Hard Questions, Safe Conversations: The Role of Psychological Safety at Work - Joy Verplank

In moments of change and uncertainty, the quality of organisational decisions depends less on access to information and more on the conversations people feel able to have. When psychological safety is low, concerns go unspoken, assumptions go untested, and important risks are discovered too late.

In this session, Joy Verplank explores psychological safety as a practical foundation for better decision-making, learning, and governance. Drawing on experience from high-stakes environments, she examines how organisations create (or undermine) the conditions needed for honest dialogue, constructive challenge, and shared accountability.

Rather than treating psychological safety as a soft skill or cultural aspiration, this session reframes it as an operational necessity that shapes how organisations navigate complexity, make responsible choices, and sustain trust over time.

Key Topics Include:

• What psychological safety really enables in organisations
• Why difficult conversations fail, or never happen at all
• Creating conditions where challenge, dissent, and uncertainty can surface productively
• The role of learning and leadership in shaping conversational norms
• Applying psychological safety to high-impact decisions and organisational change