The Field Guide › Article
Written on the death of Edgar Schein (1928–2023), former MIT Sloan professor and a foundational figure in organisational culture and change, author of Humble Inquiry, Humble Leadership and Humble Consulting and originator of 'here-and-now humility'. The piece notes that Schein, with Warren Bennis in their 1965 book Personal and Organizational Change through Group Methods, was among the very first to use the term 'psychological safety' in the academic literature in an organisational sense. Its core content is Schein's model of organisational culture as three layers: artefacts (the visible surface level — what you can see, hear and feel in an organisation), espoused values (the stated strategies, goals and philosophies — what an organisation says it believes), and basic underlying assumptions (the deepest level — the unconscious, taken-for-granted beliefs that actually drive behaviour). The practical insight is that culture change targeting only the visible artefacts or espoused values, without reaching the underlying assumptions, will not stick — a direct parallel to why psychological safety and Just Culture initiatives fail when imposed at the surface. A tribute and a working model in one.