On May 20th, join me at HBR's annual Leadership Summit with masterclasses, interviews with the CEOs of AT&T and Mattel,

and an interactive case discussion led by Harvard Business School professor Kareem Likani.

This all-virtual day will give you practical frameworks to lead with purpose and strengthen culture across your organization.

To learn more, go to h HBR.org slash Leadership Summit.

See you there.

I'm Audie Ignatius.

I'm Alison Beard, and this is the HBR Ideacast.

So I'm sure every manager has experienced this at one time or another. You sincerely encourage your

employees to speak up truthfully, to give their unvarnished opinions about what's happening

at work without fear of retribution. You try to set up a psychologically safe environment,

but guess what? No one speaks up. Yes, I have seen this happen all of the time. And even me,

you know, I'm a pretty forthright person,

but I don't always say exactly what's on my mind, especially to higher level leaders.

And I guess that reflects an anxiety we all have that total candor won't actually be appreciated.

Well, exactly. And I think, look, I think smart leaders know that the ideal

scenario where you get people to talk openly and fearlessly about what's working, about what's not

working at the company, can be a real gift. You really want your people on the front line who are

developing and selling your products and engaging with customers to tell you how it's all really gone.

So how do we get from those good intentions to actually

getting people to tell you the truth? Well, so it depends on building a credible pattern of trust,

of course, but it also boils down in many ways to the art of communication. So today's guest,

Charles Duhigg, is an expert in that field and author of several books, including super communicators,

...