Amy Edmondson is celebrated as the leading voice on psychological safety — she even picked up major business awards for it, winning the Financial Times and Schroders Business Book of the Year Award in 2023. But in a recent podcast in 2024, she openly recommended ignoring perceived slights or insults and simply try reframing them away:
“…I could go check, but I just choose to think they weren’t actually out to get me…‘It was about you (them) not me’.“
Amy Edmondson’s Take on Addressing Insults: Reframing vs. Speaking Up
That might sound Stoic, but here’s the problem:
- It greenlights dismissal. Any feedback or pushback, even fair, constructive criticism, can be brushed off as unfair by not engaging and thinking: “It was about you (them) not me’”
- It erodes accountability. If we never check intent, unfair feedback goes unchallenged and problems fester.
- It flips safety on its head. In our book, psychological safety isn’t about tough skin or reinterpreting insults. It’s about being able to fairly address unfair pushback or feedback and hold each other accountable without fear of backlash.
By advocating for ignoring, Edmondson unintentionally undermines the very concept she made famous. In my view, that’s not psychological safety, it’s anti-psychological safety.
Edmondson’s famous definition: “a shared belief that the team is safe for interpersonal risk-taking” — is elegant, memorable, and has spread globally.
But here’s the problem: its very concision seems to have diluted the very essence of psychological safety.
Too many leaders now say they foster psychological safety, while in practice offering nothing more than rhetoric, platitudes, surveys, and good intentions. The result?
- False safety: People are told they’re safe to speak up, but quickly learn that unfair pushback is still alive and well, with no effective way to address it fairly.
- Eroded trust: When rhetoric outpaces reality, employees become cynical faster than if the phrase had never been invoked.
- Weaponization: Leaders claim psychological safety exists, then dismiss those who challenge the status quo. (I wonder how well this post will be received).
Compare this with Schein & Bennis (1965), who placed protection at the heart of the definition. They understood that safety isn’t just about feeling encouraged, it’s about being protected from retaliation, ridicule, or punishment when you do speak up.
That’s where I believe we’ve gone astray. Psychological safety has become a flowery aspiration rather than a functional protection.
And that’s exactly the gap SpatzAI aims to close: by offering a simple, structured intervention process for the times when unfair pushback inevitably rears its ugly head. By using a simple intervention of a verbal Caution, and if unresolved use the SpatzChat app and review platform, to restore safety as something practical, accountable in real-time, and not just a slogan.
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