Borås Stad is building psychological safety as long-term work
The environmental department at Borås Stad wanted to strengthen what the research points to as the most important factor behind high performing teams: an environment where everyone dares to speak openly. It started with a talk and became an ongoing collaboration.
in a single session
continued collaboration for psychological safety
The starting point
Psychological safety is about everyone in a group feeling it is safe to speak openly, share new ideas, raise dissenting views and be themselves. The research shows it is the single most important condition for high performing teams. The environmental department at Borås Stad wanted to work on it deliberately, and invited us in to lay the groundwork.
How we set it up
We held an inspirational talk for the department on what psychological safety is, what the research says and how it is built in everyday work. The talk alternated knowledge with practical tools, and participants got to try for themselves how small things in conversation and body language affect safety in a group. We met an engaged and curious team that shared experiences and insights with each other.
The result
In a single session the department gathered forty ideas on how to keep developing psychological safety in daily work. Just as important was the tone in the room: participants began to talk openly about mistakes, about listening properly and about reading their own body language. That is where psychological safety begins.
”What I take with me is that it is okay to make mistakes and that we need to talk about it more.”
gathered in a single session
What happened next
The environmental department chose to continue the collaboration with us in a long-term commitment to strengthen psychological safety in the organisation. That is how we prefer to work with psychological safety: not as a single talk, but as recurring work where managers get tools they use in everyday life.
Would you like to do something similar?
Borås's set-up builds on our psychological safety programme, based on Amy Edmondson's research and adapted for Swedish workplaces.
Read about psychological safetyWould you like to strengthen safety in your teams?
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