The Fearless Organization

Creating Psychological Safety in the Workplace for Learning, Innovation, and Growth

By: Amy C. Edmondson

Narrated by: Jennifer Jill Araya

Length: 6 hrs and 43 mins

Publisher's summary

The Fearless Organization offers practical guidance for teams and organizations who are serious about success in the modern economy. With so much riding on innovation, creativity, and spark, it is essential to attract and retain quality talent - but what good does this talent do if no one is able to speak their mind? The traditional culture of "fitting in" and "going along" spells doom in the knowledge economy. Success requires a continuous influx of new ideas, new challenges, and critical thought, and the interpersonal climate must not suppress, silence, ridicule, or intimidate. 

Not every idea is good, and yes, there are stupid questions, and yes, dissent can slow things down, but talking through these things is an essential part of the creative process. People must be allowed to voice half-finished thoughts, ask questions from left field, and brainstorm out loud; it creates a culture in which a minor flub or momentary lapse is no big deal and where actual mistakes are owned and corrected, and where the next left-field idea could be the next big thing.   

This audiobook explores this culture of psychological safety and provides a blueprint for bringing it to life. The road is sometimes bumpy, but succinct and informative scenario-based explanations provide a clear path forward to constant learning and healthy innovation.

©2019 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. (P)2019 Gildan Media, LLC

The Foundation for Organizational Transformation

I have read several transformation books from Radical Candor to Humble Inquiry including several books by the Heath brothers and I have found all of these to be invaluable to transformation. That said, 'The Fearless Organization' is 'Mindset' (Carol Dweck) for the team/enterprise-at-large.
I truly feel as though this is the definitive'must-read' for any executive officer and/or team engaged in organizational transformation.
Amy Edmondson marries data with vulnerability in a way rarely achieved. She arms you with a panoply of techniques to give voice to the voiceless masses while gently dismissing the notion that transformation is either'mushy' and/or too slow and unrealistic. The example of the transformation in the South African mine was a really strong example of a commitment to transform an entire organization in a a very 'fixed mindset' industry.
I cannot recommend this book enough to any transformation evangelist.
Regards,
DG

hard to follow in audio

and if I hear psychological safety one more time I'm going to lose it.... I must of heard it over 300 times in the first two chapters

My Take Away For The Fearless Organization

The message was very clear about unbridled, transparent feedback.

I didn’t like hearing the phrase repeatedly to nauseam “Organizational Safety”.

I

Good ideas, lots of words

I think the contents of this book are extremely valuable and something that any leader should be paying attention to. Unfortunately this writer takes a long time to lay out her case and includes many stories which do illuminate the points but at the same time make it a very long road to get to her recommendations. I wish she would have had spent more time outlining the specific steps to take and the hurdles that one might encounter as opposed to spending so much time upfront. Otherwise a good and valuable listen.

Good one, worth listening

However, there were too much emphasis on psychological safety benefits and why it matters.

Great book!

love how it provides a review of important points in conclusion of each chapter. Also hits on diversity and inclusion.

A Must Listen!!

I am extremely happy that I chose this book. My job is predicated on great leadership and this book is a great tool to have in my kit moving forward!

Good story with clear handles and examples

Clear and sensible theory on creating a work environment where people feel safe enough to learn and grow, both individually and at the overarching company level. For anyone who’s worked in teams of any size, there will be clear handles allowing you to enhance or at least reflect on past, current and hopefully future situations.

Narration was clear, lively and a nice 1.0x pace for me personally.

Psycological safety is the path to a fearless org.

This author gave one of my favorite presentations during last year's Global Leadership Summit, so I was excited to pick up this book and learn about psychological safety. Our world has been filled with fear lately, and some of that fear is ingrained in our organizations. We fear speaking up when we have ideas or questions. Fear keeps us from being our best. The book is broken into three parts. In part one, Edmonson talks about the power of psychological safety – what is it, and how do you measure and observe it? She talks about how things are in our VUCA (volatility, uncertainty, complexity, ambiguity) world and how having the safety to speak up and lead from a place of honesty, integrity, and vulnerability allows us to grow. In Part two, Edmonson discusses psychological safety at work. First, she gives case studies of companies that ended up causing big problems because they had cultures of low psychological safety – Volkswagen, Wells Fargo, FED, and Nokia. Each of these organizations failed to be safe and they ended up in big trouble. One contributing factor is dangerous silence – no one was ever fired for being silent. But silence and inaction lead to disasters like Chornobyl. So what is it like to have a fearless workplace? Edmonson gives the example of the cockpit communication and environment when Capt. Sully safely landed his A320 in the Hudson. The flight crew worked together to quickly analyze their limited options, to put the right person in control, and they saved 155 souls. Another good example is Pixar. By giving candid and tough feedback early in the filmmaking process, the team makes their movies great. In part three, Edmonson works through creating a fearless organization. She describes setting the stage for safety. Talking about it in our organizations, then inviting others to participate in the process. Getting real feedback sometimes takes asking better questions. And then leaders must, actually respond positively. They must thank people for bringing hard truths to light and they must do something about those hard truths like sanction violations and correct problems. Finally, Edmonson talks about how building safety takes a gradual approach. It doesn’t happen immediately. To build psychological safety leaders must always be improving and must lead by example.

This book is for leaders wanting to create better places to work for their people.

Sometimes dense, great "how" and "why" answers

the placement of the pragmatic recommendations toward the end is probably necessary since it requires new context for otherwise familiar stories. it does put the reader at risk of dropping off, maybe because some of the nuances between case studies seem small enough that it starts to feel repetitive. stick around for the end though- it's worth it.

Not for work, for research

I had high expectations of this book because the reviews, I needed it as inspiration for creating psychological safety at work. The book starts out telling the disadvantages and advantages of lack of safety and a safe environment. I needed only a page on this as for many it would be self evident but ok. Continuing there are four chapters on different companies that failed at this. Then four chapters with companies that succeeded. The information isn’t that useful and there are no real takeaways. The book ends by summing up everything and left me with nothing more of knowledge as you could have gotten in a half hour YouTube video. I was very disappointed.

Great introduction to an important subject

I found this book really useful as an introduction on the subject of creating psychological safety in organisations and the benefits of doing so. Plenty of examples and practical advice.

great concept but way to repetitive

concept behind is great but felt too repetitive, like having to tell the same point with 15 different stories

Every leaders new handbook

If you are fan of giants like Leaders eat Last or Drive then this book is for you and rightly sits on the digital shelf alongside them. Takes you though organisations that have psychological safety, those that don’t and more gives a great handbook of steps to start taking to get on that journey.

Great examples, and constructive suggestions on how to apply psychological saftey

well written an to the point. Loved it, it really explain what psychological saftey is and all of its benefits

Fundamental to your team’s success

If you’re helping your team, another team or a group of people irrespective of size to work more efficiently together, then this book has to be on your must have list.

This should be included in all reading lists!

Wonderful listen!
I believe that this needs to feature in all reading lists. This should be the basis of all conversations.

Very informative

I found both reinforcement of existing knowledge and a lot of me thinking to help me. Definitely worth listening to.

Made me think

I had seen a brief TED talk on psychological safety. This pads it out significantly and I hope to take the concept into conversations and how I act in the future.

Brilliant book on Psychological safety

It’s nicely written book with lots of examples, on a topic which generally doesn’t get lots of mentions.