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First introduced by Harvard Business School professor Amy Edmondson more than 25 years ago, psychological safety remains a critical, yet often overlooked, part of successful experiential learning. If you run or commission experiential programmes for managers and teams, in L&D or as a facilitator, it is worth asking whether your current approach truly fosters it.
This article explains what psychological safety is, why experiential learning depends on it, and the practical steps that create it in a simulation or workshop.
What is psychological safety?
Amy Edmondson describes psychological safety as 'an absence of interpersonal fear. When psychological safety is present, people are able to speak up with work-relevant content.'
In a team with psychological safety, people can ask questions, challenge the status quo, and experiment with new ideas, all without fear of negative consequences.
Why does psychological safety matter for learning?
Research published by McKinsey in 2021 stresses the importance of psychological safety, reporting that 89% of US respondents believe it is an essential responsibility of business leaders to create a safe and respectful workplace.
In a TEDx Talk, Edmondson shows how an absence of psychological safety denies people learning opportunities and stunts innovation.
Watch: Building a psychologically safe workplace
Experiential learning raises the stakes. Participants are asked to make decisions in front of colleagues, get some of them wrong, and talk openly about why. Without safety, people play it safe: they defer to the most senior person, avoid risks, and keep their real reasoning to themselves, which is exactly the material a debrief needs.
Jean Van Hoegaerden, an internationally recognised expert in leadership, organisational change, and cross-cultural management, describes psychological safety as:
Essential in a learning environment, as it fosters a willingness to give and receive feedback, encouraging honest reflection and continuous improvement. It creates a safe space for vulnerability, where individuals feel comfortable trying out new ideas and approaches without fear of judgement. >Jean Van Hoegaerden, leadership and change expert speaker
How to create psychological safety in experiential learning
Experiential learning activities offer a strong opportunity to build psychological safety, but only if they are set up correctly and observed.
Make growth the goal, not evaluation
Make it clear from the start that the goal is growth, not evaluation. Observing participants is valuable, but define the observers' role from the outset: they are there to observe, not to assess.
Mix the teams
If the activity is run in teams, it is generally best to mix them so that participants work with people they do not normally work with day to day, especially where someone would otherwise be in a team with their own manager.
Watch the team dynamics
If certain individuals take over, others end up 'sitting on the sidelines', which works against psychological safety. Do not rule out moving people between teams if a dynamic needs changing or one member is having a detrimental effect on the rest.
Make mistakes safe to talk about
An important part of psychological safety is removing the fear of making mistakes. As the saying goes, smart people learn from their mistakes; wise people learn from others' mistakes. Encourage participants to admit their mistakes and learn from each other's. Reflective conversations often provide the most value and the deepest engagement. Avoid having the same people speak every time, and frame speaking up as a chance to step outside your comfort zone.
Psychological safety as a team capability
The same conditions that make a learning session work are the ones that make a team perform: people speak up, raise problems early, and learn from what went wrong. That is why psychological safety sits at the heart of how we approach high-performing teams.
Our Cohesion simulation puts this into practice. Participants take on an inherited team and have to earn trust, resolve conflict, and build the team's ways of working, in a setting where it is safe to get things wrong and talk about why.
In summary
Psychological safety is key to effective experiential learning. When participants feel safe to speak up, make mistakes, and reflect honestly, deeper learning follows. It is about creating a space where growth is the goal, not evaluation, and where people are comfortable being uncomfortable.
If you are building a programme to develop trust and performance in your teams, explore our approach to developing high-performing teams or talk to us about what your teams need.
