From Sharknados to Safety
4 Low-Effort, High-Impact Ways To Increase Psychological Safety
Imagine walking into a team meeting and being asked, “If your mood was a kind of weather today, what would it be?”
One of the most memorable answers we’ve ever heard was, "a sharknado 🦈🌪️."
This moment, born from a simple check-in question, perfectly illustrates the power of psychological safety. When people feel safe, they can be open about what’s really going on - even if it's a ‘sharknado’ of a day.
Psychological safety is the shared belief that a team is a safe place for inter-personal risk-taking. It’s the foundation of a high-performing team and, thankfully, it doesn't require a huge investment of time or money to build.
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Here are four, practical actions you can take right now to increase psychological safety on your team.
1. Make Check-ins Normal
A check-in is a quick, non-work-focused question asked at the beginning of a meeting. It’s a simple way to help people transition from whatever they were doing to the current discussion. It also normalizes vulnerability by giving people a low-stakes opportunity to share a bit about how they’re feeling. The "mood as weather" question is a great example, but you can also ask things like, "What's one thing you're excited about this week?" or "What's a song that represents your energy today?" This small ritual can dramatically increase team connection and trust over time.
2. Embrace Retrospectives
Retrospectives are a core ritual for any team committed to continuous learning. By regularly reflecting on what went well and what didn't, teams reinforce the idea that it's okay to make mistakes and that there's always room for improvement. Using frameworks like Start, Stop, Continue can make these sessions structured and productive. Over time, as retrospectives become a normal part of your team's rhythm, the conversations will naturally become more open and frank, helping to build a shared sense of psychological safety.
3. Clarify Decision-Making
Few things demoralize a team more than the inability to move forward because a decision is blocked or unclear. When decisions are made behind closed doors, it breeds frustration and a lack of trust. You can combat this by making decision-ownership clear. For every significant decision the team needs to make, align on who is the final decision-maker and what process they will use. For example, you might try consent-based decision making, where a decision is made if no one on the team has a strong, reasoned objection. This simple practice empowers the team and reduces uncertainty.
4. Always Be Coaching
The previous three tips are potential solutions to the question “how can we increase psychological safety?” It’s important not to forget that your team are smart adults and they may have other ideas. So ask coaching questions that recruit them into the problem space. For example, try a future-framing question like…
"My fondest wish is that every member of this team feels no hesitation in offering thoughts that challenge existing ideas. Picture yourself in a meeting tomorrow disagreeing strongly with something. What would it take for you to feel 100% confident that the team would be grateful for you speaking up?"
💡If you’d like your manager or team to learn more on the topic of psychological safety, we’ve got a well researched, interactive and practical workshop just for you!
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