#9 Amy Edmondson: Building teams where people feel safe

Andrew Skotzko [00:01:55]:

Amy, welcome to the show. Thank you so much for taking the time and being here. It is a real privilege to have you with us.

Amy Edmondson [00:02:00]:

Oh, Andrew, thank you for having me.

Andrew Skotzko [00:02:02]:

I've heard you say two things elsewhere that I just really loved, and I thought it would be a great place to start. And one was that resonates deeply with me and really the mission of this show, which is really, as a show, this is an exploration of how do we make things that make things better, right? How do we make organizations that make things better, how do we make products that make things better? And then what does it take for people as caring leaders and people in the world to actually do that? That's what the show is about. And so there was something you said. I heard you say that we all yearn to develop and express ourselves in the service of something greater than ourselves. And there was another phrase I heard you say elsewhere where you said, you don't belong to you, you belong to the world. And I was just hoping you could expand on that a little bit and tell us what that means to you.

Amy Edmondson [00:02:50]:

On the second one or the first.

Andrew Skotzko [00:02:52]:

Whichever one's resonating.

Amy Edmondson [00:02:53]:

Well, the second one I have to cite the source although the source is Buckminster Fuller who said you don't belong to you, you belong to the universe. And the point of that statement is mean in many ways it takes the pressure off, right? Instead of having to worry so much about who am I and am I good enough? Am I sort of accomplishing enough you can relax a little and just say I have a role to play in this grander scheme. Now, the context for Buckminster Fuller saying that which was in the late 20s was a moment of great despair for him where he had felt that he was in his early thirty s and he felt he had made a real mess of everything let's see, 60 years later I worked for him as his chief engineer. So this is really how I got my professional start. My first job was a very strange job. I worked as an engineer for a boss who was four times my age, who had a grand sense of excitement about life and what each of us could contribute. So it was a very great way to start one's career, I assure you. Wait, so let me be clear. So in this period, in his early thirty s of feeling like a failure and that he'd let his family down and let his wife and his wife's family down, he contemplated taking his own life and says he was struck by a very profound sense of insight, of almost an external voice, saying, you do not have the right to do away with yourself. You don't belong to you. You belong to the universe. Now, the insight there was you might not know why you're here but you're here for a reason. And the particular and I think this is true for all of us the unique experiences that you have had can and must be translated into something meaningful going forward. You might not be in the best position to know why you're special and why you have something to contribute but rest assured you do and it takes the pressure off. It's up to you to be here and look forward and want to contribute but it's not up to you to decide whether you're good enough to be here you are by virtue of the fact you're exactly exactly and you're unique. And there is a neelifer merchant talks about onlyness which I think is very much along these same lines. It's that each of us has a sort of unique role to play, and the more we can find what that is and not feel like a cog in a larger system, the better off we and the larger system are.

Andrew Skotzko [00:06:13]:

Wow. I love that. I think so. Thank you, first of all, for sharing. I'm so curious. Originally, the source, as you said, was Buckminster Fuller, but what was it like working with him? I mean, you worked with him, right? I love the story where you effectively just wrote him a letter out of the blue and he wrote you back with a job offer. But tell me a little more about what what was that actually like? Do you remember your first day working with him?

Amy Edmondson [00:06:38]:

I do. I do very much remember the first day because I showed up in the Philadelphia office, and I didn't know it at the time. Bucky was there, and he had a small office. There were about seven people who worked there, and he was there. And I didn't realize at the time how unusual that was. He just traveled a lot. He traveled three weeks out of four, maybe more. He was in the office three or four days a month at most. So I didn't realize that. I'd just gotten a little bit lucky. I showed up, and there he was. And he didn't have a clear sense of what he wanted me to do. And his executive office manager, the person who really ran his life in the office, didn't know what to do with me either. And so very quickly, I was making photocopies. Now, that's the kind of task that ages me, because nobody makes photocopies anymore. Now everything's PDF or we print it or whatever. But back then, there was a lot of work in a lot of offices of making photocopies. He was writing a new book, and I was photocopying the manuscript to go to someone else. It was really boring work. So it was motivating to quite quickly try to get into doing something a little more interesting.

Andrew Skotzko [00:08:08]:

I love that, by the way, actually, one thing I wanted to ask you. I love that your moniker in this chat you wrote Self Disciplined Astronaut. Did you write that or did it AutoCAD?

Amy Edmondson [00:08:22]:

That was you.

Andrew Skotzko [00:08:23]:

I thought it was you.

Amy Edmondson [00:08:25]:

I just don't know where that came from. But I love it.

Andrew Skotzko [00:08:28]:

I was like, what a cool moniker.

Amy Edmondson [00:08:30]:

But it's also know I don't usually talk about Bucky anymore, but he called us all astronauts on spaceship Earth.

Andrew Skotzko [00:08:37]:

Exactly. I was like, oh, maybe. I was thinking maybe it's a Bucky reference.

Amy Edmondson [00:08:42]:

Yeah. And self discipline. He also had his self disciplines of anyway, the spirit of Bucky is with us. Yeah, I might keep it.

Andrew Skotzko [00:08:51]:

There you go. I can screenshot it and send it to you. That way you have like, hey, look, I am, in fact, a self disciplined astronaut. So there you go. The spirit of Bucky is alive and well and with us now. It's official. What a fun coincidence. I'm curious. You must have had such a range of experiences working with him. When you reflect back on that, what has stuck with you, do you think whether it was a lesson from him directly or just something you took from your time there?

Amy Edmondson [00:09:19]:

What do you carry with you? In many ways? I think that's an easy question for me because the meta lesson, which was loud and clear, I mean, not on the first day, but almost, was the experience of being trusted to do some of the most important and central work. So within a pretty short time, I was doing engineering drawings and calculations for the development of new geodesic solutions for simpler geodesic dome configurations that could be larger without exponential complexity. So I'm doing that and I'm doing that with a calculator and a pencil and various things, because it's right before personal computers came in and nobody's overseeing my work. I'm doing it. I can see if it works. When I build things, I give the work to Bucky periodically. He's always very pleased with it, and he treats me as if I'm a genius, which I'm not. But it's an amazing experience to be told, in a sense, you're being given very important work and then to be appreciated for doing it. Trusted to be without real oversight, with coaching and guidance, but no oversight and control, if you will. So it led me to experience and then almost take for granted that work is a place where you learn and grow, where you feel good about what you're doing, where you believe that what you're doing matters. Some small way to making a better world where your colleagues aren't frightening. In fact, they're the opposite of frightening. They're interested in what you have to say. They're appreciative of what you do. I got to control most of my own work. I mean, I got to just decide in the morning what I would get done today. I work incredibly hard. So that little list that I just said is really what I think work should be like. What I think work can be like.

Andrew Skotzko [00:11:53]:

I love that. What if the vast majority of workplaces were like that? Holy crap. What could be possible? I don't even know. But I know it's extraordinary, right?

Amy Edmondson [00:12:05]:

The trust, the respect, the sense of mission, absolute intrinsic motivation. I basically started this job not knowing if I'd be paid or not, figuring out I just will do something on the side. I'll figure it out. He was such a hero. I really wanted to be there, but within a few days I learned I would be paid. Which was good. Not very much. I was paid very little and I didn't care at all.

Andrew Skotzko [00:12:36]:

That's the best, right? It's like when the money's an afterthought. You're like, yeah, the money it's great.

Amy Edmondson [00:12:40]:

But I saved, didn't I? Had a bicycle and a bunch of roommates and a nice house in Was. Who. What did I need money for? Nothing.

Andrew Skotzko [00:12:51]:

Sounds awesome.

Amy Edmondson [00:12:51]:

Yeah.

Andrew Skotzko [00:12:52]:

We'll move on from bucky here in a minute. Was he intimidating at, like, I just imagined showing up? I might feel so intimidated by, but.

Amy Edmondson [00:13:01]:

No, immediately you might show up feeling intimidated. I certainly did. But within three minutes, he would have had you off that and onto something else. He was joyful, he was appreciative, he was cheerful. He was always sort of interested and curious in what was going on and what other people were bringing. So also the sideshow here was also this idea that, oh, here's a man in his late 80s who's perhaps the most joyful human being I've ever met. Right. So that was a new thing. That was a new possibility.

Andrew Skotzko [00:13:45]:

Yeah. Like, holy crap, look at this. Here's someone flourishing for a long time.

Amy Edmondson [00:13:50]:

Yeah. It's just so full of love and excitement.

Andrew Skotzko [00:13:56]:

I love that. That's so cool. Well, thanks for sharing that. I really appreciate being working where you work. Right. Working at Harvard. One of the things you said right in the beginning of this conversation that really struck me was this idea. It came out of that quote of, you don't belong to you, you belong to the universe or to the world. And this idea that you can relax a little bit, and I was just imagining that seems like a really positive influence, that if I was a high stressed type, a grad student at HBS would probably be a really good thing. And I'm curious if you notice that that being an especially needed set of guidance for people these days, either at Harvard or where you engage outside of Harvard.

Amy Edmondson [00:14:38]:

I do think so. I think an awful lot of young people starting out in various careers are deeply anxious. Understandably, it's not necessarily a character flaw to be anxious. I was anxious, but anxious in a way that creates a sense of loneliness, because you can't let your guard down, you can't let your mask go aside, and that is a vicious cycle. It's counterproductive because that anxiety can so easily be lessened with a few small things, sort of a recognition you're not alone, that everybody pretty much is in the same boat. Feels like you do. I think sometimes a feeling of connectedness is the most important thing you can have in the workplace, the sense of, yeah, I show up, I work hard. I'm anxious sometimes about making a deadline or doing great work, but not about my colleagues, not about being found out. When we first logged on today, we had some problems with the technology, and at one point you said, oh, it was all my fault. I did something wrong. And I jokingly said, oh, that makes me feel so much better, because it's usually me, but it's always in good humor. But there's a way in which we're so afraid to be found out or to be less than perfect in any way, rather than just realizing it's funny and fine, when we screw up, we're going to do it to err is human, right? That's going to happen full stop. So get over yourself, right? Relax. And it's so much more fun to be curious about someone else and what they bring than to be tense about being found out.

Andrew Skotzko [00:16:47]:

Yeah, I could almost stop the interview right now, except we have a lot of other cool things to talk about. But that I mean, absolutely. Do you think that's why this struck such a chord in the last year? Or I'm curious if you notice it, why do you think your timing was basically perfect with this book? And I'm curious, did you plan it? Was it luck? Or why did this strike such a chord right now?

Amy Edmondson [00:17:10]:

I don't know, really. But my best guesses are that people really have we have finally recognized that we do knowledge work, right? That even in the most routine tasks, it's usually knowledge work. And knowledge work means got to use your knowledge. And the knowledge that we use is in constant state of flux. I think there's sort of a recognition that, wow, if people are holding back, if we're not hearing from you, if you can't bring what you know forward, we're at risk. So there's a kind of growing recognition, finally, that the pace of change and the reality of expertise and knowledge and uncertainty requires us to be a different way, right? It requires us to be willing to speak up, to take interpersonal risks. And that's not normal. I think also some of the less positive aspects of the workplace that have come to light over the last year or so, including the MeToo movement and various other corporate scandals and problems, have led people to be more aware that people are holding back an awful lot and that it comes out eventually. So what are we doing wrong? How are we creating environments where this movie script is playing out over and over and over again just to set.

Andrew Skotzko [00:18:58]:

A grounding for anyone who hasn't read the book yet? So the book is The Fearless Organization came out last year. It is really a treatise in a very practical way about building psychological safety in the workplace. But I think it also is broadly applicable to families, to volunteer organizations, to teams, really anywhere you've got groups of humans collaborating to do something or just live just to set a baseline. I've heard you describe it as psychological safety, that is, as sort of not getting tied up in knots about interpersonal risk. How do you like to describe it for people now? And I guess related to that, what is it not?

Amy Edmondson [00:19:35]:

Oh, great. Well, I like to describe it because I think it conveys what I really mean as a sense of felt. Permission for candor I just look around and I feel like this is a place where I can be candid, where I can ask for help, where I can say, oops, I made a mistake, where I can say, I don't know, where I can suggest a wacky idea, and it just feels possible. It's easy. That's the best I can do, I think, to define it. And yet, even when I do my best, I will still inadvertently imply people will think, oh, it's about being nicer to each other. No? And the reason I'm not against being nice, but the reason why psychological safety is not about being nice is that oftentimes, at least at work, being nice is code for, I'm not going to tell you what I really think. I'm going to go along, I'm going to nod, but then in the hallway, I'm going to tell my other colleague who I trust and like what I really think I also want to say it's not sort of touchy feely, it's not absence of conflict. In fact, if you really get this right, it's the presence of conflict. I mean, we're going to disagree, we're going to have different views. We're going to sometimes have to really get into it. It's not permission just to whine, like, okay, you're psychologically safe. You can just sit there and whine about what you don't like around here. I mean, that might be fine and come along with the territory, but that's not what I'm talking about per se, and it's not nirvana. Right? And it's also not the goal. The goal is learning or excellence or contribution to the mission. And all I'm saying is that if you don't have this kind of climate where permission to speak up feels easy, then you won't be able to do the work as well.

Andrew Skotzko [00:21:57]:

Yeah, I think you said that very well. And it went to how we actually originally got connected was I had some misconceptions of my own about what did this term mean and what is this psychological safety thing?

Amy Edmondson [00:22:10]:

Right?

Andrew Skotzko [00:22:10]:

I think I had two really critical misconceptions that I have heard now from other people, as I've been talking about this, getting ready for this conversation. And the first one was that it was the same as belonging or a sense of fitting in. Right. As I explored it, it seems like, and feel free to please correct me where I'm getting this wrong, it seems like this is really about voice. It's about candor. It's about the conditions that provide an easy opportunity to speak up about anything work related. I think there was a reference you used a lot or a phrase you used a lot about any work related idea.

Amy Edmondson [00:22:43]:

Yes, work relevant.

Andrew Skotzko [00:22:45]:

And I said, oh, that's very interesting because I think you're not saying it's about anything on your mind or about what you had for lunch two weeks ago or your random personal hobby.

Amy Edmondson [00:22:56]:

Right?

Andrew Skotzko [00:22:56]:

So say a bit more about that because I think that there's something there.

Amy Edmondson [00:23:00]:

I think it's so important to realize I'm not talking about just unleashing every thought that flows through your head. Whether that sounds fun or horrifying is up to you. I'm talking about work, relevant information. So if you suddenly feel all your colleagues should be interested in what you had for lunch today, you need a second thought. And this is, in fact, where the discipline comes in. I think psychological safety is the sense of freedom that I can bring my full self forward, but I also have an obligation to be thoughtful and disciplined about what I bring forward. Now, it's okay to err on the side of inclusion. Like, if I'm not quite sure that something's relevant, I probably should check.

Andrew Skotzko [00:23:50]:

Right.

Amy Edmondson [00:23:51]:

But there are many things that are obviously not relevant and not helpful for the here and now. And so learning and engaging and sort of contributing to the shared work is a process that requires both a sense of psychological safety and or discipline. Right. Sort of discipline to get it right and to be thoughtful. There's been a lot of talk recently about courage, and I'm all for it. Starting to write about courage and courageous cultures. And the immediate questions that come to mind are, okay, well, if you have a courageous culture, does that mean we don't need psychological safety anymore? Or if you have psychological safety, does that obviate the need for courage? And I think the answer to both questions is no. That in fact, I think psychological safety and courage are two sides of the same very valuable coin. No matter what, there will be things that are going to be challenging for me to say, or I'll worry that I won't get this quite right, so I need to sort of screw up my courage just a little bit to jump in there and try. But meanwhile, you can easily imagine workplaces where I don't care how much courage you I mean, you're just not going to do it. You're holding back. It doesn't feel appropriate. It feels that it's not your place, et cetera. So whether you think of this as a need for more courage or as a need for more safety, almost doesn't matter too much. I think the only real difference is that the emphasis in the term courageous cultures is on the individual to speak up, you ought to speak up. Right? And the emphasis on psychological safety cultures is a little bit more on a combination of leaders, team and otherwise, and the collective. Like, it's up to us. It's up to us to draw each other out. It's up to us to do what we can to make it easier for people to express themselves.

Andrew Skotzko [00:26:08]:

Yeah. I think the key word in what you said is easier, right. Not zero effort. So maybe it lowers the threshold or the bar of courage required, but it doesn't eliminate the need for guts.

Amy Edmondson [00:26:21]:

Exactly. And in fact, I sometimes think about the question, it's a hypothetical question, but where do we put the threshold? Where do I put the threshold? Because clearly you put it somewhere of what I will and what won't speak up about. And my primary argument is that most people, most of the time in most workplaces are putting the threshold for voice too high. They put it up here when it should be down here, not at the floor, but it should be lower than your instincts tell you it should be.

Andrew Skotzko [00:26:55]:

Totally, yeah. This is so useful because I think going back to that belonging bit, one of the places where originally I and a few other people I've had conversations with about this got tripped up, was thinking, oh, okay. Psychological safety means we sort of combined the factors of being able to have voice and speak up about a work related idea with the sense of I'm thinking of a good friend of mine. A sense of he basically didn't feel culture fit, let's put it that way.

Amy Edmondson [00:27:23]:

Right.

Andrew Skotzko [00:27:23]:

Whereas this person felt safe to say work related things. Just didn't really feel like I'm in the right place. Right. A sense of tribe, for lack of a better word. And it's like, oh, those are just different things, right, and one doesn't invalidate the other.

Amy Edmondson [00:27:38]:

Right. In fact, you could easily imagine the possibility of four conditions, right? One with low on both, one very nice place to work with, high on both. Like, I feel like I belong here. I fit in, I'm included feel psychologically safe. That's the kind of workplace most of us want.

Andrew Skotzko [00:27:57]:

Sure.

Amy Edmondson [00:27:58]:

But you certainly can imagine a place where I absolutely feel my voice is welcome, but this isn't really my tribe. I don't feel people are like me or that this is a place for people like me. That's okay. We could also imagine a place where you look around and you sort of say, yeah, this is a great deal, the type of place where I belong. And maybe you just feel overly nervous or anxious. You don't want to screw it up. So either because of cues in the environment or because of what you tell yourself, you don't feel psychologically safe to voice.

Andrew Skotzko [00:28:37]:

Yeah. You see that a lot with groupthink, I think, right. Where it's a sense of almost like almost like you fit in so much that it might even be harder to have psychological safety because you're like, boy, I fit in so much that if I risk something now, I'm actually more at risk because now I might get pushed out a little bit. And that fear of exclusion runs deep in humans.

Amy Edmondson [00:28:56]:

You bet. Absolutely. And so it's faulty thinking in a way, because I don't want to disrupt the harmony of this marvelous in group. So I won't say anything dissenting when in fact, your colleagues might be assuming that if you had something dissenting to say, you'd say it and that's how you'd add value. And you might be the only person who sees some real important risk that's not being discussed, and you hold back for fear of disruption.

Andrew Skotzko [00:29:27]:

It reminds me of the story in the book, I think, about the exec who was afraid of being the I think it was the phrase was a skunk at the party. Was that the right phrase?

Amy Edmondson [00:29:36]:

The skunk at the picnic.

Andrew Skotzko [00:29:38]:

The picnic. The picnic, yeah.

Amy Edmondson [00:29:41]:

So as a senior executive, relatively new to the executive team from the outside, the team is discussing an acquisition, a planned acquisition. Doesn't sound like a good idea to him, but as he said, he didn't want to be the skunk at the picnic. I've used that example to convey the idea of a frame, too, because sometimes I talk a lot, and I talk in the end of the book about the job of leaders and meaning anyone can be a leader, but the job is to deliberately reframe reality so that we can be more learning oriented. But it's a good illustration of what's a frame, a cognitive frame, is a structure through which you see reality largely unaware. But if you think about it, framing an executive committee meeting as a picnic is wrong. Framing a dissenting view as a skunk is wrong. And it shapes the behavior it led him to hold back. And I think he held back because he had the wrong frame. The right frame is you're a smart and, by the way, more objective colleague because you came from the outside.

Andrew Skotzko [00:31:03]:

Yeah.

Amy Edmondson [00:31:04]:

Your fresh eyes might very well see something you have fresh eyes that's a nice frame. Who might see something important that others have missed. And it's your job to share it. Right. A very different frame.

Andrew Skotzko [00:31:16]:

Absolutely. So one of the things I want to sort of shift now that we've got a bit of a theoretical foundation here, and we got psychological safety, we know what it is. Now that we're talking about, I want to talk a little bit more. I want to explore a bit more territory, which I think is what if I understood from some of my research where you're looking to now, which is really about how do you put this into action, how do you make this real, the tools, the techniques, et cetera. And I thought it would actually be fun to and I'm just especially curious to hear how you actually do this. So I've heard you say elsewhere that I think you said how we teach is what we teach. And I'm curious, how do you go about creating this environment? What do you do in your classroom with your grad students or when you maybe engage with a company outside of the university?

Amy Edmondson [00:31:59]:

Both, in fact. So how we teach is what we teach primarily refers to at Harvard Business School, our very heavy reliance on the case method. The case method involves everybody reading the same case, which. By the way, the case itself doesn't have a lot of analysis in it. It's a pretty factual telling of a particular managerial situation. And we convene in the classroom and the professor starts to ask questions. And I would call the questions good questions according to the following definition, which is that they focus on some issue. They don't just say, hey, what's on your mind, Andrew? They say, what do you think about what do you think our protagonist should do? So they focus on a particular issue. They give the person room to respond. They invite careful thought. In the process of over a class session, asking good questions. I am hoping that students will internalize the art of the good question as well as the content or the frameworks or the various other things that that case is designed to teach. If that can become habitual for managers, even for members of any team whatsoever, habitually to be to act as if because that's what I'm doing. I'm acting as if, which of course it's true. I'm genuinely interested in what you have to say. I ask that question and then I listen, and I look like I'm listening. And I'm hoping by doing that, that others are doing the same thing at the same time and that they're thinking and ready to respond. So I should then be able to turn to anyone, whether they expect it or not, and say, hey, what do you think of what Andrew said? So that sort of you're teaching a process of being curious. You're teaching a process of being following the dialogue, of being interested in what others have to say, of being expected to react to it. Not just say, yeah, I agree, but to say, it's an interesting point and I wonder about this, or I completely see it differently, right? The class is more fun. In fact, sometimes I have to stir the pot a bit deliberately, say, because if I just say I call on you, you say something, I then randomly call on someone else. There's a 50 50 chance at least. And sometimes it seems higher that they'll just build on what you said and agree. And sometimes that's happening three or four comments in a row, and I have to say specifically ask the question, who has a different view?

Andrew Skotzko [00:35:00]:

Call out dissent a little bit, right?

Amy Edmondson [00:35:02]:

Because now I'm asking for a narrower set of hands. I don't want just any old hand. I want only hands who are willing and able to speak up with a different view. So another thing about how we teach is what we teach is good questions, good listening, building, going somewhere, and ultimately ensuring diversity of voice, right? Diversity of opinion, diversity of expertise, sort of ensuring it's important to do that anyway. But I'm not always doing it just because the case needs it. Doing it because that's what we're trying to teach. That what we do. Takes process, help groupthink happens spontaneously. No problem. It will happen. But really good conversations. They take work.

Andrew Skotzko [00:36:06]:

Yes, I love that. It's interesting because I spend most of my time I love the podcast, but it's something I do as sort of an out loud learning journey, as someone who spends the vast majority of his time really trying to apply these ideas, mostly in the world of technology and innovation. That's where I spent 95% of my time. And it's really interesting. As I'm listening to you, I'm sitting here thinking, okay, how might this be brought into those types of environments? Right into, say, I work in product development. So when we're beating our heads against the wall on solving a new problem that we don't know how to solve, how does this help? I was curious. You talked about the leaders toolkit on I think it's page 159 in the book, where you talk about setting the stage, inviting participation and responding productively, sort of before, during, and after three categories. Yeah, these sort of three buckets of actions that a leader can take before, during, and after what you're doing. And I was hoping you could maybe walk us through an example, know whether know if you want to talk about maybe Mulali and what's happened at Ford. What did that look like? Actually, to set the stage in the frames like you were discovering, and then to actually move into the activity and then to sort of loop through.

Amy Edmondson [00:37:21]:

This was this is sort of an aside, but I was speaking at a conference at Stanford with sort of women business leaders in the area, and I was telling that story, and this one woman commented. She said she used to work for him. And she said, it's got it doesn't look like that in writing anyway. So I'm like, great, right. I still work on that. But when Alan Mulali came in from the outside to lead Ford, ford was bleeding red ink. I mean, the company was in real trouble.

Andrew Skotzko [00:38:05]:

Do you know what year this was?

Amy Edmondson [00:38:09]:

I should look it up, but I want to say around 2007. But it's probably a little earlier than that, actually, because September 6. Okay, so it's not that bad. Fall of six and three years later, they were the only one of the big three automotive companies in the US. To not need a bailout. So they went from being probably worst performing to being best performing. And when Mulali took over, essentially, he didn't sort of change out the whole team. He inherited a senior team, and he brought them together, and he introduced a kind of traffic light shortcuts for how we talk about what we're up to, where red is bad news and yellow is caution, and green is all as well. And as he tells the story, first couple of executive team meetings, everything's green, right? Finally, he turns around and says to the team, listen, he says, we're on track. We are on track to lose 30 billion. Now, that's a b dollar. That's a staggering amount of money, right? We're on track to lose $30 billion this year, which, by the way, I think is a pretty good example of setting the stage. I mean, he's essentially, in a way, making it permissible to say, yeah, we're in trouble. We can't be doing everything right and losing $30 billion.

Andrew Skotzko [00:39:47]:

It's not possible.

Amy Edmondson [00:39:48]:

Something has to be wrong, right? That's kind of like table stakes. I'm setting the stage. And then he says something like, is there anything not going well? Everything's been green. And that's also invite input, invite engagement. He's reaching out and saying, tell me what you're seeing out there that's not working. And as the story goes, there's a deathly pause. And finally, Mark Fields, who is head of all of the Americas, raises his hand and proceeds to describe a very serious problem with the new, you know, new vehicle launch. And it's got serious production problems, and they're kind of accumulating work in progress, faulty inventory. And the stunning thing about the story is that everybody else in the team reported later to a Fortune magazine reporter that at that moment, their thought was, okay, he's out of here.

Andrew Skotzko [00:40:57]:

Oh, they thought he's about to get fired.

Amy Edmondson [00:40:59]:

He's about to get fired. They literally thought he would get fired for speaking truthfully to crazy. In a volatile, uncertain, complex, ambiguous world. It is crazy that anyone would think that way. Maybe 100 years ago, you could run a company that way. Maybe. But clearly, that's not going to work in today's world. There will always be things that aren't going well because none of us have a crystal ball, and there's so much complexity and uncertainty. So what happened, instead of being fired, of course, was that Malali, in that moment, put his two hands together and started to applaud. And he then said, so that's a symbol, right? That's a very powerful symbol of appreciation. I just applauded. And then he said, Mark, thank you so much for that clear line of sight, which I love because I think it's mission critical to express appreciation and notice. It's not Pollyanna talk. Right? It's not happy talk. It's not, oh, that's great. No, it's not great. I mean, this is a serious problem, right? So it's an honest statement. Thank you for that clear line of sight, because a clear line of sight is always a valuable thing. And then, almost without a pause, he says, now, what can we do to help? So to me, the essence of a productive response is that it's appreciative and forward looking. There is very likely a need for a post mortem, right? There's very likely a need to take a look at what happened and why not? Now, the most important thing to do and say right now, when someone has brought bad news forward or a concern, is to say, how can I help? What should we do? And then, stunningly, within about the next 12 seconds, three executives spoke up with ideas of how to fix it with offers of engineering talent to send up to the plant. I mean, it was sort of remarkable that that one moment of courage on the part of Mark Fields, but inviting engagement on the part of Alan Mullally, they were off and running.

Andrew Skotzko [00:43:30]:

That was the moment it turned.

Amy Edmondson [00:43:31]:

The problem solving process was now underway. And so I also like that story for the following reason. Oftentimes when I start talking about psychological safety and more voice and more candor, people have a worry? Which is okay, I get it. I can see why it might be productive. And it's going to take too long. Right?

Andrew Skotzko [00:43:55]:

This is going to take forever, Amy.

Amy Edmondson [00:43:57]:

It's going to take meetings will take forever. So I like to say 12 seconds, right? And then step back and think how much time was wasted because that problem was not reported.

Andrew Skotzko [00:44:11]:

Yeah. How much time did you spend dancing around it?

Amy Edmondson [00:44:14]:

Yeah. How much time is wasted day in and day out in meetings around the world, dancing around issues, not being truthful, not being candid? And I would posit that that time wasted is much higher than whatever time it takes to actually get to the bottom of it and start to come up with solutions. And I want to remind people that problem solving is a team sport. We're rarely able to solve really tough problems on our own. Problem recognition is something we're pretty good at. Each and every one of us are good sensors. We can see problems, but we need our colleagues to help solve them.

Andrew Skotzko [00:44:56]:

For sure. To the concern that people have raised to you, right, about, like, how long is this going to take? Or is this all going to be touchy feely or whatever, it seems like then there's always the question in the back of people's minds, especially in the business world, of, like, well, why is it worth it? Right? What's the ROI here?

Amy Edmondson [00:45:12]:

Right?

Andrew Skotzko [00:45:12]:

And it seems like one way overly simplistic that I would answer that question. Just listening to the story there about Ford and Mulali is it seems like one of the things it enables you to do is that psychological safety, it enables you and everyone here to play to win instead of playing not to lose.

Amy Edmondson [00:45:30]:

Oh, that's exactly right. That's exactly how I think about it, because playing to win is kind of let's go for it. We might get bruised and scratched along the way, but we're going for it. We're all in. And when you're playing to win, you're not caught up in, how do I look and what do people think of me? You're going for the gold, right? You're going for the prize. And collectively, whereas playing not to lose is a very natural state, a very natural psychological state, which is, I'd rather not fail than take the risk of really going for the win. Right. So playing not to lose is I don't want to make a mistake, I don't want to step outside the bounds. And when you play not to lose, you generally succeed in. Right. You get your goal accomplished. Like, you don't lose, you don't look bad, you kind of manage impressions carefully, but you lose out on the opportunity to go after the bigger win, the opportunity to do something new with your colleagues that required you to sort of bravely jump in.

Andrew Skotzko [00:46:44]:

Yeah. It's almost like you've reduced the spectrum that you're willing to tolerate to this very safe narrow zone. Safe in air quotes. Right. It's not really safe. It just feels less risky. It's like you almost like you don't want to tolerate the feeling of anxiety, vulnerability, whatever. But as a result yeah, you traded away the lows, but you also traded off the highs.

Amy Edmondson [00:47:05]:

Exactly.

Andrew Skotzko [00:47:06]:

Do you notice any parallels or does it come up at all in your research? Do you find any parallels to the topic of self compassion?

Amy Edmondson [00:47:17]:

I haven't thought about that a lot, but with that term specifically. But as soon as you ask it, the answer is yes, because part of what this is all about is self compassion. Right. I mean, I think it is about reminding yourself that you're fine just as flaws and all. You don't have to get every answer right in the classroom or have everything you do be perfect to be okay. I mean, you have to be more generous with yourself and probably with each.

Andrew Skotzko [00:48:00]:

Other as no, because I was thinking about I came across the other day, a book I read a long ago, which is I think it's called Self Compassion. It's by Kristin Neff, who's sort of the leading researcher on the topic of self compassion and sort of the intersection with that and mindfulness. And it occurred to me, as I was prepping for this conversation, I was like, oh, it's interesting because in the same way we're just describing psychological safety as almost like it seems almost like an external version of self compassion. Right. It's like the set of conditions that enables you to be resilient and go for it. Right. Because according to Kristin Neff's work, when you really have developed self compassion, you actually go for things more because you're able to bounce back. You can deal with it not working. That seems a little bit related almost in like an inner outer way, and.

Amy Edmondson [00:48:49]:

It'S also related to the growth mindset, that sense that I don't have to get everything right all the time. I have to, in fact, keep giving myself harder challenges in a good way.

Andrew Skotzko [00:49:04]:

Yeah. Which then that idea of seeking harder challenges and finding one's sense of self esteem in the act of being a learner, right? Almost. It's interesting, I think a lot about and I talk to people a lot on this show about human performance and what are the factors that unlock it. And it's funny, just as you said, that that idea of escalating laddering up challenges, it almost seems like, well, there's your link into flow there's. Chicksemihei's work right there.

Amy Edmondson [00:49:29]:

Absolutely.

Andrew Skotzko [00:49:30]:

Because without that, if you can't ratchet up challenge and go for that ride, you can't actually sustainably have flow in.

Amy Edmondson [00:49:36]:

Your that, you know, the flow state is that that you can't be in the panic zone. Right. But you don't want to be in the comfort zone either. You want to be in that zone where the magnitude of the challenge is well balanced against the capacity you bring to do it. But you realize you can keep developing that capacity. You can keep getting better at something.

Andrew Skotzko [00:50:01]:

Totally.

Amy Edmondson [00:50:02]:

You can only do it by being willing to take that risk. I also think the flow state is one in which you're less self conscious. You might be self aware, but not self conscious. And that does relate to psychological safety.

Andrew Skotzko [00:50:16]:

Yeah. No, it's interesting. A future guest on the show actually is working directly with Stephen Kotler and all the flow research out there and that they found that that's actually one of the key bits, key things that happens in flow is oh, God, I'm blanking on the part of the brain. I think it's the lateral dorsal prefrontal cortex, I think something like that. I will find it and put it in the show notes. But basically it's the part of you that gets self conscious and it just goes offline. It just knocks offline in flow, which is super cool. So it'd be really interesting, actually, to explore the link between flow group flow and psychological safety. That might be a fascinating area to look at. So kind of coming back around, one of the things you said early on that I thought was super important, and I remember bolding this in my notes to come back to was this idea that I want to explore. Where does implementing this go sideways? Right? Because I think most people who encounter your ideas probably like them, they want to do it, but I'm guessing they're not all successful in implementing it. And one of the things I heard you say elsewhere was that it's not just about doing a psychological safety initiative. Right. It has to be in service of something. It has to be formed around a goal where it's like, we're going to explore this together, and we know we don't know the answers, and it's critical. There is no blueprint, so we're going to have to figure it out together. And so I'm curious, what else do you see about where this works or doesn't work when people are trying to make it real?

Amy Edmondson [00:51:46]:

Well, I think what you just said is the most important thing to me is that and of course, I'm deeply sort of appreciative of and admiring of anybody engaging their organization in a psychological safety effort of some kind. Right. I think that comes from a good place and is a good thing to do. And I think it's far, far more likely to be successful if the initiative is on the work. Right. In other words, what is it that we are trying to do or be that we're not yet? We need to launch a digital strategy or we need to turn our financial performance around or whatever. Something that's really truly mission critical, and then the recognition that we won't be able to do this unless people are able to sort of bring their full self to the effort. So then the journey and the change is being produced by working on the thing, working on the real goal and using that work as the laboratory for also checking in on how do we create a better climate, how do we take small risks. There's a kind of chicken and egg problem here around collaboration and candor. It's like which comes you need candor to collaborate effectively, but you need to collaborate to have candor. And I think it's self reinforcing, but you have to have some substance to really work on. And I think most companies are not going to have a whole lot of patience for sitting around and talking about psychological safety or any aspect of the culture, because that's not the business they're in. Right? The business they're in is whatever it is. And then psychological safety is the servant of that.

Andrew Skotzko [00:53:55]:

Yeah. Not only does it help your business, it actually helps everyone's experience in your business too. One thing I'm curious about so other than that, do you see any common failure modes? Are there any patterns you're noticing where this just goes sideways? One example I could imagine is, and this is actually riffing from a listener question that somebody submitted. Let me find it really quick.

Amy Edmondson [00:54:20]:

There it is.

Andrew Skotzko [00:54:21]:

So I'm going to read you this question and I think it might be a failure pattern. I'm curious to hear if you think so. So the listener said, I've noticed a pattern where leaders who highly value niceness and harmony are talking about psychological safety a bit as a reason for not giving or wanting feedback or avoiding addressing issues head on. I'm curious, how does Amy see the concept being misused or used in almost a shadow culture? Kind of?

Amy Edmondson [00:54:48]:

I mean, I think that's a really great question and I do see evidence of that. I want to make sure to say I don't think it's deliberate, I think it's inadvertent. I think it's a failure mode, but not a malicious mode.

Andrew Skotzko [00:55:04]:

Yeah, it's not like a nefarious evil.

Amy Edmondson [00:55:05]:

Plan because culture of Nice can in fact mask a culture of fear. Because oftentimes in cultures, there's a lot of companies I've been in where they'll say, oh, we have fill in company name here Nice. And it's so funny. Let's say the company's name is Edmondson, right? So they'll say, we have Edmondson Nice around here and it's almost as if they think nobody else ever had that. And there's so many companies that have that same problem, and they understand. When people tell you that they understand, it means we can't be disagreeable, we can't be real. Yeah. We can't be real. And what that means is they have framed or coded dissent or input as being disagreeable or even disrespectful. And in a nice culture, you don't want to be disrespectful. That doesn't fit with a nice culture. So it's a very real risk. And so I think it starts with being I mean, making sure you don't fall prey to that failure mode is to be very clear and explicit at the outset that this isn't about being nice. Right. This is about being passionate about the customer.

Andrew Skotzko [00:56:36]:

As one of my favorite coaches of all time said, she said, don't be nice, be great.

Amy Edmondson [00:56:41]:

Yeah. Right.

Andrew Skotzko [00:56:42]:

It's like this is about being great. As great as we can be as a company, a team.

Amy Edmondson [00:56:46]:

Yeah. And I used to define I mean, I used to say psychological safety is kind of a blend of trust and respect. I trust your intentions, I think also your capabilities. And I respect you. I respect you enough to not hold back.

Andrew Skotzko [00:57:07]:

Yeah. It's almost like you're caring enough to say the hard things.

Amy Edmondson [00:57:10]:

Right. Because if I don't care, if I'm indifferent to your future, then why would I exert effort?

Andrew Skotzko [00:57:19]:

Why pay the emotional tax? You just skip it.

Amy Edmondson [00:57:23]:

Right?

Andrew Skotzko [00:57:23]:

So I want to transition to a few more of some of the listener questions. I think there's some really fun ones in here. So one that came up was and I know that you cover this in the book on page 20, there's a scale, but it basically was, how do you measure safety? I know in your surveys you talk about using, like, a five or a seven point, likert, scale. Is that what actually works for people who are operating in business, or is there another way that they can if I'm a team leader, how can I tell if I have a problem or not?

Amy Edmondson [00:57:56]:

It is the case that more and more businesses are using this survey. I don't think very many would do a survey just of this, but if they throw this into their all employee survey, then they get some useful data. I don't think that data is useful for it's not an end in itself. It's a mirror to say, okay, we should have some conversations. In every organization I've ever studied, the following is true. Psychological safety varies across groups. So it's not a variable that's just uniform throughout a company like Ford or General Motors or you name it. It's this group and that group and so on. Now, there might be differences in average across companies. So to me, the important part about using the survey, if you're interested in those kinds of things, is to see where the gaps are so that you can help, you can go to those groups where they might need a little bit of help and turn them around, but I don't think you need to use a survey. In most cases, you can in your own team, for example, step back and ask yourself, how often am I hearing about problems and mistakes and concerns and especially relative to successes are fine. All's well, right? So if you're not hearing the negative stuff, it's very unlikely that that's because things don't go wrong ever.

Andrew Skotzko [00:59:49]:

It's probably a red flag, right?

Amy Edmondson [00:59:50]:

So it's probably a red flag, right. You probably have to sort of get into some of these techniques, like asking good questions and setting the stage and all of that, so that's one if most utterances are positive, you may have a psychological safety problem. People seem just kind of tied up in knots or a little bit too formal and there isn't a kind of positive, warm sense of humor. And we're able to kind of laugh about ourselves, as you and I, this conversation, we laughed about getting the technology wrong and making mistakes, and neither one of us felt a need to say, oh, it couldn't have been my fault. But it's funny. But in real life, often people really don't they do not want to be associated with a problem, a failure, a mistake of any kind. They feel that that would be career ending, which of course is rarely the so just force yourself to step back and ask those kinds of questions and know it's palpable. What is going on here?

Andrew Skotzko [01:01:06]:

It reminds me of oh, gosh, what's it called? Kim Scott's work with radical. And where she gives advice to managers of any place in the hierarchy of like when you're having your one on ones, for example, basically, do people feel safe enough to criticize you? Right? If your direct reports never tell you how you could do your job better or never tell you the impact of things you did that didn't work, that's a red flag, right? If it's all sunshine and roses no, it's not. Something's missing here.

Amy Edmondson [01:01:40]:

Exactly. It's the same thing.

Andrew Skotzko [01:01:43]:

A related question in this idea that if we know we've got it right, if we can see that people are speaking up, they're using their voice in whatever ways are appropriate. I'm curious, another listener asked about does this differ at all or how does it differ across sort of the introvert ambivert extrovert spectrum? There are certain people or personality types that are just quieter or less comfortable in certain situations. How do you think about that?

Amy Edmondson [01:02:13]:

Well, I'll answer that in two ways. One is I do have some data that suggests that introversion extroversion is not correlated with psychological safety. There's an equal chance that you can be an introvert and an extrovert and be in a psychological safe environment, or lack thereof, at work. And the main difference, of course, between introverts and extroverts is the energy it takes that if I'm an introvert, it takes more out of me to share. I get recharged by being alone and thinking and so on. And if I'm an extrovert, I actually get my battery charged by engaging. I almost have to think aloud so it would seem like but the energy thing is slightly different than the do I feel my voice is welcome thing. So it may still be the case that extroverts are talking more. That doesn't mean they're more psychological safe. That's sort of the data side of it. But it is a reality that some people need a little more space. And I think it's probably the case that introverts are going to be more dependent on the leadership practice that I describe as inviting engagement. If you ask an introvert a good question that introvert will happily answer.

Andrew Skotzko [01:03:45]:

Yeah, it seems like it would also be about having if you're trying to create this environment and foster this environment, having sort of a number of tools in your tool belt for how to, for example, solicit feedback. So not necessarily expecting yeah, you could ask for feedback in the all hands meeting, but an introvert is a lot less likely to speak up there. But having other channels where it's like, hey, a written forum or a one on one or something like that seems like it would let you to go more broadly there.

Amy Edmondson [01:04:12]:

Exactly. I mean, the core emotion that psychological safety is about is fear or lack of. I think what I hope is that people can understand that it may not look like it, but more often than not, people are afraid. They're afraid to speak up. They don't want to get it wrong, they don't want to look bad, they don't want to intrude. Now, it's not big tiger, saber tooth tiger fear. It's little interpersonal fear, but it can be crippling and it is addressable.

Andrew Skotzko [01:04:51]:

A question that came up was about how this affects an interviewing process, right. A hiring process within an organization. What have you noticed there? Do companies need to change the way they're hiring to promote more psychological safety? I know I'm asking you two questions at once, which is a terrible thing, but how should a company think about designing an interview process that will actually find people, source people who are willing to challenge the status quo of a company? Like maybe a company is not that safe, but finding people who are willing to do the work to promote it to their right, to their left, to the people below them and to whatever extent they can up the hierarchy.

Amy Edmondson [01:05:29]:

Are you saying how do we hire people who are able to help create this kind of environment or how do we do interviews in a way that it's I see.

Andrew Skotzko [01:05:43]:

Yeah, I sort of did ask both those questions. I think I was actually asking the latter more. But feel free to respond to whichever one's more. Interesting to you?

Amy Edmondson [01:05:51]:

Okay, I think I haven't thought directly about either one before, but I think the latter question of sort of what can I do to bring people in who will help create a more safe rather than a less safe environment for all of us to collaborate? And I think that's a really good question. And it reminds me of the efforts they make at Southwest to kind of bring people in who are really team players. One of the techniques they use is that they'll actually have group interviews. They'll have people come together when they're in a team, in a group, and they're sort of having conversations and questions and discussions. One of the things they're really looking at is not what you're saying when you're speaking, but what you're doing and what you're like when someone else is speaking. Do you have empathy? Are you curious? Are you interested? Are you present? That might be sort of the opportunity to observe someone more in situ with other people is going to be very valuable, I think, for understanding who's going to be a good member of the team. If there's a way to assess curiosity, and perhaps there is if you're interviewing someone, do they have questions? Do they ask you questions about you, about the place? If they have no questions? Now, that could be fear. But curiosity, I think, is a fantastic enabler of psychological safety because if you have, by and large, people who are curious, then you have people who will ask questions. And when you have people who ask questions, you have people who are indicating that they want to hear others voice.

Andrew Skotzko [01:07:48]:

So here's one more, and then we'll kind of start to wrap up one idea that is that and I'm going to read you this question as well because I think it's very well phrased. So different people have different life experiences, work experiences, family history, backgrounds, et cetera, all of which contribute to how they perceive reality, what is safe for them? And the question is really what is universal about what makes people feel safe, independent of those varying factors? And how should you adapt your toolkit to create a sense of safety based on these differing needs?

Amy Edmondson [01:08:25]:

That question, it's such a lovely question. It makes me want to go back to the beginning here where you and I started by talking about this idea that everybody wants to work in an environment where they can be appreciated and be contributing to the greater good in some way. We all want to be a part of something larger than ourselves, and we want our unique gifts or experiences or skills to be put to good use. I think that's what it's all about. We're going to have differences. We're going to have different ways of expressing ourselves. We may need different things to bring ourselves forward, but if we start with the premise that this is what we all long for, then we'll figure out ways to get there.

Andrew Skotzko [01:09:27]:

Yeah, I know. I love that. I couldn't agree more with what you just said. Actually, if someone asked me once this actually was at a thing I experimented a workshop I did near Stanford, and there's a group at Stanford that does a really great class, I think, called Designing Your Life, and they turn it into a really good book called, I think, also Designing Your Life. And there's a very interesting question in there where they ask you people to personally reflect on what is work for to you. And I'm curious if this is totally out of the blue. You're not prepped for this at all, but I'm curious when you hear that question, what comes up.

Amy Edmondson [01:10:11]:

To me? I don't want to be a broken record, but it's for making a difference. Work is for making a difference, and work is a forcing function for learning and growing. Work is both for me to make a difference out there, but also for me to get better. For me to get more yeah. To grow I mean, to become more capable and possibly more fully myself. If I'm doing fun or leisure, that doesn't require me necessarily. It depends on what it is to learn and get better. There are some leisure things like playing golf or something, where, in fact, you are forcing yourself or trying to force yourself to get better. But there's some things like watching a movie, where you get to just watch the movie and enjoy it and relax. So work is for making a difference, and work is for developing your own abilities to do that.

Andrew Skotzko [01:11:23]:

I love that. My answer was very similar. My answer was that work is a place we go or a platform for us to develop and express who we are in service of something greater than ourselves.

Amy Edmondson [01:11:36]:

So perfect. Did you say develop and express?

Andrew Skotzko [01:11:39]:

Yes.

Amy Edmondson [01:11:40]:

Perfect. Yeah. Who we are in service of something greater than ourselves.

Andrew Skotzko [01:11:47]:

I love that I never connected these dots until right now. That actually ended up being one of the foundational kind of ideas behind doing this podcast, was how do we make more organizations like that? Because I think, as you said, that's what, on some level, we all want.

Amy Edmondson [01:12:00]:

That's what we all want.

Andrew Skotzko [01:12:00]:

I mean, we all spent majority of our waking hours at work, right? That'd be pretty great.

Amy Edmondson [01:12:07]:

Sure would. And not enough organizations are doing that as well as they should today.

Andrew Skotzko [01:12:15]:

Yeah. Which is back to your work, something I'm very grateful for what you're up to, and I definitely am trying to do my part as well with the show and the things we're building in the world. So we'll start to wrap up here. One question. I'm sure you get this question a lot, and I apologize if it's trite, but if a leader is listening to this, right, they're bought in. They're like, yes, Amy, I'm signed up, and you could only have them make one change or take one action. Install one new habit like one the what would you have them do?

Amy Edmondson [01:12:49]:

Ask questions. Ask more questions, right. Just get interested. I wanted to say two things, right? It's go first and by go first, I don't mean go first in sort of pronouncing truth, but go first in doing the scary things like admitting a mistake or saying I got that wrong or saying I'm worried about this. So that's sort of if you want other people to do those things, you better do it first. But I think if I have to say only one thing, it's force yourself to ask more questions and of course, listen to the answers.

Andrew Skotzko [01:13:31]:

You talked about how powerful it is when someone, particularly someone in a position of authority and I'm using that distinctly than saying a leader because leadership is distinct from authority. How powerful it is when someone apologizes for not having made it safe in the past.

Amy Edmondson [01:13:47]:

Yes.

Andrew Skotzko [01:13:48]:

Do you find that people can it would seem that there can be a real the word that comes to mind is healing process. That when that kind of space is opened up that something new can emerge. Do you find that happening? First of all, do you agree? And second of all, are you seeing that happen?

Amy Edmondson [01:14:08]:

It's incredibly powerful when someone says anything along the lines of I am so sorry for what I did. That put you in a position where you felt you couldn't speak up honestly to me or fill in the blank, lots of other things. But to own the impact you have had, which was not your intention. Right. But to own the impact and be willing to own the impact, it can just unleash so much.

Andrew Skotzko [01:14:45]:

Absolutely. So a couple of rapid fire questions here. The questions are short. Your answers don't have to be.

Amy Edmondson [01:14:51]:

Okay, good.

Andrew Skotzko [01:14:53]:

If you could go back in time knowing what you know now, is there anything you'd change about this book or your previous books since you've kept on learning based on everything you've learned since they came out.

Amy Edmondson [01:15:05]:

In this book? I would do a better job of saying what psychological safety is not earlier on, so that no one could have that. Oh, it's about being nice misimpression at all or for long prior books. Teaming. My book Teaming how Organizations Learn Innovate and Compete in the Knowledge Economy is probably I think it's a good book. I think it's a pretty good read. I think it's a little bit more academic than is ideal. Although at least it does have stories in it and so on.

Andrew Skotzko [01:15:45]:

Yeah, I'm actually in the middle of reading Teaming right now. And one thing I just wanted to say that I found just for the listener and also feedback for you that I found especially useful in there was you gave language to something I'd been trying to find the words for. Because I think if I were to summarize, one of the big lessons I got from your work getting ready for this conversation was that context matters a lot. Yes, there are principles here, which is a lot of what you're uncovering, but the ways in which those principles are enacted matters tremendously and varies tremendously based on culture, location, power, distance, fill in the blank variable here.

Amy Edmondson [01:16:25]:

Uncertainty.

Andrew Skotzko [01:16:26]:

Uncertainty.

Amy Edmondson [01:16:27]:

The work. Are we doing innovation or are we doing production?

Andrew Skotzko [01:16:30]:

Yeah, and that was exactly the thing. There was something in there. I think it's called the knowledge process spectrum.

Amy Edmondson [01:16:36]:

Process knowledge spectrum, yeah, it's process knowledge spectrum.

Andrew Skotzko [01:16:40]:

But I remember I was like, oh, yeah, okay, this is helping me understand when to pull which tool out of the toolbox, because you have that idea of there's, like, routine work where it's super well understood. Then there's complex systems and there's god knows there's a lot of those now. And then there's really discovery and innovative work or innovation type work where there are no blueprints. And the fact that these tools, the application of these principles, varies across that spectrum. I was like, oh, okay, got it.

Amy Edmondson [01:17:09]:

I could have had it's so obvious. Right? It's such a duh that I felt embarrassed putting it in there. But a lot of people have said what you said, which is that was like a huge source of insight or clarity for them. So it's like yeah, I know. I mean, I often found myself doing it in front of a classroom because of a question would come that would make me realize, oh, I better step back and say, well, it depends. Just for instance, it depends on this, how much knowledge we have at this moment to get the result we want. Very high in the automotive assembly plant, very low in the pharmaceutical R and D lab. And it matters psychological safety is important in all three domains for different reasons and manifests in different ways.

Andrew Skotzko [01:18:00]:

Yeah, I learned this the hard way about two years ago when I took over a large product initiative that involved hardware and software and cutting edge machine learning. And we were trying to fit all three in one product, and we were trying to figure out a lot of really hard problems. And we realized very quickly, or I realized in about three months after beating my head against the wall, wow, my playbook isn't working. I have to throw out my entire playbook because something about it does not apply here. And what I eventually figured out, with a lot of help and conversations and coaching, was that, oh, it's interesting. All of those plays were for a domain where the links between activities and outcomes are well understood. In this domain. That is not true. We don't know what's going to happen when we do X. And it's like, oh, right, okay, duh.

Amy Edmondson [01:18:47]:

Right, duh. And yet there you banged your head against the wall for some period. Exactly. It's kind of stunning. Really?

Andrew Skotzko [01:18:55]:

Yeah. It's a thing. It's a thing. Curious as you go through, you're up to a lot, and I'm curious. This is a question I like to ask everybody. What are some of the rituals, the personal practices, habits, routines, et cetera, that enliven you, that nourish you support you, that support you in doing what you do and making the difference you're seeking to make?

Amy Edmondson [01:19:22]:

Don't have a good answer. I run I mean, not very fast, but I do like getting out there, moving. I like also to have time. I don't have enough time to sort of sit and think and scribble. I have to scribble when I'm writing something, I often have to start with a pen and drawing lines and arrows between things because it's hard to figure out what comes first. And if you just start typing.

Amy Edmondson [01:19:51]:

It forces it to be in some sequence that might not be right.

Andrew Skotzko [01:19:55]:

I'm curious. You seem like someone who really thinks in systems. It seems like a lot of your work is really at the intersection of humans and systems. Are you familiar with the work of a guy named Simon Wardley?

Amy Edmondson [01:20:09]:

No.

Andrew Skotzko [01:20:10]:

So I think you might. I'll send you the link after the show. But there's a guy named Simon Wardley who has a technique that and I'm dying to get this guy on the show. If anyone listening to this has a connection to Simon, I would love to talk to Simon. Anyways, the reason I bring it up is he has what I consider to be a novel method for I would call it almost ecosystem or strategy mapping is what he describes it as in exploring the links between things and uncovering or sort of surfacing non obvious connections, put it that way.

Amy Edmondson [01:20:44]:

Right.

Andrew Skotzko [01:20:45]:

And it came to mind, listening to you, of like, oh, wow, that might be an interesting tool for you as you're doing your work, exploring as you're exploring into the unknown. I think you might find it. I think there might be something there for you.

Amy Edmondson [01:20:55]:

Absolutely.

Andrew Skotzko [01:20:57]:

And I will send you that link, for sure.

Amy Edmondson [01:20:58]:

Great.

Andrew Skotzko [01:21:01]:

Okay, so one or two more and we'll just wrap up is I'm curious if there are any what was the last small change you made that had an outsized impact on whether it's your productivity, your sense of satisfaction, happiness, fun, whatever? But what's a small change in recent memory that has had a surprisingly big impact for you?

Amy Edmondson [01:21:22]:

Oh, gosh. Two very different things came to mind. One is just turning off using airplane mode when you're not on an airplane, that can help me think. And the other is just the resolving to be kinder. And I'm kind with strangers, but to be kind with family members. I think it's working.

Andrew Skotzko [01:21:51]:

Good. All right, that's awesome. I'm curious if there's any books, particularly recent ones, that have whether it's an idea or a book you encountered or a thinker or whatever, just something like that that really took hold in your brain and impacted how you see things in recent years.

Amy Edmondson [01:22:14]:

Leadership and self deception. Do you know that book?

Andrew Skotzko [01:22:17]:

I do not.

Amy Edmondson [01:22:18]:

Oh, it's magnificent. I mean, it's not magnificent in the sense of being great writing. It's magnificent in the sense of being great philosophy. It's one of these rare business books that's a novel and the novel has a character who's sort of learning how not to be a jerk and learning that many of the things that he's been blaming on other annoying people in his life boss wife, what have you, are, in fact, things that he's manifesting and creating. And it's got sort of a wise character who kind of leads him through this journey of discovery of how, in a sense, I suppose the quickest way to say it is how your own frame produces the results that you almost reliably are blaming others for. But that really stem back to you. And it's a very powerful book. I read it a few years ago, and then I read it again not so many years ago.

Andrew Skotzko [01:23:28]:

Okay, well, that's going on my reading list for sure. It reminds me that last thing you said there reminds me of a question that there's a guy named Jerry Colona Colony I'm not sure how to say his last name who wrote a really good book called Reboot. And there's a question he likes to ask people in his coaching engagements, which is something to the effect of how am I complicit in creating the conditions I say I don't want.

Amy Edmondson [01:23:51]:

Exactly right. Exactly right.

Andrew Skotzko [01:23:53]:

I think it's a really good question that goes in your category of good questions.

Amy Edmondson [01:23:57]:

It does. And it's not one that people are going to easily be able to answer because the first instinct is not at all like all the bad things out there are out there. So it can take a little bit of work to get to a good answer, for sure.

Andrew Skotzko [01:24:16]:

So what's caught your attention lately? What are you reading thinking about lately, now that the book is out? You've got a little space from that. What's top of mind now?

Amy Edmondson [01:24:23]:

Yeah.

Andrew Skotzko [01:24:23]:

Well, maybe you don't. I assumed you did.

Amy Edmondson [01:24:26]:

I think top of mind is getting more concrete, useful tools and techniques and ways to help people practice and make a difference in their own workplaces.

Andrew Skotzko [01:24:40]:

Perfect. I love that. So is there anything we didn't cover that you wanted to say?

Amy Edmondson [01:24:45]:

No. I mean, what was great about this conversation is it really did, as you promised, take us in entirely different directions. I don't think I said anything that I've said before. Right. So that's quite a bit.

Andrew Skotzko [01:24:58]:

Mission accomplished.

Amy Edmondson [01:25:00]:

Yeah. It's good not to be just a tape recorder.

Andrew Skotzko [01:25:05]:

Yeah, it's a lot of fun. So just in wrapping up for the people listening to this, is there any asks you have of the listener? Anything? If they're listening and they want to help they want to engage, what would you ask of them?

Amy Edmondson [01:25:17]:

It's read the book and then go take it. Talk about it with your own team, your own work group. A lot of people ask, well, wait a minute, I'm not the boss, so can I do anything? And the answer is a resounding yes. There's so much you can do. Just by expressing interest in others and listening carefully, you have the opportunity a dozen times a day to give someone else a moment of feeling safe to engage.

Andrew Skotzko [01:25:45]:

Absolutely. That's beautiful. And if people are curious, where can they connect with you, with your work? Is there anywhere you would direct people online or things like that?

Amy Edmondson [01:25:53]:

Well, I do have a faculty page on the Harvard Business School website, and that shows you things like what I have written and what I'm up to in terms of general research, aspirations and so on.

Andrew Skotzko [01:26:10]:

Perfect. Well, we will put all of that in the show notes. So, Amy, thank you so much for the time. It has been an absolute pleasure. And thanks for coming on and sharing your wisdom with all of us. It's a real pleasure.

Amy Edmondson [01:26:20]:

All right, thanks for having me.