Teams with a high degree of psychological safety and inclusion are far more effective than other teams. They have open team dynamics and make decisions transparently and well. But most teams have blocks about what they feel safe to discuss. The list of topics below ranges from topics most teams find easy to topics that many would find it uncomfortable to discuss.
The exercise
Every team member, individually: look down the following list to see what you are confident all your team members could raise and discuss openly, honestly and helpfully together. Tick the topics you are confident the whole team would be prepared to discuss and put a cross against those where some or all of the team might find the discussion too uncomfortable. How comfortable would all team members be in the following situations:
- Discussing a recent success for the team and what made it happen.
- Discussing a recent success for an individual team member and why / how it happened.
- Team members asking about something they don’t understand.
- Discussing a publicly embarrassing problem the team is facing together and how to resolve it.
- Discussing a problem an individual team member is having (they are seeking advice on how to resolve it).
- Raising this: an important decision the team is about to make and seems agreed but you know several members think may be a mistake but they are not voicing their reservations.
- Raising this: one team member keeps talking too much / too little despite them agreeing they would change.
- Discussing a mistake the team made, why and how it happened, and moving on to agreement on how to do things differently next time.
- Discussing a mistake an individual team member made, that impacted the team, why and how it happened, and moving on to agreement on how to do things differently next time.
- One team member frequently lets the team down (eg misses deadlines or targets). The team needs the member to acknowledge and resolve the issue.
Note which topics you think the team might have difficulty discussing, and add up your ticks to give a rating out of 10 for the team.
Finally make a brief individual note on why the team might experience difficulty and what might be done to improve matters.
Share the results for a whole group discussion as follows:
- Collect the ratings (eg 6 out of 10) from all team members. You can average those to give you a self-rating as a team.
- Count the number of ticks / crosses against each topic. Is there broad agreement about what you could discuss and what you would find difficult? Which topics would be challenging for the team and why?
- Discuss and agree what needs to happen to enable the team to discuss some of the more difficult items? Commit together to implement these actions and review in 3 months.