IGPI employs a hands-on approach to strategy execution, ensuring that leadership teams not only develop strategies but implement them effectively. One of the most pressing challenges organizations face today is balancing psychological safety with performance accountability.
It is crucial to understand that psychological safety is not about eliminating stress, but rather creating a culture where individuals feel secure enough to take risks and drive results.
Organizations often focus on psychological safety as an end in itself, equating it with reducing workplace stress and promoting open dialogue. This perspective, however, risks diminishing performance. Companies exist to create value, and psychological safety must be aligned with business objectives. A psychologically safe workplace should enable employees to challenge ideas and contribute meaningfully, not just speak freely. High performance emerges from the intersection of psychological safety and accountability. When these are decoupled, organizations either become too rigid or too permissive — both of which undermine long-term success.
In 2012, Google initiated Project Aristotle, a comprehensive study to understand team effectiveness. The project analyzed data from 180 teams across the company, considering over 250 attributes. Research findings indicated that psychological safety was the most critical factor in team success, outweighing individual performance or team composition. However, Google’s study also emphasized that psychological safety needed to be coupled with clear goals and a culture of dependability to truly drive high performance.
Leaders often adopt a binary mindset, treating psychological safety and accountability as mutually exclusive. In reality, both must coexist. This balance is achieved through timely and specific feedback. Annual performance reviews have proven ineffective. Feedback must be immediate and actionable, providing concrete examples for improvement. Vague mandates such as “increase sales” or “reduce costs” fail to drive change. Managers must translate objectives into concrete, executable actions.
When leaders provide direct, specific, and constructive feedback, they foster a culture of continuous improvement — where employees feel safe to take risks while remaining accountable for results.
A common leadership pitfall is focusing on immediate problem-solving rather than scalable solutions. Many managers tend to jump to conclusions, solving specific issues instead of designing repeatable frameworks. For instance, if a store experiences a stockout, an inexperienced manager might simply increase inventory orders. A skilled leader, however, would develop a demand-forecasting model that prevents future occurrences across all locations. Effective leadership is about building processes, not just fixing problems.
Successful managers resist the urge for quick fixes and instead establish scalable, generalizable principles that drive sustainable success.
Toyota’s Production System (TPS), developed in the mid-20th century, revolutionized manufacturing by focusing on systemic solutions rather than quick fixes. At its core, TPS emphasizes continuous improvement (kaizen) and respect for people, encouraging employees at all levels to identify and solve problems. This approach led Toyota to develop scalable solutions like the “5 Whys” technique for root cause analysis and the “Just-in-Time” production method. As a result, Toyota not only improved its own efficiency and quality but also set a new standard for manufacturing processes worldwide, influencing industries far beyond automotive.
A core competency for high-performing leaders is the ability to abstract complexity into clear, structured frameworks. However, abstraction without deep operational understanding leads to flawed decision-making. To make meaningful strategic decisions, leaders must first engage with real-world complexity. This can be achieved through various means:
| 1. | Rotating employees across functions | |
| 2. | Ensuring employees who don’t typically interact with customers are exposed to real customer feedback | |
| 3. | Encouraging executives to work at the ground level |
Without these experiences, strategic decision-making risks becoming detached from reality, leading to frameworks that appear sound on paper but fail in execution.
The essence of management is organizational augmentation — enabling a company to scale execution beyond individual capability. As teams grow, complexity increases, making information flow and decision clarity more challenging. Managers must design mechanisms for knowledge-sharing, cross-functional collaboration, and decision-making at scale.
This approach aligns directly with IGPI’s methodology for hands-on strategy execution — ensuring that leadership is not just about defining strategy, but actively shaping the mechanisms that drive impact.
| 1. | Psychological safety is a tool for high performance, not an end goal. | |
| 2. | Timely, specific feedback is essential to maintaining accountability. | |
| 3. | Managers must design scalable solutions, not just fix immediate problems. | |
| 4. | Operational experience is critical — abstraction must be rooted in real-world insights. | |
| 5. | Leadership is about expanding an organization’s execution capability, not just directing individuals. |
IGPI works alongside leadership teams to ensure that these principles are not just understood — but embedded into the fabric of how organizations operate.
Kick-start your transformation journey towards a high-performance culture. Speak with IGPI today to explore how we can elevate your organization’s managerial effectiveness and execution excellence.
To find out more about how IGPI Group can provide support for businesses, browse through our insight articles or get in contact with us.
Kohki Sakata, CEO of IGPI Singapore
After joining Cap Gemini and Coca Cola, Kohki joined Revamp Corporation where he managed projects on global expansion and turnaround in various sectors including F&B, healthcare, retail, IT, etc. After joining IGPI, he has managed projects mainly on global expansion and cross border M&A in various sectors such as logistics, IT, telecom, retail, etc. In addition to his broad experience in implementing solutions that has been developed in Western countries, he has developed multiple methods to turnaround Asian companies with focus on setting clear vision and employee empowerment. Kohki has proven the practicality of these methods by turning around Asian companies not only as an advisor but also as senior management.
He graduated from Waseda University Department of Political Science and Economics and IE Business School.
IGPI Group is a Japan rooted premium management consulting & Investment Group headquartered in Tokyo with a footprint in Osaka, Singapore, Hanoi, Shanghai & Melbourne, as well as parts of Europe and India. The organization was established in 2007 by former members of the Industrial Revitalization Corporation of Japan (IRCJ), a USD 100 billion sovereign wealth fund focusing on turn-around projects in Japan. IGPI Group has 13 institutional investors, including Nomura Holdings, SMBC, KDDI, Recruit & Sumitomo Corporation to name a few. IGPI Group has vast experience in supporting Fortune 500s, Govt. agencies, Universities, SMEs and funded startups across Asia and beyond for their strategic business needs and hands-on support across a wide variety of industries. IGPI group has ~8,500 employees on a consolidated basis.
* This material is intended merely for reference purposes based on our experience and is not intended to be comprehensive and does not constitute as advice. Information contained in this material has been obtained from sources believed to be reliable, but IGPI does not represent or warrant the quality, completeness, and accuracy of such information. All rights reserved by IGPI.
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