Conversations in the Hallway Are More Authentic Than Those in Meetings
The meeting is ending, and everyone is leaving the room. In the hallway, two people are talking: “I mean, I think this decision is very risky, but what can I say?” They just came out of the meeting. Why didn’t they say that there?
This scene is no coincidence; it’s a product of a team’s culture.
Amy Edmondson has been researching psychological safety at Harvard Business School for over twenty years. One of her most frequently cited findings comes from Google’s 2016 Project Aristotle study, which examined more than 500 internal teams and found that the strongest factor distinguishing high-performing teams from others was psychological safety. It wasn’t technical skill—it was team culture.
Edmondson’s definition: a shared belief among team members that they will not be punished for asking questions, admitting mistakes, or expressing differing opinions (The Fearless Organization, 2018).
Silence Is Learned
Chris Argyris demonstrated that organizations develop “defensive routines” over time (Overcoming Organizational Defenses, 1990). These routines automatically shut down topics that seem dangerous to discuss. Fear doesn’t have to be explicit; implicit learning is enough.
“Who brought this up last time? What happened to them?” Everyone on the team knows the answer to this question. It isn’t said, but it’s known. And this knowledge shapes behavior.
The things that cannot be discussed generally fall into three categories: performance issues (“that person can’t do their job, but no one says anything”), doubts about strategy (“I don’t believe this approach will work, but the leader wants it”), and relationship tensions (“those two don’t get along; meetings aren’t productive”).
None of these are invisible. They’re just not spoken about.
Psychological Safety Is Not Politeness
A common misconception: psychological safety is a conflict-free environment where everyone is polite to one another. Edmondson explicitly rejects this. Psychological safety is an environment where criticism, disagreement, and difficult topics can be brought up safely. It’s a matter of honesty, not politeness.
Teams with high psychological safety actually experience more conflict; however, this conflict is constructive, focused, and non-personal. In teams with low psychological safety, the surface appears calm, but tensions continue to build beneath the surface.
The Leader Builds or Destroys This Climate
Psychological safety is most heavily influenced by the leader’s behavior. The strongest variables in Edmondson’s research are:
Does the leader openly admit their own mistakes? Saying “I was wrong” even once paves the way for the team to do the same.
Does the leader ask curious questions, or does the leader provide answers? It’s easy to say, “What do you think?” but body language, tone of voice, and the reaction after the question either validate or invalidate it.
What happens to the person who brings bad news? This message is received by the entire team and remembered for a long time.
“When reporting failure is a risk, people don’t report it. The problem seems to disappear, but it’s actually growing.” > Amy Edmondson, The Fearless Organization, 2018
Cevvela’s Perspective
- If conversations in the hallway are more candid than those in meetings, this isn’t a communication problem; it’s a psychological safety issue (Edmondson, 2018).
- Silence is learned; over time, organizations implicitly encode which topics are off-limits (Argyris, 1990).
- Psychological safety isn’t just politeness; it’s a climate where difficult things can be said with confidence.
- Leadership behavior either builds or destroys this climate; the strongest signal is the leader’s reaction to their own mistakes.
- Team coaching can be used in this context to bring unspoken issues to light and establish new norms for discussion.
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