Submitted by: Shari Soroka, SPC6, FCP, Founder & Psychological Safety Coach, InKNOWnative LLC

To: Katie Snelson, Vice President at ICON Agility Services

Executive Summary

InKNOWnative was founded on the belief that the spark of innovation and knowledge is native to each of us. Integrating psychological safety into an organization is about uncovering and reigniting the innate spark of trust, curiosity, and connection that fuels high-performing, learning teams. The training materials and blogs I create draw on a wide body of research—well beyond the work of Amy C. Edmondson and Timothy R. Clark—bringing together insights from leading scholars and practitioners across psychology, leadership, and organizational behavior. As a Fearless Organization Certified Practitioner (FCP), I have both access to the validated Fearless Organization Scan Tool and the expertise to facilitate team debriefs with depth and care, turning data into actionable strategies that strengthen culture and performance.

At the 2024 Psych Safety Day 

Amy C. Edmondson was asked, "What positive themes do you see on the horizon for psychological safety?" 

Amy responded, "...the conversation has certainly grown. There are folks like you...who've joined here today...the positive thing I see about that is your ability, your talent, your willingness to take this out there and help in building learning teams wherever you are...that to me is just so powerful and humbling and wonderful because I can't do that work." 

Most organizations have a basic, varied understanding of what psychological safety is, but not how to build it. InKNOWnative provides that “how”—and it starts well before the first stage of Timothy R. Clark’s framework, Inclusion Safety. There are critical foundational elements that must be in place before Inclusion Safety can truly take root.

“First we make our habits, then our habits make us.” John Dryden’s words capture the essence of what makes psychological safety stick—it isn’t a single workshop or team-building activity, but a set of repeatable habits that shape culture over time.

Organizations consistently voice support for psychological safety in theory, yet too often lack a structured, scalable path to embed it into daily operations. The result? Initiatives that fade as quickly as they begin. Psychological safety, as Harvard’s Amy C. Edmondson defines it, is the belief that people can share ideas, questions, concerns, and mistakes without fear of humiliation or punishment. That belief only becomes sustainable when systems—not just individuals—reinforce it.

This is where InKNOWnative adds measurable value to ICON Agility’s portfolio. Our Step-by-Step: Practical Guidance for Integrating Psychological Safety is a research-backed, self-paced training program designed to close the gap between theory and practice. It equips individuals, leaders, and transformation offices with the language, structure, and confidence to make psychological safety operational, not aspirational.

From Agile Transformation Offices (ATO) and Value Management Offices (VMO), partnering with HR, DE&I or corporate trainer leadership, this approach empowers change agents at every level to integrate safety into retrospectives, PI Planning, OKRs, onboarding, and daily interactions. Paired with external facilitation through the Fearless Organization Scan and Leader’s Toolkit Workshops, ICON can provide clients with a complete, end-to-end solution: a cultural infrastructure that strengthens delivery, innovation, and resilience.

By embedding psychological safety alongside SAFe and Lean-Agile practices, ICON differentiates itself in the marketplace—helping organizations not just “go Agile,” but sustain it. Together, we can turn good intentions into lasting habits, and lasting habits into high-performing, learning cultures.

This addition will give ICON a distinct advantage: the ability to directly address one of the most cited barriers to sustainable Agile adoption—fear-based cultures and lack of trust.

Why Psychological Safety, Why Now

Research by Dr. Amy C. Edmondson (Harvard Business School) and Google’s Project Aristotle have made it clear: psychological safety is the #1 predictor of high-performing, learning teams. Yet, in practice, organizations often treat it as a “soft skill” or an afterthought workshop rather than as critical infrastructure. Without it, SAFe, Scrum, and Lean Portfolio Management risk becoming “repetitions without real results.” Agile transformations are, at their core, cultural shifts. Without the foundation of psychological safety, they often fall short—or never realize their full potential.

By incorporating psychological safety as a core ICON service, you:

• Differentiate ICON in a crowded SAFe/Agile consulting market.
• Provide clients with a people-centered complement to their processes for transformations.
• Increase client satisfaction and outcomes by addressing the invisible cultural blockers.

Proposed Service Offering: Psychological Safety Integration

Delivered under the InKNOWnative brand, ICON may offering this as customizable for ICON clients and include:

1.  Psychological Safety Assessment 
• Initial Psychological Safety Organization Readiness Assessment.
•  Facilitated Fearless Organization Scan (Amy C. Edmondson’s validated diagnostic) by a Fearless Organization Certified Practitioner (FCP), Shari Soroka.
•  Team- and leadership-level insights into inclusion, willingness to help, openness, and attitudes toward risk/failure.

1.  Step-by-Step Course for Teams & Leaders 

•  Self-paced modules and toolkits designed to build repeatable habits of safe, inclusive leadership.
•  The Step-by-Step, self-paced, online course is for Champions leading the initiative.
•  The Introductory online course is for a baseline understanding of psychological safety and ability to earn a Certificate of Completion.
•  Tools, templates, and reflection exercises that operationalize culture into daily practice.

1.  Leader’s Toolkit Workshops 

•  Interactive sessions equipping executives, RTEs, Scrum Masters, and other critical leadership with practical tools to foster safety.
•  Integration of safety practices into existing ICON trainings (e.g., Leading SAFe, ART Launch, PI Planning readiness).

1.  Embedded Coaching 

•  InKNOWnative partnering with ICON coaches on engagements, ensuring alignment of technical agility with cultural resilience.

Benefits to ICON

• Enhanced Differentiation: Position ICON not only as experts in scaling agility but also as leaders in building human-centered systems.
• Scalable Revenue Stream: Psychological safety services can be offered as standalone engagements or bundled with existing ICON packages.
• Deeper Client Impact: Increased adoption success, reduced resistance, stronger leadership engagement, and healthier team dynamics.
• Thought Leadership: Joint branding opportunities (blogs, webinars, conference talks) that showcase ICON’s commitment to people AND process.

Next Steps

I propose a discovery meeting to:

1. Explore how psychological safety can be integrated into ICON’s existing service catalog.
2. Identify 1–2 pilot client engagements where InKNOWnative can co-deliver alongside ICON coaches.
3. Co-create marketing collateral highlighting this new offering under the ICON Agility Services brand.

Closing

Agility thrives at the intersection of systems and human connection. By partnering with InKNOWnative, ICON has the opportunity to make psychological safety not just a value statement but a delivered service—one that ensures sustainable results for your clients and further positions ICON as the leader in SAFe transformations.

I look forward to the opportunity to discuss how we can bring this to life together.

Respectfully submitted,

Shari Soroka, SPC6, FCP
Founder & Psychological Safety Coach
InKNOWnative LLC

Learn How to Use the Step-by-Step, self-paced, online training: https://www.inknownative.com/blog/how-to-use-step-by-step-training

https://www.inknownative.com/ 

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303.332.2339