The Field Guide › Paper
Argues across five studies that high levels of psychological safety climate harm the performance of routine tasks through cognitive distraction, and that collective accountability moderates this effect. The paper generated significant practitioner attention — including an HBR article — and is frequently cited as evidence that teams can have 'too much' psychological safety. The critique of this paper is substantial: it misrepresents PS as primarily a novelty/innovation construct rather than an interpersonal risk construct; it treats nursing as a routine task context where PS is counterproductive, ignoring that reporting errors and raising concerns are the safety-critical functions of PS in healthcare; the asserted turning points (80th–97th percentile) are likely statistical artefacts; ICC values are below recommended thresholds in multiple studies; and the paper's practical conclusion — that it is simpler not to cultivate very high PS than to maintain high collective accountability — is both ethically troubling and managerially perverse. Worth knowing as the primary empirical exhibit in the 'too much PS' discourse, and as a case study in how methodological sophistication can obscure conceptual confusion.