At the start of this year many of our clients heard from Professor Binna Kandola on ways we can design for diversity in work processes – to counter those similarity biases to which we automatically gravitate. In February 2026, he’s back with us, this time talking about ways we can foster psychologically safe workplaces.
While the term is not new, psychological safety is increasingly recognised as the key to high performing organisations.
In his new book, Kandola explains that psychological safety is more than a team’s shared belief that it’s safe to speak up without negative retribution. He frames it as a multi-layer concept that ‘exists at the intersection of individual experiences, team interactions, and organisational culture’.
Psychological safety is increasingly recognised as the key to high performing organisations.
What this means is that – to assess and cultivate psychological safety – we need to look at organisational inclusion practices, goal setting practices, organisational communications and structure, as well as leader and team behaviours. This framework stretches us to think well beyond team inclusion practices – to connect the dots in a bigger organisational picture.
Binna is one of the UK’s leading thinkers on diversity, bias, inclusive leadership, and psychological safety. He’s a Business Psychologist, Senior Partner and co-founder of Pearn Kandola, a firm of leading business and DEI consultants based in Oxford. Register here to join us.
