Quarterly Culture Inspiration: October 2019

Every quarter, I share helpful summaries and excerpts of the best books, podcasts, and articles I’ve read about organizational culture.

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Book: The Fearless Organization by Amy Edmondson

Psychological safety is a hot topic right now. We wrote about it in our book, and it’s been written about in The New York Times and many other places. Amy Edmondson is the HBS professor behind it. She defines it as the “belief that the work environment is safe for interpersonal risk taking.” Edmondson explains how psychological safety can vary between groups within organizations, and how a lack of psychological safety brought down VW, Wells Fargo, and Nokia.


Article: “The Office: An In-Depth Analysis of Workplace User Behavior”

This New York Times series is a fun illustrated look at the modern workplace, including Personality Tests Are the Astrology of the Office, by Emma Goldberg, and The Plight of the Office Introvert, by Ethan Hauser.


Podcast: Can You Really Bring Your Full Self to Work? On Being podcast

Jerry Colonna is a leadership coach with Reboot. I’ll share my thoughts from his new book, Reboot, next time, but in the meantime, this is a wonderful podcast interview by Krista Tippett. They talk about how our emotional needs show up at work, and how the most powerful question is “How are you?”