Radical transparency and extreme candor go hand in hand at Bridgewater. There's even a prohibition on talking about people who are not present and thus cannot learn from what's being said. Managers are not supposed to talk about their supervisees if the person is not in the room.
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The data are consistent in this simple but interesting finding: psychological safety seems to “live” at the level of the group. In other words, in the organization where you work, it’s likely that different groups have different interpersonal experiences; in some, it may be easy to speak up and bring your full self to work. In others, speaking up might be experienced as a last resort - as it did in some of the patient-care teams I studied. That’s because psychological safety is very much shaped by local leaders.
No one is fired for silence.’ The instinct to play it safe is powerful.
One of the most important things to keep in mind, wherever you work, is that the failure of an employee to speak up in a crucial moment cannot be seen. This is true whether that employee is on the front lines of customer service or sitting next to you in the executive board room. And because not offering an idea is an invisible act, it's hard to engage in real-time course correction. This means that psychologically safe workplaces have a powerful advantage in competitive industries.
Rocha's statement captures a subtle but crucial aspect of the psychology of speaking up at work. Consider his words carefully. He did not say, “I chose not to speak,” or “I felt it was not right to speak.” He said that he “couldn't” speak. Oddly, this description is apt. The psychological experience of having something to say yet feeling literally unable to do so is painfully real for many employees and very common in organizational hierarchies, like that of NASA in 2003. We can all recognize this phenomenon. We understand why his hands spontaneously depicted that poignant vertical ladder. When probed, as Rocha was by Gibson, many people report a similar experience of feeling unable to speak up when hierarchy is made salient. Meanwhile, the higher ups in a position to listen and learn are often blind to the silencing effects of their presence.
The operative word here is “listening.” In the Chapters 5 and 6, you will read about eight flourishing organizations where leaders have created the conditions to make listening and speaking up the norm, not the exception. In these fearless workplaces, it's far less likely that employees will refrain from sharing valuable information, insights, or questions and far more likely that leaders will listen to rather than dismiss bad news or early warnings.