The workplace advantage that matter most in the age of AI
Psychological safety is the belief you can speak up without fear of retaliation. Harvard professor Amy Edmondson says in the age of AI, it can be a superpower.
As organizations race to automate tasks and boost productivity, many are overlooking what artificial intelligence can’t build in the workplace: trust.
A culture in which people feel safe enough to speak up and admit mistakes without fear of punishment, known as psychological safety, is becoming a competitive advantage.
Harvard Business School professor Amy Edmondson, a pioneer of research on psychological safety, says the need for dissent and even friction has never been greater because AI is “introducing so much change and novelty and uncertainty.” The only way to forge through it, she says, is “through iteration, through a constant experiment, small, smart experiments.”
Experimentation, however, requires a climate many organizations lack: feeling like you can ask questions or challenge ideas without those actions coming back to haunt you.
“We have been well-trained to engage in impression management, to engage in self-protection,” said Edmondson, author of “Right Kind of Wrong: The Science of Failing Well” and “The Fearless Organization: Creating Psychological Safety in the Workplace for Learning, Innovation, and Growth”. “That helps us as individuals look good, but it doesn’t help us as teams and organizations perform well.”
Edmondson’s research shows many high-profile failures experienced in the past by large organizations such as NASA and Volkswagen could have been avoided had someone spoken up.
Even smaller ones have seen similar circumstances.
Transforming a ‘culture of fear’ into a safe space
CEO Michael Novakovich saw firsthand the consequences of distrust in his own organization.
When he joined Columbia Ability Alliance, a Washington-based nonprofit, about four years ago, morale was low and so was productivity. A “culture of fear” meant employees were terrified of providing honest feedback, even anonymously.
Rather than demanding answers, Novakovich focused on rebuilding trust. He emphasized a learning environment, where mistakes were not treated as failures, but opportunities for growth.
“People were going to be uncomfortable, likely going to have to take some risks, “said Novakovich, referring to major changes taking place within the organization at the time. “If we didn’t have psychological safety, we were never going to get them there.”
He says the process wasn’t easy; it took about a year and a half. Since then, the organization won a regional nonprofit of the year award and was named one of the best places to work in the area.
The discomfort Novakovich highlighted is often the most important part of psychological safety and also the most overlooked, according to organizational culture expert and University of Michigan Ross School of Business professor Marcus Collins.
Discomfort can bring new ideas
“We think it’s about comfort, that I feel comfortable,” said Collins. “Comfort actually keeps you from taking a jump … But safety is, I feel safe jumping to the next rock. I’m more inclined to take a leap. That’s what gets to new ideas, new innovations.”
He says psychological safety doesn’t necessarily mean “people are going to agree with me” but that you “can have a point of view that challenges the orthodoxy” and won’t be hurt because of it.
Leaders and colleagues can help foster that environment when they “actively choose curiosity” and “get in the habit of asking good questions,” says Edmondson.
“We all should be striving to be a little bit uncomfortable some of the time, because that means we’re learning,” she said.
Edmondson says none of us have a playbook for every challenge AI will bring, but teams who feel confident questioning tools and outputs have the best chance at success.