What Makes It Safe to Disagree With a Group?

At an office furniture factory, a few drips of stain along the edge of a furniture part could lead to more trouble than the mistake itself.

Workers who handled the parts later in production sometimes noticed these defects. But pointing them out wasn't always welcome.

Margie, a longtime member of the staining team, remembered a time when people reacted badly to criticism. Instead of simply fixing a mistake, they might look for something the other person had done wrong.

A small problem with the work could quickly become a conflict between people.

When researcher Amy Edmondson spoke with the team, Margie described a different response. If someone pointed out a defect, she would thank them and fix it. As she put it, "Now, we don't think anything of it. We just fix it." ¹

Margie also offered an explanation: she believed the people pointing out problems wanted to help the team produce good work. Their feedback no longer seemed like an attempt to put someone down.

Other team members described helping each other and taking responsibility for mistakes. When they weren't sure about the quality of their work, they sometimes asked others to check it.

This was Margie's recollection, rather than a change Edmondson tracked over time. But the contrast shows something important: the same feedback can lead to blame or help people improve their work.

Think of someone in a meeting who notices a weakness in the group's plan. They have a concern, but everyone else seems ready to agree. Speaking up might make them look difficult, or turn the discussion against them.

So they say nothing.

The group reaches a decision without ever hearing the concern.

Why speaking up can feel risky

In her 1999 study, Amy Edmondson looked at 51 teams working at the same furniture company. She wanted to understand why some teams were more willing than others to discuss mistakes, ask for help, and learn from feedback. ¹

She called one important part of this psychological safety: when people in a team feel they can speak up without being embarrassed or punished.

Team members completed questionnaires about whether mistakes were held against them and how difficult it was to ask for help. They also rated practices such as reviewing their work and questioning assumptions. Edmondson compared the teams' average responses. ¹

This matters in everyday situations. Asking for help may show what you don't know. Admitting a mistake may make you look careless. Disagreeing with a colleague may make you seem difficult.

People may keep quiet, even when they have something useful to say.

Edmondson found that teams with higher psychological safety also reported more behaviors that helped them learn. They were more likely to seek information from others, question assumptions, and look for ways to improve how they worked.

She also found that confidence in the team's abilities was not the same as psychological safety. A team could believe it was good at its job without feeling equally comfortable discussing problems. ¹

A team can be confident in its decisions and still make it difficult for people to question them.

These findings came from surveys and other observations of real teams. They showed a connection between psychological safety and learning, but did not prove that changing one behavior would cause a team to improve.

Not everyone finds it equally easy to disagree

Imagine a meeting where a junior employee disagrees with the most experienced person in the room.

Both people are free to speak. But they may not feel equally comfortable doing so.

In a study published in 2006, researchers Ingrid Nembhard and Amy Edmondson studied 23 hospital intensive care units for newborn babies. They looked at how professional roles and leadership were linked to people's willingness to speak up. ²

Staff completed questionnaires about raising problems, asking questions, and taking part in improvement work. Nurses and respiratory therapists also rated how much physician leaders welcomed and valued other staff members' contributions.

Doctors generally reported feeling safer to speak up than nurses. Nurses, in turn, reported feeling safer than respiratory therapists, who help patients with breathing.

The gap between doctors and other staff was smaller in units where staff described their leaders as asking for ideas and valuing their contributions.

More inclusive leadership and greater psychological safety were also linked to stronger reported engagement in work aimed at improving patient care. ²

The study was based on surveys, so it couldn't prove that a particular action by a leader made people feel safer.

Still, it raises an important question for anyone leading a group.

Is it enough to tell people that all opinions are welcome?

A leader might invite everyone to share their thoughts. But if someone raises a concern and the group immediately dismisses it, that invitation may mean very little.

People notice how others respond when someone disagrees.

When a concern is about to be ignored

Consider a hypothetical example: a team is deciding which project to work on first.

Most people support one option. Someone hesitates and says:

"I'm not sure we can finish that on time."

"We already talked about the deadline," another participant replies.

The group starts to move on.

The facilitator could leave it there. Or they could bring the discussion back to the concern:

"What makes the deadline uncertain? I'd like to understand that before we decide."

The participant explains that the plan depends on another team being available next week, but nobody has checked with them.

Now the group has something specific to discuss.

Someone may know the other team's schedule. Perhaps they need to check it. Or they may decide that the concern doesn't change their choice.

Even if the dependency had already been checked, asking would let the group explain why it believed the deadline was realistic.

The important part is that the concern was heard and examined.

The facilitator didn't take sides or decide who was right. They simply made room for the participant to explain.

A facilitator can also ask a question before the group makes its decision:

"Which assumption in this plan are we least sure about?"

This gives people a way to discuss possible problems without having to directly disagree with the majority.

These suggested responses were not tested in either study. A later review of interventions aimed at improving psychological safety and speaking up in healthcare teams found mixed results. ³

There's no need to make everyone disagree or force quiet participants to speak. The goal is to give people room to explain a concern before the group decides what to do with it.

What a final decision doesn't show

In Protocol15, participants discuss a fictional situation and work together to agree on a shared ranking.

The final ranking shows what the team decided. The comparison with a reference ranking gives the group something to discuss afterward.

But neither tells the facilitator whether everyone felt comfortable sharing their thoughts.

A team might reach an agreement after a lively discussion. Another might reach the same agreement without questioning a popular suggestion.

The final ranking alone cannot show the difference.

During the activity, a facilitator can watch what happens when someone raises a concern.

Does the group ask the person to explain? Do others consider the concern? Or does the discussion move on before the person has finished?

Of course, silence doesn't always mean people were afraid to speak. They may have agreed with the decision or simply had nothing to add.

During the debrief, the facilitator might ask:

"What happened when someone questioned a suggestion?"

This encourages people to think about what actually happened during the discussion, without asking them to guess how others felt.

The research doesn't prove that Protocol15, or any single workshop, improves psychological safety. But it gives facilitators a useful reason to pay attention to a moment that can be easy to miss:

When someone raises a difficult question, what does the group do next?