The antidote, according to HBS associate professor Amy
Edmondson, is the creation of a "psychologically safe" environment
where people aren't afraid to talk about what went wrong or ask for
help. Instead, they're able to focus on the mission of the team rather
than on protecting their egos.
A corporate mission statement proclaiming commitment to openness and
learning doesn't guarantee that any of this will happen, Edmondson asserts.
What counts is leadership at the level of the work group, namely, first-line
supervisors and team leaders. When a subordinate brings up a problem,
they're the ones who can respond with a steely glare or hostile question
or, more appropriately, initiate a conversation that will help things
improve.
Long interested in team learning, Edmondson began a study several
years ago comparing eight nursing teams from two urban teaching hospitals
in order to learn which ones learned better and why. She planned to
correlate the error rate of the teams in their treatment of patients–a
measure of learning–by means of a survey assessing factors such
as team leadership performance, stability and morale, and the personal
satisfaction level of each nurse. Edmondson anticipated that her findings
would be anything but unexpected: Happier, more stable teams with better
leadership would undoubtedly make fewer mistakes.
Contrary
to Popular Opinion
In fact, the data supported a completely different set of conclusions:
The more positively nurses rated their team's relationships and the
levels of coaching and goal-setting they received from their managers,
the more errors their team reported. "I spent some time trying to figure
out where I went wrong with my data entry," Edmondson recalls. "I finally
realized that the data reflected people's comfort level in reporting
errors." Edmondson's own observations bore this out. The teams of nurses
with the highest reported error rates seemed more comfortable with one
another as well as with their managers, who were adept at creating an
informal, open atmosphere.
Further research also revealed that teams reporting high error rates
were led by managers who showed respect for their subordinates and who
valued a collaborative, problem-solving work style. Teams with low reported
rates, on the other hand, worked under authoritarian managers and frequently
resorted to blaming others for their miscues. These kinds of differences
intrigued Edmondson. "Management techniques that prevent people from
being able to reflect on errors together create a high barrier to learning,"
she points out.
As a result, her next step was to examine the concept of psychological
safety. A study she conducted in a manufacturing company revealed that
teams with greater psychological safety not only reported errors and learned
more but performed better as well. In addition, she found that psychological
safety tends to exist at the level of the work team rather than the organization
as a whole.
Unafraid
to Fail
Edmondson's research in diverse organizations also shows that beliefs
about failure, mistakes, and learning vary widely between teams in the
same organization, despite strong corporate cultures. Concerns about
admitting a blunder or causing an awkward moment in a meeting, for example,
are immediate social fears that colleagues and especially supervisors
are in the best position to mitigate.
Although team members' reactions to conflict and failure have an impact
on their coworkers, team leaders are the ones with the power to create
an atmosphere of trust, openness, and commitment to improvement, or,
on the other hand, what Edmondson calls "authoritarian suppression of
error." In several studies, she notes, leaders' behavior was critical
in promoting group learning. Those who coach and provide clear direction
to their subordinates create the most learning-focused, psychologically
safe teams. They establish an environment in which failures and mistakes
are regarded as a necessary part of learning.
