132: Amy Edmondson on the right kind of wrong

Supporting Champions

In this episode of Supporting Champions, we're joined by Amy Edmondson, the Novartis Professor of Leadership and Management at Harvard Business School and a leading authority on psychological safety. We delve into her new book, "The Right Kind of Wrong," a title that intriguingly challenges our perceptions of failure.

Our conversation begins with Amy's sharing her expertise on creating environments that foster growth, development, and performance. Amy's perspective is particularly timely, as there's a growing appetite for understanding and skillfully nurturing psychologically safe spaces.

Amy emphasizes that better teams don't necessarily make fewer mistakes but are more open to discussing them. This is exemplified in her NASA example, where tired teams, who had been working hard together, outperformed fresh teams. We explore whether psychologically safe teams take more interpersonal and task-based risks.

Amy decodes sports contexts and consequences, addressing how results-focused environments can create fear-based decisions. We delve into the nuances of failure, error, and judgment in relation to goal setting, and how psychological safety, while promoting excellence, isn’t about comfort but about enabling intelligent risk-taking and learning from complex failures.

We wrap up the conversation by discussing the best and worst examples of enhancing performance through psychological safety, the increasing embrace of interpersonal skills by coaches, and the predominant factors influencing psychological safety.

Notes

Follow Amy on Twitter https://twitter.com/AmyCEdmondson

Order Amy's book here https://amycedmondson.com/

*** UNTIL 1st FEB - you can get 50% off our Setting up Your Own Consultancy Course ***

https://www.supportingchampions.co.uk/set-up-your-own-performance-consultancy/ use code CHAMPS50

Hi, I'm Steve Ingham Sports and Performance Scientist co-founder at Supporting Champions. I have the privilege of supporting over 1000 athletes of which over 200 have gone on to win World or Olympic medals. For the last 25 years I've been fascinated by, researched and applied innovative ideas to help people succeed and now I want to share those performance strategies with you.

I help aspiring and professional Performance Science and Support Staff improve their skills, experience and mindset for working with sports performers through a range of online courses and an exclusive community hub https://www.supportingchampions.co.uk/onlinecourse

If you're working in sports performance or business and want to get support to develop your team and systems - take a look at what I offer here - https://www.supportingchampions.co.uk/speaking/

Listen to the podcast https://www.supportingchampions.co.uk/category/podcast/

Links
Twitter at https://twitter.com/ingham_steve
https://www.tiktok.com/@supportingchampions
Supporting Champions on Twitter www.twitter.com/support_champs
Supporting Champions on Linkedin, www.linkedin.com/company/supporting-champions
https://www.instagram.com/supportingchampions/