On January 28 1986 the NASA Space Shuttle, Challenger, broke apart shortly after take-off from Cape Canaveral. Five NASA astronauts and two civilian scientists were killed. The cause of this devastating accident was eventually traced to the failure of an O-ring seal in the right Solid Rocket Booster. Due to the cold weather, the O-ring didn’t seal tightly enough and it allowed hot gasses to escape and ignite.
Issues with the O-Rings were known to the engineers who worked on the boosters. However, senior managers at the contractor and at NASA were not notified. On the night before the launch, engineers at the contractor expressed concerns about O-ring failure in cold weather and recommended delaying the launch. NASA was under tremendous pressure to go ahead and catastrophe followed.
The failure of the O-ring was not the true cause of the disaster. It was a lack of honest upward communication. Amy Edmondson, professor of leadership and management at Harvard Business School, has written a book, The Fearless Organization, in which she argues that a culture of silence is both common and dangerous.
One recent example is Volkswagen. The company devised a method which deceived regulators into believing that VW diesel cars had low emissions which met required standards. Many within the company knew of this deceit but the company had a culture of intimidation and compliance with heavy emphasis on meeting targets. People were afraid to speak-up.
There are many similar stories from aircraft crash investigations where crew members (and in particular co-pilots) were too deferential to the senior pilot and declined to warn him of their concerns.
Ms Edmondson identifies some common ‘taken-for-granted beliefs’ about speaking up at work.
- You don’t criticize something the boss helped create
- You don’t speak up unless you have solid data
- You don’t speak up if the boss’s boss is present.
- You don’t say anything negative in a group to prevent the boss from losing face.
- Speaking up brings career consequences.
- We will be safe if we are silent.
In short, bad news does not travel up the hierarchy.
She believes that the answer lies in creating a corporate culture of ‘psychological safety.’ This means that anyone can express their concerns without fear of negative personal consequences.
Upward transparency of communication is essential for safety, but it is also essential for innovation. Many a good idea for a product, process or system innovation is not uttered in a meeting for similar reasons to those given in the list above.
How can you change the culture of the organization to foster psychological safety? These two related articles contain practical answers.
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