Preparing a workshop or lecture on Psychological Safety and Team Building

According to Dr. Amy C. Edmondson's research, a key factor that differentiates high-performing teams is psychological safety. Her definition is: "Where it is believed that one will not be punished or humiliated for expressing ideas, concerns, questions and mistakes. Where the team is safe to take risks."

What is the role of  SPIRE in giving a psychological safety workshop or lecture?

The first is meaningful relationships as the No.1 predictor of happiness. Every high-performing team requires that people feel connected to each other.  According to the research high-performing teams achieve higher levels of learning, creativity, and better performance. You could start by asking the audience: who wants to be happier and more productive at work? Surely everyone will raise their hands. So, with this start you probably have already captured  their interest.

Meaningful relationships are built through intimacy, or, in other words, authenticity. Brene Brown masterfully teaches us what it means to be vulnerable or authentic, and her studies conclude: "Vulnerability can be a source of fear and shame, but it is the indispensable element for connection, creativity and happiness" (as a result of teams having psychological security). Brene also says,  "Being vulnerable is not weakness, in fact, it is the greatest act of courage."  This theme also revolves around essential values as elements for decision-making. Remember that there are decisions that are risky, and if they are accompanied by awareness of values and authenticity, along with intimate relationships, it can be easier to take risks.

At this point the lecture could move to  the permission to be human concept, which, in my experience has turned out to be a topic that greatly relieves stress and helps to connect with others.

As we well know, to have healthy relationships with others, it is necessary to have a healthy relationship with oneself. This territory has many gateways. In this case it may be the growth mindset that is an important element of psychological safety, and that brings with it issues such as:

• perfectionism vs.  optimalism, perfectionism allows us to talk about permission to be human and intellectual well-being from the idea of "learn to fail or fail to learn";  
• the secret of happiness that is reality, reality, reality as an element of optimalism;
• curiosity and openness to new experience deep learning;
• and of appreciative inquiry, where according to Dr. Edmondson "questions are a fundamental element of psychological safety because the questioner is saying  that he wants to hear your voice, and in turn says he doesn't know it all."

An indispensable topic to end with is communication and communicative styles. Some questions to develop this topic might be: which of your character strengths and values help you improve deep communication/listening with your teammates?  When you listen to your peers, what values do you hear? What does the person who is telling you the story want you to take away from it?  How can the positive past be useful in creating a fantastic future, what can we learn from it?

These themes are covered throughout the HSA course, including the second part. If you're not done yet, you might not be familiar with these ideas. The SPIRE model brings us many elements to develop almost any topic concerning leadership. Continue studying so that you can incorporate all of the wisdom of HSA and have greater opportunities to do good in the world while also monetizing your investment!

I hope this article will serve as a guide to build your own team building workshop. We invite you to participate in the club’s scheduled discussion groups where we all contribute with very enriching points of view.

With all my love,

Dana Benarroch