my co-author and I have submitted for peer review shows clearly the importance of psychological safety to students (and teachers) and also that adequate levels are not being provided, although teachers believe that they are providing not only adequate but very high levels of such safety.

There is a solid research base on the importance of psychological safety but there is little research into how it is provided – lots of examples of it in action – but not how it is provided by individuals and organisations.

A new paper that is in early stages of preparation sets out a framework for understanding what it takes to provide psychological safety in a school environment and the concrete steps necessary to do so.

This framework will be generalisable beyond education and opens up the possibility of adopting the Constructive Mutualist paradigm and taking our society to a new level of capability and effectiveness.

* Edmondson, A. (1999). Psychological Safety and Learning Behavior in Work Teams. Administrative Science Quarterly Vol. 44, No. 2 pp. 350-383 (34 pages). Sage Publications, Inc.  doi: 10.2307/2666999

John Corrigan is an expert in helping individuals to bring their whole of mind to their daily life and increase their effectiveness and the effectiveness of those around them. This expertise scales from the individual to the team to the organisation.  At the core of this work is the concept and practice of providing psychological safety and unfeigned lover through operating from the Constructive Mutualist rather than the Behaviourist paradigm.  Earlier blogs can be found here.