Psychological safety in the workplace matters now more than ever. In uncertain times—be they economic, political, or social—we need our colleagues and staff members to feel they can share their ideas, ask for help, or offer a divergent perspective without fear of negative ramifications. Although we know that psychological safety is essential, sustaining it through real-world challenges can be difficult. That’s where this book comes in. 

In The Psychological Safety Playbook for Changemakers you’ll learn how to move through resistance, rebuild psychological safety when it has been broken, and “walk the talk”. Whether you’re a team leader, facilitator, or passionate individual working to shift culture, this Playbook helps you build momentum in driving sustainable change. 

Culture change happens through small, consistent actions that ripple across teams and organizations. This Playbook is your companion for that journey—helping you stay the course, inspire others, and create the conditions where everyone can do their best, most creative work in these increasingly challenging times. 

The excerpt below is the book's opening section… 

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Why This Book?  
Why Now? 

The idea for this book emerged after the last event of our European book tour for our first book, The Psychological Safety Playbook. We had spent the previous week talking with leaders at organizations in Germany and Denmark about the ideas we shared in the book. 

The people we met in those countries worked at large consumer goods companies, pharmaceutical companies, insurance companies, telecommunications firms, and not-for-profit organizations. Their roles included human resources, learning and development, organizational change, research and development, and innovation. One thing all these people had in common: They were changemakers. 

They were committed to making their organizational cultures more collaborative, motivating, innovative, and inclusive. They also believed that a foundation of psychological safety was critical to the changes they were leading. 

In our conversations, we heard about the challenges these leaders faced even as they made progress in increasing psychological safety within teams. One of the common themes was how to get senior leaders to be role models and “walk the talk” instead of paying lip service to a psychologically safe culture. The people we met also wanted to know how to keep the positive momentum going and bring everyone along with them so they could unlock the full potential of their workforce. 

In short, they wanted more. They wanted to dive more deeply into conversations and learn how to make psychological safety a lived reality in their organizations by turning beliefs into sustained action. They also wanted specific guidance for navigating the resistance that inevitably arises when driving meaningful change. 

While on our book tour, we finished running our certification program based on our first Playbook. The participants were highly experienced consultants, leaders, and facilitators who wanted to move beyond understanding a theoretical concept of psychological safety to enabling and sustaining real change through action. 

So, there we found ourselves on our last day together, at Café Vivaldi in Copenhagen, realizing that we needed to write a follow-up to The Psychological Safety Playbook—one that goes deeper and explores the real-world challenges of bringing psychological safety to life in the workplace. As we sipped our tea in that café, we outlined the book that you now hold in your hands. 

The impetus for writing our first book came from a gap we identified in the marketplace: We could not find the practical psychological safety “how-to” guide we were looking for, so we decided to write the guide ourselves. What we originally envisioned as a resource for our clients soon resonated far beyond our networks, revealing a global need for actionable ways to build psychological safety in the workplace. 

What’s different about this second book is that it’s inspired by the changemakers we’ve met—real people like you, facing real-world challenges. These changemakers are passionate individuals who sometimes struggle to sustain momentum when driving positive change. You are the people who are bringing psychological safety to life in your organizations, and it’s crucial to stay the course when facing obstacles. You are the ones who, through persistence and dedication, will enable your organizations to tackle the huge challenges we all face in today’s complex and volatile world. 

We want this book to be a resource that supports you and other changemakers, building on the foundational principles in our first book and offering practical strategies for responding to resistance, sparking change, embodying the change we want to see, and moving forward deliberately. 

We’ve experienced the motivation, innovation, breakthrough performance, and well-being that result from a high level of psychological safety in the workplace. We have also experienced the suffering, mediocre performance, stagnation, and poor morale that occur when there is a low level of psychological safety in an organization. 

Psychological safety in the workplace matters now more than ever. In uncertain times—be they economic, political, or social—we need our colleagues and staff members to feel they can share their ideas, ask for help, or offer a divergent perspective without fear of negative ramifications. There is no quick “flip of a switch” to drive change in an organization. There are no simple solutions. What we have seen, however, is that by doing this work consistently, we can make a huge difference in how people experience working together. 

The world of work needs positive changemakers like you, and we hope this book offers the support you’ve been looking for. 

Excerpted from The Psychological Safety Playbook for Changemakers: Transform Your Workplace Culture. Copyright © by Karolin Helbig and Minette Norman. All rights reserved.

About the Authors

The authors, Dr. Karolin Helbig and Minette Norman, met online when participating in a certification program for administering psychological safety assessments based on Amy C. Edmondson’s work. They connected immediately around their shared beliefs about inclusive, empathetic, and mindful leadership and struck up a collaboration with the idea of writing a practical guide to psychological safety. They envisioned a book that they themselves would have loved to have as leaders: Concise and practical, though research-based and offering relevant resources for further exploration. hey ended up writing The Psychological Safety Playbook, not having met face to face before its 2023 release. After hearing from enthusiastic readers and clients, they realized there was more to explore, which prompted them to write the second book in the series, The Psychological Safety Playbook for Changemakers.

Learn more at thepsychologicalsafetyplaybook.com