Course Objective & Scope
Psychological safety is neither a cosy comfort zone nor an excuse for lowering standards; paired with high accountability, it creates the 'learning zone' where mistakes surface early, bad news travels fast and assumptions are openly challenged. Grounded in the work of Amy Edmondson and Timothy Clark, this course addresses the cost of organisational silence, leadership response habits in moments of truth, constructive dissent and blameless learning.
Through case analyses and role-plays, participants diagnose their team's current safety-accountability profile and design concrete team rituals.
Who Should Attend?
- Team leads, department managers and directors
- Agile Coaches, Scrum Masters and project managers
- HR, culture and organisational development leaders
- No technical prerequisites
Key Takeaways
- Distinguish psychological safety from comfort or low standards to keep teams in the learning zone
- Respond constructively in moments of truth when bad news, errors or dissent are raised
- Use facilitation practices that counter hierarchy-driven self-censorship in meetings
- Draw a clear line between honest mistakes and negligence (Just Culture) in blameless post-mortems
- Implement behavioural team norms and pulse indicators to track psychological safety
Curriculum
What Psychological Safety Is and Isn't: The Safety × Accountability Matrix
- Mapping the Apathy, Comfort, Anxiety and Learning zones
- How organisational silence damages innovation, quality and risk visibility
The 4 Stages: Inclusion, Learner, Contributor and Challenger Safety
- Moving from basic inclusion and learning safety to contributor and challenger safety
- Spotting subtle self-censorship and micro-silencing patterns in teams
Leader Moments of Truth: Responding to Errors, Bad News and Dissent
- Framing work as a learning problem, modelling fallibility and practising humble inquiry
- Balancing blameless post-mortems with accountability in a Just Culture
Constructive Dissent and Difficult Conversation Simulations
- Increasing intellectual friction while keeping social friction low
- Live role-plays with silent, defensive or dominating team dynamics
Team Diagnostic and Ritual Design Workshop
- Assessing team safety using Edmondson's diagnostic questions
- Designing concrete rituals for weekly team meetings and 1:1s
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