Building Effective Teams by Fostering Psychological Safety
Every organization aspires to have effective teams. Some organizations succeed, and some do not. Even within the same organization, some teams are high performing and some struggle.
In this session, we will discuss the dynamics of effective teams based on the references of organizations such as Google and Spotify. We will also compare and contrast the dynamics of effective teams inside and outside the technology industry. For this, we will refer to the study of the dynamics of the Navy SEALs. We will then dig deep into one of the dynamics of effective teams based on the research (code-named Project Aristotle) conducted by Google – “Psychological Safety.” We will further explore psychological safety, and its constituents that reveal why some teams succeed and others fail.
The second part of the session will be an interactive workshop, wherein we will practice the GROW coaching model to discuss further on psychological safety. Using the four steps of the GROW coaching model, we will try to establish the goal, examine the current reality, explore the possible options, and establish the will with regards to the psychological safety on your teams.
Step 1: Establish the Goal
Each participant will establish a psychological safety goal envisioning a team that they have worked with.
Step 2: Examine the Current Reality
Each participant will then identify the current state of their team with the help of a questionnaire and visually illustrate the outcomes.
Step 3: Explore the Possible Options
Each participant will identify the possible options for fostering psychological safety on their team. To aid the participants, I will share some references that include the best practices based on recent studies to foster psychological safety on a team. As we know, the “one size fits all” approach does not work in the case of diverse teams, the references are for the participants to help in their cognitive process.
Step 4: Examine the Will
We will wrap up the workshop with each participant identifying one small step that they plan to execute to foster psychological safety on their teams.
Outline/Structure of the Workshop
The presentation will be divided into three sections, as described below:
Section One: Introduce the topic (15 minutes)
In this section, I will introduce the topic – “Building Effective Teams by Fostering Psychological Safety,” the dynamics of effective teams by taking references of the teams from organizations like Google, Spotify, and the Navy SEALs. I will share my thoughts on psychological safety as a critical factor in making a high-performing team.
Section Two: Share the prerequisites for the workshop (10 minutes)
In this section, I will provide the relevant details on the GROW coaching model, the questionnaire to identify the current state of the participants’ teams, the possible alternatives to achieve the goal, and setting up an action plan.
Section Three: Conduct the workshop (35 minutes)
In this section, each participant will work on their own on four different steps of the GROW coaching model to foster psychological safety on their teams.
Learning Outcome: After this session, participants will be able to:
1. Gain an understanding of the dynamics of effective teams
2. Develop an understanding of psychological safety and its constituents
3. Gain an insight into the GROW coaching model and how it can be used in similar situations
4. Develop an understanding of the required tools and techniques (questionnaire, psychological safety chart, GROW coaching canvas) to foster psychological safety on their teams
Target Audience
Anyone interested to gain an understanding of effective team dynamics; explore further on psychological safety (on a team) by participating in an interactive workshop using the GROW coaching model.
Past reference:
I strongly believe in this topic and have delivered and got a positive response. Previous talk videos: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4aUdcaRlkj8