Practical tips to improve team resilience and psychological safety

THE LIFELINE LEADERSHIP GROUP DO AMAZING WORK - they lead 1000+ volunteers to deliver phone and SMS crisis counselling, f2f psychological services (bulk-billed), support groups, community support, financial counselling, and raise funds to enable this this through running several shops, book fairs etc.

Yesterday I had the privilege to present to them – FUTURE FIT TEAMS – powered by care, resilience and growth.

It was an opportunity to invite them to embrace the mantra that self-care isn’t selfish - and put in place rituals to boost their mood and resilience. You can look after others if you don’t take care of yourself

For this group who give so much to the community, it was a pleasure to encourage them to think of how they can boost their personal and team wellbeing.

From pre-event research I found out they do have high psychological safety – the #1 predictor of innovative and successful teams.

We brainstormed ideas how to further improve team psychological safety and resilience.

These are some of the ideas we came up with.

·?????? In weekly meetings ask everyone to share a risk they have taken in the last week

·?????? Communicate clearly the goals and milestones of the group

·?????? Encourage everyone to speak approximately equally (especially introverts)

·?????? Be supportive of intelligent risk taking to better serve colleagues and clients

·?????? Encourage each other to practice self-care

·?????? It is Ok to be vulnerable and say “I don’t know”

·?????? Refer to ‘we’ much more than ‘I’

·?????? When someone shares an idea – say ‘Yes and….” NOT ‘Yes but’

·?????? Respond well to intelligent mistakes – learn quickly and move forward

·?????? Listen to understand

·?????? Strive for social connection and care

·?????? Do what you say you will do

·?????? Be flexible – circumstances change – and we need to as well

·?????? Make work enjoyable – have fun

·?????? Be respectful – allow people to be their authentic self

·?????? Be empathetic – put yourself in their shoes

·?????? Have boundaries so you aren’t consumed by work

·?????? Follow Jeff Bezos’ lead - make decisions when you have 70% of the information

There are some great ideas in this list.

I Invite you to choose one of these to apply to your team for the next month.

?