In hesitating and then choosing not to speak up, Christina was making a quick, not entirely conscious, risk calculation – the kind of micro-assessment most of us make numerous times a day.

Workarounds can occur when workers do not feel safe enough to speak up and make suggestions to improve the system.

Their work shows that psychological safety makes it easier for people to speak up about problems and to alter and improve work processes rather than engaging in the counterproductive workarounds.

I don't mean to imply that working in a fearless organization takes more effort or a tremendously difficult undertaking. It doesn't. But initially, when we've been entrenched in fear and its attendant mental frameworks, it's not always obvious.

For instance, I've studied senior management teams in which a lack of psychological safety contributed to long-winded conversations (indirect statements, with veiled criticisms and personal innuendo, take longer than candid ones), elongated meetings, and an inability to come to a resolution about crucial strategic issues. Decisions that could have been resolved in hours stretched over months.