They found that even when employing a highly-structured process improvement technique, interpersonal climate matters for success.

When I studied top management teams with action scientist Diana Smith, we analyzed detailed transcripts of their conversations to show how a psychologically safe climate for candid discussion of strategic disagreement can be created, even in high-level teams confronting strategic challenges, and how this can enable productive decision-making.

Yet to view the customer-accounts fraud as the result of individually-corrupt salespeople does not square with the widespread nature of the behavior in the company, which points to a system set up to fail. Set up to fail by the pernicious combination of a top-down strategy and insufficient psychological safety to encourage sharing bad news up the hierarchy.

Raising concerns that turn out to be unfounded presents a learning opportunity for the person speaking up and for those listening who thereby glean crucial information about what others understand or don't understand about the situation or the task.

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.