Boston (Massachusetts) | Amy C. Edmondson keeping herself busy in her book “The fearless organization. Creating psychological safety in the workplace for learning, innovation and growth” at the basic level with in-company education, by asking how a solid foundation for learning processes, innovation and the improvement of business results in companies can already be created at the psychological level. Although the professor at Harvard Business School assumes that managers’ setting of major goals can spur employees on, she strongly advocates that fear, especially in complex activities, must not become a motivator for work and learning processes, as this ingenuity hampers teamwork. For Edmondson, it is a major hurdle to business outcomes and lifelong learning when team members of a project are afraid to express their opinions, present new ideas or challenge existing practices. Accordingly, in her book she advocates a climate of psychological security in the company that makes this structurally possible and illustrates her concern with her own research and practical case studies. For example, it is important to promote honesty and mutual respect in the teams, while at the same time maintaining performance standards.
She cites Google, among others, as a practical case study. In an analysis of her teams, Google came to the conclusion that psychological security was crucial for achieving better business results due to the perceived security and greater communication among each other. The book “The fearless organization. Creating psychological safety in the workplace for learning, innovation and growth” thus conveys the basic impression of the relevance of intra-group communication of equal importance for achieving better business results, even if these are still unfinished ideas. But what role does this reflection of Edmondson play on fundamental choices for efficient work and learning processes in eLearning? Communication is also stimulated in eLearning training courses, for example by sending feedback to those responsible around the clock, uncomplicated and independent of time and place, via the software functionalities. By taking the suggestions of the staff into account in newer versions of the online training courses, even common content is ultimately created in this way. It will be exciting to observe in the future to what extent teamwork in eLearning will take on new forms and which learning theories will prove their worth in terms of learning efficiency. It is quite possible that the concept of psychological security will also play a role here.
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