I’ve signed up tone a reviewer of the new Clore 6:Youth programme’s new ‘Toolkit for managers’. As one of the early adopters I’m receiving high quality and thought provoking e-mails and updates which are relevant to my own context as a team member, a new manager, but also for the the young people we work with.

The latest email linked me to a TEDex talk from the Novartis Professor of Leadership and Management, Amy Edmondson at Harvard Business School, who is well known for her work on teams.

Professor Edmondson’s research revealed that better teams make more mistakes, they just learn together from them.

She told the story of a nurse who, finding herself questioning the accuracy a patient’s medication dosage late one night, finally convinced herself that, ‘This is experimental treatment… the dose is high…it’s probably right…’  Eventually, despite her unease, she decided it was less painful to just go ahead and administer the drug. But it was less painful to administer the drug than it was to  face the same irritability as the last time she contacted the on-call doctor to query a dosage. The doctor had questioned her capability and fitness to practice. Without the safety of a culture where questions are encouraged flag up errors in an experimental environment, to learn and reduce risk, in fact the nurse took a risk that might have had catastrophic results.

Amy Edmondson says that as a good leader learns to enable people to bring their full selves to work in challenging times. Where there is uncertainty, strong, self aware leaders create an environment of ‘psychological safety’ which involves framing the work as learning about a problem, not execution of a solution. She offers three starters to create psychological safety in a team.

1. Acknowledge the uncertainty and what’s needed to be, and stay in the game.

‘Team, there is enormous uncertainty ahead. There is a need for interdependence. We’ve never been here before and we can’t know what will happen. Everyone’s brains and voices need to be in the game.’  

This creates the rationale for speaking up, for mistakes to be made, acknowledged, reflected on and learning to result.

2.  Acknowledge your own infallibility

‘I may miss something I need to hear from you’

3.  Model Curiosity by asking lots of questions.

“Tell me more,… Tell me why…. Tell me how…? What if…”

According to Professor Edmondson, making a start by modelling these three simple behaviours helps to avoid the potential catastrophes of people, like the nurse in the story, not speaking up till its perhaps too late and missing opportunities to learn.

Leading through psychological safety encourages people to freely engage with one another, get into the learning zone and bring their full selves to their work in challenging times.

You can see the TEDex talk here.