Using the most important part of design thinking to help develop your team's psychological safety.
One of the hardest parts about creating psychological safety is not about getting it started. It's the continued efforts needed to make it a part of the team's culture. It’s so easy to go back to old ways of being. Especially when a team gets stressed or overwhelmed.
Interested in using the tools of design thinking to create psychological safety?
Building psychological safety can be a messy process. There are so many different personalities to take into consideration. How do you make sure to keep focused and stay on the right path? It can be difficult to know exactly what to do.
Psychological Safety Exercises can have a profound effect on the people you're working with. Not too long ago I was working with a very large international tech company.
These types of experiences happen quite often during my psychological safety exercises. Someone feels safe enough to have those kinds of conversations with me. These exercises can help you get to the heart of the team issues, where people don't feel comfortable to open up and share.
What are the most helpful psychological safety exercises?
You know deep down that your team is a great one, but there is an issue that keeps coming up. The team does not feel truly safe and comfortable with one another. They need more psychological safety at work.
They keep quiet when asked for their opinion. They don’t work as collaboratively as they can. Sometimes there is a mentality of us vs. them.
What are the principles behind creating psychological safety exercises?
You can tell that the team is not feeling psychologically safe. You see people are having difficulties working with one another. People are staying quiet when asked questions. When you want to brainstorm new ideas, people keep hush hush. When you're trying to figure out a problem, the team averts their eyes.
You see people working together and they are staying quiet, which makes your work a lot more stressful and just not enjoyable. People often feel scared to share openly with one another. There is something wrong here, you want to change and you know that psychological safety at work can help. But you aren’t sure how to articulate what psychological safety can do?
Imagine working in a space where there is absolute freedom to speak your mind. When you share an idea people encourage you. When you bring up mistakes, you receive thanks and appreciation. People celebrate the fact that you brought up the dirt underneath the rug.
