More Ways to Build Psychological Safety on Design Teams
In a previous post, I shared some low-risk ways that I’ve helped my design teams feel a sense of psychological safety at work. As a reminder, a key sign of psychological safety in a team is when people feel comfortable taking risks and being vulnerable with each other. In my initial post I recommended several exercises that don’t require a great deal of vulnerability as a way to start trust-building with new teams.
If your designers are currently feeling fairly comfortable with each other, that’s great! You’re in a good place to try out a few exercises that encourage them to be more open — what I would call “medium-risk activities”. Doing these types of activities is important in order to reach that next level of vulnerability, which reinforces a sense of psychological safety when taking a risk is met with support.
Your team is working together well? Great! On to the next level of risk
A side-note about vulnerability: growth often comes from being vulnerable, and this can be uncomfortable. It’s not comfortable to admit our weaknesses and open up about ways we want to improve. For designers this might mean acknowledging that our high-fidelity design skills aren’t where they should be, or that we don’t know how to communicate well with product managers. We design leaders can help our teams by letting them know that admitting weaknesses is ok! As Brené Brown writes in her book Daring Greatly,
One of our jobs as leaders is to “teach the people around us how to accept discomfort as a part of growth”.
If you’re ready to help your team dig into vulnerability, good for you! Over time, this short-term discomfort will lead to feelings of psychological safety and a happier, healthier team. To get you started, here are three of my favorite medium-risk exercises that have worked well for my design teams.
“Work with me” sheets
Credit for this idea goes to Taylor Olivia at Thumbtack, who came up with the original version of this tool and shared it at a meetup, as well as to my coworker Alexis who suggested we try it out on our team. The “Work with me” sheet is a wonderful way for people to introduce themselves to each other that goes beyond the usual “name, role, fun fact about me” format.
I adapted Thumbtack’s version for my team at Splunk by adding a few sections. For example, my team wants to do more skill sharing, so we included a part called “I can help others with…” to encourage that.
Our “Work with me” sheets are made in a Google doc and contain the following sections:
Basic info
What I need to be my best at work
Best way to communicate with me / give me feedback
My strengths
What I need to work on
Outside of work, I love to…
Other things you should know about me
I can help others with…
My completed “Work with me” sheet
The reason I would categorize this tool as “medium risk” is because of parts 5 and 7, especially the “What I need to work on” part. When people fill out these sections seriously, they are revealing a side of themselves that they might not usually share with their coworkers.
One tip is to make sure that you give people enough time to fill out their sheet and to read it out loud to others. If you have enough time, you can have each team member read their sheet out loud to the whole team. Or if you have a large group, you can have people read their sheet to each other in pairs or trios.
The first time we did this, my team spent 10 minutes filling out the printed sheets and then took 5 minutes each to share their results with the group. If I could do it over again, I would have given each person a few more minutes to share as it felt rushed. Despite this, we all felt we knew each other much better afterward, and it was such a success that we later introduced the tool to the entire design org. We also saved digital versions of the “Work with me” sheets for new team members to have as a reference when they join.
Timing: Set aside an hour if you can; otherwise just use as much time as you have. Do it once, or any time a new team member joins.
Cost: free!
“Work with me” sheets are a great way to introduce yourself
Group sketching sessions
Our work these days usually takes place on screens; sometimes on whiteboards. But using a pen and paper to draw detailed ideas before going to pixels can be a great way to slow down and consider whether the workflow or idea itself makes sense. I like to get teams aligned while practicing ideation skills by having co-sketching sessions.
For these sketching sessions, I like to use the Crazy 8 method, which you can read about in detail on the Google Design Sprint website. Basically, you’ll set a timer and have each person attempt to draw 8 ideas in 8 minutes. For a prompt, we’ll create a “how might we” statement based on a real user problem, or simply list out the user’s problem that we’re currently trying to solve. If we notice that many users have been dropping off during our sign up flow, for example, the statement might be “how might we make our sign up process more engaging and valuable for users?”. Sometimes a designer on my team might be stuck with a particular feature and ask their coworkers to help come up with as many layouts as possible.
The reason I categorize this as medium risk is that sketching, while fun, requires designers to use skills that might be a little rusty. And since they don’t have time to polish their drawings, they might feel embarrassed to show them. It’s important to reassure your team that they won’t be judged for their drawings or ideas. The goal is to get all their ideas out of their heads — the mediocre as well as the good — in order to find the promising ideas which can then be ideated on further. This is one time when the focus is on quantity, not quality!
Nice pens make sketching more fun! This example shows more detailed drawings after choosing a direction.
I would highly recommend getting nice markers for this in order to make your sketches feel like they’re better quality. I also book a quiet space and like to play music while the team draws. The only rule is that everyone must draw, and no digital devices are allowed.
Timing: Usually 1 hour, as often as your team likes. You can do it ad hoc, or set a regular monthly sketching time.
Cost: free! (unless you buy fancy markers)
Gratitude exercises
My coworker introduced this practice as a way to end a busy morning workshop with the team. While simple, the exercise felt very meaningful and was a good quick way to give everyone warm fuzzies (which in my experience goes a long way toward building psychological safety within the team).
The idea is simple: assign each person on your team another team member randomly (drawing names out of a hat, choosing the person to your left, etc). The first person tells their assigned teammate why they are thankful for them.
In order to not go too long and keep this exercise useful, it’s best to keep it to just one thing and express gratitude for a specific action or trait. For example, “Thank you Mariana for sitting down and reviewing my presentation with me; it helped me to feel much less nervous.”
Telling another person that you’re thankful for something they did can feel surprisingly vulnerable as it requires us to express emotion at work; that’s why I would recommend doing this with a team that feels fairly comfortable with each other.
Timing: just a few minutes per person, weekly, monthly, or quarterly — usually after a team meeting
Cost: free!
The three exercises just scratch the surface of ways to continually build psychological safety by encouraging your team to be a little more vulnerable with each other. Do you have other practices and rituals that you use to build psychological safety? I’m always looking for more ideas and would love to hear them! Or if you’re just starting out and not ready for this level of risk yet, please check out the low-risk ways to get started in the first part of this series.
If you’re looking for someone to facilitate a team-building workshop or provide individualized coaching to help your design managers create high-performing teams, you can hire me; find out more on my coaching page.