Building a Fearless Organization: A Fieldbook for Creating Psychological Safety at Work

Build a fearless organization where teams innovate, learn, and thrive together

In today's knowledge economy, organizations need cultures where people feel safe to share ideas, ask questions, and admit mistakes. Building a Fearless Organization: A Fieldbook for Creating Psychological Safety at Work, by Harvard Business School professor Amy Edmondson and Harvard Chan School professor Michaela Kerrissey, provides practical tools and actionable steps for creating an interpersonal climate where every team member feels genuinely empowered to express ideas, ask questions, acknowledge mistakes, and raise concerns early and often

The book offers real-life scenarios and detailed strategies that illustrate how psychological safety ignites creativity, clarifies goals, enhances accountability, and redefines leadership. It shows leaders and teams how to create climates where members feel empowered to express ideas, acknowledge mistakes, and raise concerns, serving as a comprehensive roadmap for thriving organizations.

Readers will also find:

• Real-life scenarios demonstrating how to implement psychological safety in diverse workplace situations
• Detailed strategies for igniting creativity and clarifying team goals through open communication
• Practical tools for creating interpersonal climates where team members feel safe to express ideas and acknowledge mistakes
• Actionable steps for enhancing accountability and redefining leadership in the knowledge economy
• Comprehensive guidance for building fearless organizations that drive engagement and high performance

Perfect for leaders, managers, executives, teams, and organizational development professionals, Building a Fearless Organization transforms the theory of psychological safety into practical action. It provides the essential tools needed to create workplace cultures where learning, innovation, and growth flourish in today's complex and rapidly changing business environment.

AMY EDMONDSON is the Novartis Professor of Leadership and Management at Harvard Business School and a leading scholar on psychological safety, teaming, and organizational learning. She is the author of Teaming, The Fearless Organization, and Right Kind of Wrong and works with organizations worldwide to build cultures where people can speak up, learn, and thrive. Motivated by the idea of learning organizations, early in her research she stumbled upon psychological safety as a key to unlocking learning at work.

MICHAELA KERRISSEY is an associate professor of management at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, where she leads the Teaming Lab. Her award-winning research focuses on how teams innovate and perform in today’s fast-moving world. She became interested in psychological safety by witnessing its power in teams, and she has sought to advance our understanding of how to foster it ever since. She works with organizations around the world to advance psychological safety and teaming.