We interview Dr. Amy C. Edmondson, Novartis Professor of Leadership and Management at Harvard Business School, a chair established to support the study of human interactions that lead to the creation of successful enterprises that contribute to the betterment of society. She has pioneered the concept of psychological safety for over 20 years and was recognized in 2021 as #1 on the Thinkers50 global ranking of management thinkers.

Amy is the author of Teaming: How Organizations Learn, Innovate, and Compete in the Knowledge Economy (2012), The Fearless Organization: Creating Psychological Safety in the Workplace for Learning, Innovation, and Growth (2018), and, most recently, Right Kind of Wrong: Why Learning to Fail Can Teach Us to Thrive (2023).

We speak to Amy about how to build psychological safety and learn from failure to promote flourishing, in teams, organizations, and our own lives.

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Psychological safety

Right Kind of Wrong: Why Learning to Fail Can Teach Us to Thrive (2023)

Timestamps:

00:00:05 - Introduction to Professor Amy C. Edmondson 00:00:27 - Defining Psychological Safety 00:01:10 - Disrupting Misconceptions About Psychological Safety 00:01:50 - Linking Psychological Safety to Thriving 00:02:21 - Exploring Psychological Safety and Learning from Failure 00:03:08 - Clarifying Psychological Safety in the Workplace 00:05:03 - Examples of Interpersonal Risk-Taking 00:06:35 - Insights from Amy's TED Talk on Teamwork and Error Rates 00:09:41 - The Role of Discomfort in Psychological Safety 00:10:07 - Creating a Psychologically Safe Environment 00:12:18 - The Relationship Between Psychological Safety and Performance 00:15:37 - The Spectrum of Psychological Safety in Teams 00:20:34 - Challenges in Creating Psychological Safety in Certain Industries 00:22:59 - Transition to Discussing "Right Kind of Wrong" 00:23:27 - The Connection Between Psychological Safety and Types of Failure 00:26:09 - Personal Stories of Intelligent Failure 00:29:18 - Distinguishing Between Types of Failure 00:37:19 - The Impact of Perfectionism on Psychological Safety 00:38:55 - Psychological Safety Beyond Interpersonal Environments 00:41:16 - Applying Right Kind of Wrong in Personal Lives 00:44:03 - Practical Steps for Embracing Failure and Thriving 00:48:01 - Leadership Behaviors to Avoid for Psychological Safety 00:50:07 - The Importance of Context in Embracing Failure 00:53:05 - When to Persist and When to Pivot in the Face of Failure 00:56:18 - Final Practical Advice and Resources