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

To: Head of Technology

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. 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, your organization can provide clients with a complete, end-to-end solution: a cultural infrastructure that strengthens delivery, innovation, and resilience.

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

This addition will give your organization 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.

Why Psychological Safety Matters for Technology Leaders

• Risk Mitigation: Teams that feel safe raise concerns earlier, reducing the chance of hidden vulnerabilities, outages, or compliance failures.

• Resilience Under Pressure: In crisis moments—cyber incidents, outages, regulatory deadlines—psychological safety ensures clear communication, faster recovery, and reduced blame cycles.

• Sustained Innovation: Engineers and analysts are more likely to propose creative solutions, experiment responsibly, and learn from failures when they won’t be punished for candor.

• Retention & Engagement: High-demand tech talent stays and grows where they are trusted, heard, and able to contribute authentically.

Without psychological safety, agile ceremonies, DevSecOps pipelines, and security frameworks become rituals without results. With it, organizations unlock the full potential of their people and technology investments.

Proposed Service Offering: Psychological Safety Integration

InKNOWnative's offerings are customizable for your organization and include:

• 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.
• 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.

• 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 trainings (e.g., Leading SAFe, ART Launch, PI Planning readiness).

• Embedded Coaching 

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

Benefits of Successful Implementation

• Fewer Unseen Risks: Teams surface threats, bugs, and vulnerabilities before they escalate.

• Higher Quality & Delivery Speed: Psychological safety reduces rework and accelerates problem-solving.

• Smarter Security Posture: Open conversations uncover weak points and encourage ethical escalation.

• Innovation at Scale: Safe teams experiment, learn, and adapt—fueling continuous improvement.

• Stronger Retention & Engagement: Employees in safe cultures report higher loyalty and performance.

Next Steps

We propose a discovery meeting to explore:

• How psychological safety can be integrated into your technology and security organization.

• 1–2 pilot teams where InKNOWnative services can demonstrate impact.

• Opportunities to co-create thought leadership and showcase outcomes.

Closing

Technology thrives at the intersection of systems and people. Firewalls, frameworks, and pipelines are only as strong as the human networks behind them. By embedding psychological safety, you create teams that are not only technically proficient but resilient, candid, and continuously learning.

InKNOWnative equips your leaders and teams with the tools, assessments, and training to make this foundation real. The result: a culture where psychological safety fuels secure innovation, reliable delivery, and high-performing, learning teams.

Respectfully,

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

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