Build the foundations of Psychological Safety with this template
Breaking away from the usual retro templates, in collaboration with the fantastic Steven Sampson-Jones - The Visual Facilitator, we created a new template / workshop designed to help teams to build the foundations of Psychological Safety in teams.
Use this workshop to;
- Understand what conditions make individuals in a team feel psychologically safe
- Create a shared understanding as to the teams collective needs for safety
- Narrow in on the behaviours and habits we want to avoid as a team
- Identify how the team wants to handle mistakes, challenges and conflict
Why is Psychological Safety important?
Following a study of over 180 teams as part of Googles Aristotle project, it was learned that the most important factor in high performing teams is the presence of psychological safety.
“Psychological safety is a belief that one will not be punished or humiliated for speaking up with ideas, questions, concerns or mistakes." - PHD. Amy Edmondson, author of The Fearless Organisation.
Teams that therefore have a high degree of psychological safety are more likely to have healthy conflict, respectfully disagreeing with one another, exchanging information, ideas and perspectives, in the pursuit of improvement.
Access the Miro and images below, plug & play into your own instances and let us know how you get on!
Using the image template, you can upload this retro format into Google Jamboards, Mural or other virtual whiteboards and overlay with your own post-its. No license? No problem.
How does it work?
1. Schedule a 1 hour workshop with your team. This workshop is ideal for brand new teams or ahead of a Team Charter workshop
2. Work together to complete each quadrant of the coat of arms, move through each quadrant in clockwise, offering time for people to collect their thoughts individually on the post-it notes, before converging back as a group to generate insights
3. Create a team motto, something fun and whimsical to represent the teams coat of arms e.g. "May the trust be with you" or "Hakuna Matrusta: Our teams worry free philosophy"
4. Sign the coat of arms - Hold yourself and your team accountable for what you believe creates a psychologically safe environment by signing your signature or adding your name
5. Note the dates the coat of arms was signed and when you next intend to review it. This shouldn't be a one and done creation
Happy workshopping
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Don't stop believin' folks