Psychological Safety in Teams at FlowCon France

I gave a mini-workshop at FlowCon France about psychological safety in teams, which was highly appreciated by the attendees. Below please find some pictures taken at this workshop, credits to the FlowCon organizers and photographer Jean Ricardo for taking these great action shots!

Psychological Safety in Teams

Psychological safety in teams is important; team members must feel safe and able to communicate and collaborate effectively to deliver value. It’s also necessary to build long-lasting teams since things will happen and relationships will be strained.

But, how safe is a team? How can we determine if there are any factors that make the team unsafe or have an impact on the team’s culture?

In the mini-workshop at FlowCon France, we played games for psychological safety and team culture utilizing a deck of coaching cards, The Psychological Safety Cards. Attendees learned how to use gamification to gain a better understanding of what’s going on in teams. The participants shared what they have learned from working in teams, what has impacted the team’s safety and culture, and what has led to positive change.

We played three different game formats, and the three groups rotated during the workshop to try out all the formats. One exercise was a constellation where people take positions about aspects of psychological safety in their team or organization.

After taking a position in one of the squares, attendees explored the psychological safety aspect described on the card and shared insights on how this looked in their company or team.

The other two formats that we played were collaborative card games where people work together to create an environment that fosters psychological safety. One format was Sharing Challenges, which is described in my book The Agile Self-assessment Game.

In this format, attendees pick one or more Psychological safety cards and either put them into the area “Challenges we are Facing” or “Challenges we Solved”. If another attendee has had that challenge in their company or solved it, they move the card to the overlapping area of “Facing” and “Solved”. Now the group has a topic where they can share and learn from each other.

The third format that we played was First Things First (also taken from The Agile Self-assessment Game). In this card game, attendees get two cards with Psychological Safety aspects from the deck. They play two rounds where on turn a player can keep her or his existing cars or swap a card with the deck, based upon what would be most important for a new team to work on if they want to establish psychological safety.

After playing two rounds, each team member shares the cards that they kept and explains why these aspects of psychological safety are important. Next, they work together and come up with ideas to establish psychological safety in their team.

Together the three different formats provide ideas for using gamification as a way to engage people into change. The attendees learned a lot about psychological safety, and they had a great time playing collaborative games.

French translation of the Psychological Safety Cards

After the workshop, several attendees volunteered to translate the Psychological Safety cards into French. Together they have set up a team that is translating the card texts and supporting material. When ready, these cards will be available on my webshop as a fourth language, next to English, Italian, and Dutch.

Again a big thanks to FlowCon France for providing the space to do my workshop and making me feel very welcome, and to Jean Ricardo for taking these amazing pictures!