Last updated July 23, 2024
If you are wondering how to build psychological safety in the workplace, here are some free psychological safety activities you can use with your team, or if you are running a training session or a workshop for employees.
Psychological safety is the awareness that you can speak your mind to give ideas, point out issues and give feedback, without being scared of retribution. For any organization that wants to thrive and be innovative, it is essential to ensure that its employees experience this feeling at work.
(Most of these free psychological safety activities can be run either in person or online. To run the activities online, use video conferencing software that includes breakout rooms and virtual whiteboards.)
Psychological Safety Activities for Work and Training
1. Personal Histories
Time: 45 minutes.
Number of Participants: From 4 upwards.
Equipment Needed: Pens and paper.
Purpose: An important element of psychological safety is empathy, i.e. the ability to embrace other people’s points of view.
As you ask participants to narrate a personal story to the other members of the group, this is one of those psychological safety activities that allow people to get to know each other and create rapport, which increases empathy and understanding.
This is also one of the most effective psychological safety at work exercises to help establish and build trust in teams.
How to Run the Activity: Start by asking participants to work together in groups of 4.
Then, explain that each person in the group will need to share a personal story, i.e. something that happened to them, which they are comfortable telling the others.
The story can be related to work, family, their childhood, their education or a significant moment in their career or personal life.
Allow 5 minutes for each person in the group to tell their story to their group.
Then, reconvene your participants and ask each person in the group to tell the rest of the class one key thing they learnt about someone else.
During the debrief, you can discuss with the participants how learning something new about other people brought them closer together and increased their understanding of other people. You can also discuss if they noticed common threads in the stories that people told.
2. Host an Anxiety Party
Time: 30 minutes.
Number of Participants: From 3.
Equipment Needed:
- Sticky notes or index cards
- Pens
- Flip chart or whiteboard
Purpose: This is one of my favourite psychological safety activities to help you, as a leader, check-in with your team about their fears and emotions and promote positive dialogue and discussion.
During this exercise, employees are enabled to express their concerns and understand the importance of supporting each other.
How to Run the Activity: Give your participants pens and sticky notes.
Then, ask each person to think about any concerns, anxieties or fears they have that are related to work and to write them down on the sticky notes (one concern per note).
After they have done this, collect all the sticky notes and attach them to a flipchart or a board, grouping them by type or category.
Hold a discussion on what common threads you have identified and what you can do about them.
Encourage problem-solving by asking how employees can support each other and how the problems that cause these fears can be addressed.
It is also vital that you encourage all to speak and involve everyone in the discussion, even those members of staff who are not usually very vocal.
3. No-Interruptions Rule
Time: 30 minutes.
Number of Participants: At least 4.
Equipment Needed: None.
Purpose: This is one of the best workshop activities to build psychological safety in a team and to promote active listening to employees.
A common obstacle to psychological safety is the inability that we often have to listen to other people without interrupting.
This happens, quite often, because we are more preoccupied with saying what we are thinking, rather than with taking on board what other people are saying.
In addition, people who are continually interrupted when speaking (particularly the most introverted among us) are likely to give up trying to speak altogether at some point, which leads to a lack of psychological safety.
How to Run the Activity: Gather your employees for a team meeting.
At the start of the meeting, explain that there is a rule that everybody must follow, which is that when somebody is speaking nobody is allowed to interrupt them. They must first let the speaker finish what they are saying, and then they can start talking.
As the meeting facilitator, observe the team’s interactions and gently remind participants of this rule whenever you see it being broken.
Do the same at every team meeting and soon this rule should become an ingrained habit in your employees’ minds. It may not be easy to start with, but it is worth keeping at it, as following this rule will help everybody be more comfortable speaking up.
Remember to lead by example and follow this rule too, as the leader.
When you enforce the rule for the first time, at the end of the meeting, have a discussion with your team members about how it feels to be able to speak without interruptions and if they found it hard to listen to others without interrupting and why. Also, gather any feedback on how this rule can be maintained in future meetings.
4. Gradually Open the Conversation: 1-2-4-All
Time: 40 minutes.
Number of Participants: At least 4.
Equipment Needed:
- Pens and paper
- Flip chart or whiteboard (optional)
- Markers (optional)
Purpose: This is one of those activities to build psychological safety that works by encouraging everyone to speak up.
Participants start the activity by first working on their own, then in pairs, then in groups of four and finally with the rest of the class.
This gradual approach to opening the conversation is good for helping quiet and introverted people express their ideas in a way that feels safe for them.
As a result, this is one of the most effective psychological safety activities to promote collaboration and team building, as everyone should be able to give their input.
How to Run the Activity: This activity works in four phases:
- Ask participants to start working on their own to reflect on a topic or a question that you will have brought up with them, and jot down their thoughts.
- Then, ask participants to pair up to talk through their ideas together.
- Ask participants to now work in groups of 4 (by joining up pairs) and share the insights from their previous pair discussion.
- Finally, have each group of four summarise the key points from their discussions with the rest of the class. You can ask them to jot their points down on a flipchart for the presentation.
As part of the final discussion, ask participants for some feedback on this process.
For example, you can ask them if and how this system helped everyone have their voice heard and how it could be used in other situations where the whole team’s input is needed.
5. Fail Forward
Time: 45 minutes.
Number of Participants: 4, at least.
Equipment Needed:
- Pens and paper
- Flip chart or whiteboard
- Markers
Purpose: This is one of those psychological safety training activities that focuses on the importance of learning from mistakes.
Quite commonly, one of the reasons why we don’t speak up is that we are afraid of making mistakes. Also, we might not raise concerns about other people’s mistakes as we may not want to point them out, since mistakes are usually perceived as being something that is solely negative.
Instead, one of the key features of psychological safety is that mistakes are not to be feared as they are opportunities for learning and growth.
So, part of creating a psychologically safe environment is to encourage employees to own up to mistakes and this activity can help them get into that mentality.
How to Run the Activity: Ask each participant to think about a time when they failed in something (it may be at work or in their personal life) and they then learnt from that failure.
Ask each participant to share their experience with the rest of the group and then have a discussion on the importance of making mistakes and learning from them.
Highlight any common themes that may show in each person’s story and discuss how the team members can support each other when mistakes happen.
Essentially, you want to create a culture that uses failure as something that people can learn from. The key is to allow mistakes and even celebrate failure. In other words, encourage your team to develop a growth mindset.
>> Psychological Safety Training and Teaching Materials
6. Stop, Start, Continue
Time: 40 minutes.
Number of Participants: From 5 upwards.
Equipment Needed:
- Post-it notes
- Pens
- Flip chart or whiteboard
Purpose: This is one of the best psychological safety activities to gather feedback from a team of employees and work together to solve problems.
To be a psychological safety leader one of the things you want to do is encourage feedback from your employees, particularly constructive feedback, which will also help you include your team in decision making more effectively.
How to Run the Activity: Give each person in the team three stacks of sticky notes of three different colors; for example, pink, yellow and green.
Then ask each person to write down one practice or behaviour on each sticky note, as follows:
- On pink notes, write the things that they would like the team or the organization to stop doing.
- On yellow notes, the things that they are happy to be continued as they are.
- On green notes, things that they would like to start happening.
Collect the sticky notes and group them by colour in three sections on the whiteboard (i.e., pink under stop, yellow under continue and green under start).
Discuss the items that come up with your team, including any clear themes and any changes that the team might want to make and how to implement them.
7. Team Effectiveness Exercise
Time: 45 minutes.
Number of Participants: From 4.
Equipment Needed:
- Flip charts
- Whiteboard
- Markers
Purpose: This psychological safety activity for employees focuses on growth and improvement. However, it does so by highlighting not only the areas in which the team needs to improve but also the things the team does well and its strengths.
Hence, this activity, as well as allowing for constructive feedback, gives you the opportunity to celebrate wins with your team and give recognition to them.
As you run this activity with your team, make sure to show a positive attitude, express your appreciation and focus on team and individual development.
How to Run the Activity: Have your participants work in 4s and ask each group to come up with a list of qualities that an effective team has, and write them down on a flipchart.
Once they have done that, hang the flipchart sheets next to each other and compile one list of the most important qualities on a whiteboard.
Ask the participants to start working in their groups again and discuss which of the qualities their team has, where they excel and where they could improve.
Finish with a discussion on what the team could do to improve in their weak areas and make the most of their strengths.
8. Just Like Me
Time: 20 minutes.
Number of Participants: From 5 upwards.
Equipment Needed: None.
Purpose: This is one of the best psychological safety activities to recognize employee individuality, while at the same time creating connections by acknowledging things they have in common.
As the employees talk about themselves and identify things they share with each other, they build a climate of trust, which is conducive to psychological safety.
How to Run the Activity: Have the team members positioned to form a circle.
Start the exercise by asking one person to stand in the middle of the circle and say something about them, such as something they enjoy or they care about. For instance, they might say “I love chocolate” or “I dance tango once a week”.
Then, those who do or like the same thing can say “Just like me”, while those who don’t share the same passion can still show an interest. They can ask questions, for example, “I would be interested in learning tango, do you know of any classes for beginners” or “What type of chocolate do you prefer?”
These may seem mundane conversations but they help the team to know each other, build connections and encourage open communication, which should then help employees be more comfortable working together.
Ask the participants to take turns so that each one has a chance to share something about themselves.
At the end of the game, have a conversation to reflect on what has been shared. For instance, you can ask the participants if there were commonalities that surprised them or how this activity might help them communicate better in the future.
9. Backward Glance
Time: 45 minutes.
Number of Participants: At least 4.
Equipment Needed:
- Flip chart or whiteboard
- Markers
- Sticky notes
Purpose: This activity helps to build psychological safety and effective communication by giving the team a chance to reflect together on a project they completed in the near past.
This is a reflection exercise that allows everyone to communicate what they think by using written notes. This way, people who are more introverted and would not normally speak up in a meeting have a chance to contribute.
How to Run the Activity: On a whiteboard, draw 4 columns with the following headers: Liked, Disliked, Learned and Lacked.
Then, give participants some sticky notes and ask them to think of the latest project they completed.
Ask them to identify the things they liked, disliked, learned and lacked during the project and write them down on the sticky notes you gave them (one item per note).
Finally, ask them to stick each note under one of the corresponding headers on the whiteboard.
End the exercise with a discussion about the last project around the ideas that emerged during the activity. Ask participants to reflect on what they liked and disliked, what could be done better in the future and how, what they learnt and what kind of support or resources they missed.
10. Unify Team Energy
Time: 35 minutes.
Number of Participants: 2 or more participants.
Equipment Needed:
- Markers
- Flipchart or whiteboard
Purpose: This is one of my favourite psychological safety activities to build collaboration in the team, by focusing on what energises them vs what saps their energy.
The idea here is to build the team’s energy so they can work together to achieve common goals.
Also, by focusing on the team’s energy, as a leader, you can show empathy and show that you care about them and how they feel.
How to Run the Activity: Gather your team together and then ask each participant to mention up to three things that energise them at work, and up to three things that drain their energy.
For example, three things that might energise an employee may be receiving positive feedback for the work they do, feeling part of the team by being able to joke and laugh with others and engaging with a variety of interesting tasks.
On the other hand, three things that might drain an employee’s energy may be doing monotonous tasks, being taken for granted by their manager and poor communication.
Write down and summarise the team’s contributions and then start a discussion on what the most common energizing and draining factors are, how the team members can support each other and an action plan for the future (i.e., on what the team can do to increase the energizing factors and decrease the energy drainers).
11. Empathy Questions
Time: 30 minutes.
Number of Participants: From 4 upwards.
Equipment Needed: You won’t need any.
Purpose: Empathy is key to creating a climate of psychological safety at work.
This activity helps the team develop empathy and trust by asking questions to each person while the others listen carefully to the answers.
How to Run the Activity: The participants sit in a circle and you, the facilitator, ask a question to each person in turn. The questions should be open and aimed at finding out more about how that person feels and their point of view.
Also, it is extremely important that you encourage all the other participants to listen actively (i.e., concentrate, don’t get distracted and show with their body language that they are listening).
Some examples of empathy questions can include:
- What was the biggest challenge you faced recently at work and how did it make you feel?
- What did you wish others understood about your role?
- Was there a time when you felt supported at work and what happened?
Make sure you ask one question to each participant and then end the exercise by having a discussion, which can include if they spotted any common themes and what they learnt by listening to other people’s feelings, concerns and hopes.
12. Intention vs Perception
Time: 40 minutes.
Number of Participants: At least 2.
Equipment Needed: You won’t need any.
Purpose: This is one of the psychological safety activities that can help participants develop empathy and better communication skills.
In terms of psychological safety, it is important that employees communicate openly and avoid miscommunication. In addition, if miscommunication happens, it is key for them to be able to acknowledge this and look at the situation from the other person’s point of view.
How to Run the Activity: Have the participants form pairs to work together.
Ask each person in the pair to share with the other a situation in which they were misunderstood by someone or misunderstood another person.
They should tell what happened, why the misunderstanding might have taken place, how they solved it and what they learnt from the situation.
After the discussion in pairs, ask each pair to share the key points from their conversation with the rest of the class and have a discussion on how communication can be improved to minimise the risk of miscommunicating.
Benefits of Psychological Safety Activities at Work
Psychological safety in itself has many benefits in the workplace, including improving collaboration, creativity and problem-solving, as everyone feels safe when giving their input and feedback.
In addition, engaging in psychological safety activities can have other benefits for the team and the employees, such as:
- Increased confidence
- Better engagement and job satisfaction
- More effective conflict management
- Appreciation for learning from mistakes
- General personal and professional growth
Owner at Symonds Research Training Materials
Valeria has a PhD in Sociology, has 25 years+ working in education, has taught at the University of Bath &Cardiff Metropolitan University, & Hankuk University (Korea) & worked as a researcher for Exeter University, & has many years of industry experience including with Cardiff University in management roles. She now creates training course materials courseware.