Axiomempiricalv1AX-248
Task conflict improves team performance only…
Task conflict improves team decisions only when psychological safety is high
Why This Is an Axiom
This is Bradley et al.'s empirical finding about the moderating role of safety. It's a conditional relationship that cannot be derived from separate axioms about conflict or safety alone—it's an interaction effect that the research establishes as foundational.
Source Lessons
Conflict as a team cognitive resource
Healthy disagreement — task conflict about ideas, approaches, and interpretations — improves team decisions. The absence of conflict does not signal harmony. It signals suppression of the cognitive diversity the team needs to think well.
Psychological safety enables team cognition
People will only contribute their best thinking if they feel safe to be wrong, to disagree, and to surface uncomfortable truths.