High‐quality relationships, psychological safety, and learning from failures in work organizations

Abstract

SummaryHow can organizations support employees to engage in learning from failures? In this paper, we draw on the concept of high-quality relationships to explore the relational underpinnings of learning from failures in organizations. We focus on relational coordination as a specific manifestation of high-quality relationships and examine how the relational dimensions of relational coordination-shared goals, shared knowledge, and mutual respect-foster psychological safety and thus enable organizational members to engage in learning from failures. The results of two separate studies support our mediation model where psychological safety mediates the link between high-quality relationships and learning from failures in organizations.

Performance management in context: formative cross-functional performance monitoring for improvement and the mediating role of relational coordination in hospitals

“…Gittell (2012) recognises that using a 'network ties' approach to the measure of relational coordination is most desirable, but she also endorses the approach taken in this study and in previous research (Carmeli and Gittell 2009). …”

Opportunity, Motivation, and Ability to Learn from Failures and Errors: Review, Synthesis, and Ways to Move Forward

“…Psychological safety has been found to positively influence failure learning by increasing an individual's motivation to engage in failure learning activity (reporting failures and errors; willingness to discuss possible solutions) because the fear of negative consequences to self-image, status, or career are lower when psychological safety is high (Edmondson, 1996;Tjosvold, et al 2004). Surveying three firms in the software, electronics and finance industries, Carmeli and Gittell (2009) found that psychological safety was positively associated with failure-based learning behaviors.…”

“…Individuals who have stronger loss and oscillation orientations reported a better ability to learn from previous project failure than those with a restoration orientation. Apparently, the necessary element is the capacity to 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 (Carmeli and Gittell, 2009). High-quality relationships, which are manifested in shared goals, shared knowledge, and mutual respect, not only promote psychological safety but also enhance information processing and coordination capacity, which in turn have positive effects on the capacity to learn from failure.…”

Self-regulated learning, team learning and project performance in entrepreneurship education: Learning in a lean startup environment

“…In a context in which a team is not embedded organizationally or does not have a working history, such as in team startups or in this classroom context, PS does not exist prior to the existence of a particular team. Rather, there is a codevelopment of PS and team learning that together impact on team performance: PS is based on trust (Kessel et al, 2012) and high-quality relationships (Carmeli and Gittell, 2009) that in turn develop through continuous successful episodes (Fink and Harms, 2012) of team learning and team performance. This codevelopment suggests that successful teams have a high level of both PS and TL, and relatively unsuccessful teams may have a low degree of both.…”