The Circle of Safety

The Circle of Safety is a great way to surface the things that help foster psychological safety in a group, as well as the things that can damage it. By agreeing what is “in” and what is “out”, groups can help establish shared group norms and expectations, improving psychological safety.

As well as adopting psychologically safe behaviours, we may want to workshop with your team to establish how we’re going to further build psychological safety in the team. Whilst there are some ubiquitous approaches to building psychological safety, such as the Andon Cord, 15/5s, Team Charters and retrospectives, this is an opportunity for your team to identify psychological safety practices and behaviours that are unique to them.

Draw a large circle on a whiteboard or virtual board, and ask your team to add examples of behaviours or practices that represent psychologically safe or unsafe environments. You may wish to use activities such as TRIZ to surface the “out” behaviours, and use our big list of behaviours to inspire ideas for inside the circle.

“Safe” practices go in the the “IN” circle, unsafe practices go outside. You may want to seed the workshop with a couple of your own ideas, such as “making work visible” inside the circle, and “talking over people in meetings” outside the circle.

The Psychological Safety Circle of Safety exercise

Examples of practices in the IN circle might be healthcare practitioners who always pair on certain activities, sales teams who always have someone double check paperwork and highlight any mistakes, or a sports team who ensure they celebrate after every game, no matter if they win or not. The point is for the team to identify their own practices.

The out area is somewhat easier to think about – practices that damage psychological safety are fairly easy to identify, such as bullying, criticism, aggression, or not following through on a commitment. Again, try to make sure these are as specific as possible for the team’s own context.

Spend some time presenting back the “in” and “out” behaviours and practices to the team, highlight and discuss any disagreements, and offer another round if there are further ideas to add. Spend as long as is required on this exercise, whilst people are engaged and enjoying it.

Finally, discuss with the team how these practices will be maintained, how the team can hold each other accountable for them, and how often this will get reviewed. It’s important to remember that this is a living, evolving document for the team – we should regularly come back to the Circle of Safety, and it’s ok to change it!

For further workshops, training, or expert advice, check out what we can do for you.

Have you tried this with your team? Would you suggest any changes or improvements? For further ideas and actions, download the psychological safety Action Pack.