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This chapter explores the vital role of psychological safety in team dynamics and decision- making. It begins with a real-life boardroom moment where a member regrets not speaking up due to fear of being seen as uncooperative or self-serving. His silence—meant to preserve harmony—ultimately cost the team a valuable perspective. This theme is echoed in a tragic case study: the 1999 crash of Korean Air Cargo Flight 8590, where the co-pilot’s failure to challenge the captain during a critical flight error contributed to the fatal outcome. Hierarchical culture, communication breakdown, and lack of permission to challenge authority can have devastating consequences, whether in aviation or team leadership.

In response to such patterns, aviation introduced Crew Resource Management (CRM)—a training initiative that emphasizes clear, assertive communication and empowers every crew member, regardless of rank, to speak up for safety. Similarly, organizations must foster an environment where speaking up is not just allowed but expected. This is what Harvard professor Amy Edmondson defines as psychological safety—a team culture where members can voice concerns, ask questions, or admit mistakes without fear of humiliation or punishment.

However, psychological safety doesn’t mean emotional comfort or avoiding hard truths. It means creating space for candor, allowing healthy disagreement, and encouraging robust conversations that stretch the team. Like resistance training in the gym, friction in discussions can strengthen teams—if handled well. Suppressing dissent or withholding ideas stifles creativity, hides mistakes, and compromises performance.

Cross-cultural teams face added complexity. A teammate from an indirect communication culture may not challenge an idea openly, but could do so through a trusted intermediary. Conversely, someone from a direct culture might come across as blunt or insensitive. Teams must agree on how to communicate difficult feedback in ways that respect both cultural norms and the team’s need for clarity. Questions like “How will we challenge a leader’s idea?” or “How do we critique one another in love?” help clarify these norms.

The chapter outlines several practical strategies to nurture a “speak up” culture:

1. Be Generous: Assume positive intent. Seek both task completion and personal growth. Particularly in virtual teams, where tone and body language are limited, generosity helps replace suspicion with trust.

2. Provide Equal Opportunity: Monitor who’s speaking and who isn’t. Deliberately invite quieter members to share. Balance the airtime to communicate that all voices matter.

3. Foster Curiosity: Frame work as a learning opportunity. Acknowledge complexity and interdependence, which naturally calls for broader participation and varied perspectives.

4. Give Permission: Actively tell team members they are encouraged to speak up, ask for help, and admit mistakes. Go further by giving them structured phrases to use when challenging others respectfully, such as:

o “I’m concerned about…”
o “Here’s the data I’m seeing…”
o “Can we consider this alternative?”
o “What do you think?”

These sentence patterns are especially helpful for team members navigating cultural hierarchies or personal hesitancy. They also serve as cues for others to listen attentively.
The final caution is that giving permission doesn’t equate to tolerating laziness or carelessness. Mistakes and concerns are acceptable—silence and coverups are not. The issue is communication. Team success in complex environments requires tapping into everyone’s insights and concerns.

These sentence patterns are especially helpful for team members navigating cultural hierarchies or personal hesitancy. They also serve as cues for others to listen attentively.
The final caution is that giving permission doesn’t equate to tolerating laziness or carelessness. Mistakes and concerns are acceptable—silence and coverups are not. The issue is communication. Team success in complex environments requires tapping into everyone’s insights and concerns.

• Silence can harm teams as much as action; a withheld insight is a missed opportunity.
• Create a space where people feel safe, not necessarily comfortable, to speak up.
• Foster candor, not consensus, by equipping everyone to contribute—even when the conversation is hard.
• Develop a personal habit that supports speaking up. For example: “I will invite someone who hasn’t spoken
yet before I give my second response.”