Creating psychologically safe teams is vital for competing in a VUCA (Volatile, Uncertain, Complex, Ambiguous) world and for an organization’s success, employees’ engagement, and well-being. Although the psychological safety construct, which lives on the team level, may seem challenging, this blog details 10 ways to unlock fearless team communications and processes. Explore powerful strategies to foster open dialogue, cultivate trust, and empower authentic expression for transformative conversations. Make psychological safety aspirational and cultivate an interpersonal climate where employees feel safe to speak up and express themselves authentically.

What Are The 10 Ways to Unlock Fearless Communication?

1. Brainstorming:

Generate real and hypothetical workplace scenarios that illustrate the presence and absence of psychological safety to ignite discussions. 

 

2. Identifying Compromising Moments:

Inquire and prompt team members to discuss challenges where they have experienced compromised psychological safety.

 

3. Learning From The Past: 

Explore lessons from previous incidents where compromise to psychological safety occurred.”

• What were the warning signs, root causes, and consequences of the lack of psychological safety?
• Conduct a Project Premortem 
• Backcasting / Pre-mortem (Premortem)

4. Building a Safer Path:

Generate remedial solutions by changing certain behaviors to prevent this from happening again.

 

5. Envisioning the Ideal Interpersonal Climate:

Create a list of characteristics, behaviors, permissions, and policies that foster psychological safety. 

 

6. Implementing Learning and Development:

Offer training and workshops on various topics, including building trust and openness, approaches to conflict, building resiliency, and active listening and acknowledgment.

 

7. Solving Problems Through Collaboration:

Explore hypothetical scenarios and anticipate future challenges by inviting diverse perspectives. 

 

8. Implementing Solid Steps Forward:

Create goals and action steps.

 

9. Getting Leadership Buy-In:

Investing time, energy, and resources into cultural interventions and psychological safety initiatives. 

10. Implementing Measures and Anonymous Surveys: 

Evaluate psychological safety initiatives over time.  

Conclusion:

Igniting dialogue in your team through brainstorming exercises, identifying compromising moments, learning from the past, building a safer path, envisioning the ideal interpersonal climate, implementing concrete steps forward, and solving problems through collaboration are essential strategies to address and create psychological safety in teams. Prioritizing a safe place to dialogue and empower teams to evaluate the presence, absence, and desired state of psychological safety is essential and renders favorable outcomes. It is crucial to facilitate team discussions to determine the productive and unproductive characteristics and workplace behaviors they can start, stop, and continue and, lastly, get leaders’ buy-in to create policies, communication, feedback channels, and permissions to support initiatives for cultural transformation. 

Recommendations:

Breaking Down Communication Barriers

In this TED Talk, speaker Angela Graves discusses the importance of speaking in a manner to be heard and the importance of listening effectively. 

9 Effective Communication Strategies to Connect Better with Your Team

Performing a Project Premortem by Gary Klein