As a Scrum Master / Agile Enabler how do you create psychological safety for your teams?

Generally, In the work environment, psychological safety is considered to be a belief that it’s safe to speak up when there is a problem in team dynamics and sharing the best ideas within a group. The Scrum Master / Agile Enabler must maintain employee engagement by making people feel comfortable and building a safe environment for the team in risk-taking without the fear of being punished or ridiculed. Here they act as a catalyst in nurturing high performing Teams. Psychological safety is prime for innovation & unleashing creativity. Below are a few tips where a Scrum Master/ Agile Enabler can be very effective in boosting team psychological safety and trust.

As an Employee Engager - Employee enthusiastic energy level goes down when there is no value given for their thoughts and opinions, listen to their views during meetings, maintain proper eye contact if there is even a small disengagement act that will definitely have a negative impact on your team’s psychological safety as they would think that their views are not being respected or heard. Active listening should be an important skill or technique for the scrum master/Agile enabler. Ask engaging questions to make sure your team members feel that they are accepted and willing to speak up. if your team has an innovation culture, faster time to market, there should always be a fail fast and safe environment. As a team coach, the Scrum Master/ Agile Enabler should encourage non-violent communication. While engager of the team, the ScrumMaster/Agile Enabler should be an effective facilitator and establish working agreements which in turn will establish team norms and shared accountability across the team members. coach to help the team create shared alignment around common expectations.

Empathizer for the team - When the team members understand that you are taking a stance of empathizer, they experience psychological safety. Summarize by a quick recap, when the team members bring anything to your attention. Use the right choice of words like, “What I heard you say is... Is that right?” This symbolizes your empathy towards the team as the Scrum Master/ Agile enabler in the team’s perspective. It is also an opportunity to clarify if there is something misunderstood. Show your understanding with the apt body language. During discussion always acknowledge using the right gestures.

Trust Builder – Scrum Master should encourage the teams to avoid the blame game and focus on the ultimate outcomes. Instead of “What and why?” as a coach make the team members reflect “As a team, how this can be made better by learning from our mistakes? Have in mind that the focus should be on the collaborative language always turn the responsibility into a team effort, rather than the individual.

Being a Self-aware leader & and so as the team – Accept people with their unique personalities, preferences, and their style of work. As a self-aware leader inculcate how you work, communicate, and be recognized. Encourage your team members also to do the same. Top companies conduct various assessments on employee behavior to help them be self-aware. Which in turn builds psychological safety.

Being an Agile Ninja to chop down negativity - If any team member who has a negative opinion about peers, talk about it with openness and be focused to let them know that the objective is to work together as a team and ensure no negativity in the team which affects team morale in long run. Because negativity is highly contagious and a killer of psychological safety in a team.

Consensus Builder in decision making - Consult the team, while making an impactful decision. Ask their thoughts, and look for their feedback. This helps them to feel they are also included in the process, which will build psychological safety and gives successful outcomes. Scrum Master/Agile enabler should be inclusive and transparent in any organization which is even more crucial. Showcase the creative idea or the effective feedbacks which leads to being a key engagement driver in the process of decision making.

The receiver of Constructive Criticism / Feedback – Be mindful that as a Scrum Master / Agile Enabler you are flexible in the approach and open to constructive criticism and feedback. When employees are feeling safe, they would feel highly empowered to give constructive feedback. Encourage the team to challenge each other perspectives, maybe a bit uncomfortable at first, but healthy conflicts often lead to best decisions and greater accountability where here you will lead by example by taking risks and sharing failures.

Enable Agile Champions - Finally, always support and represent the teams. Give them confidence by supporting their personal and professional development. sharing the teamwork with leadership and increasing visibility of the team’s work always gives credit to team members where they feel engaged at work and less likely to quit.

Be the change agent - In business, timelines and the plans will shift and need to adjust. For few teams, the transition will be easy and while others may feel quite reluctant because of the resistance, be transparent about what changed, and why give the team members time to feel the change and understand it is inevitable.

Cultivator of a culture of psychological safety - Recent internal study conducted in Google found that teams with high psychological safety were better than other teams at implementing diverse ideas and drives high performance. They were also more likely to be an extended tenure with the company. Psychological safety enables employees to be engaged as a culture. They feel free to take risks and experiment. There is no fear of failure as they are free to express themselves. This type of culture fosters sharing new ideas and speak up. As a Scrum Master/ Agile Enabler there should be a nudge here in relevance to our Agile principles “Principle 12 - At regular intervals … accordingly” and “Principle 5 - Build projects … get the job done” which emphasis again psychological safety.

Use the Psychological Safety circle assessment which can be taken through any collaborative tools like Kahoot, MS Teams, etc. Each individual will complete the circle with his opinion and this will help us individually look at each one's circle. The common ground problem will be very evident if we foresee a pattern in all team member's circle. if it's unique then handle it case to case basis as a Scrum Master / Agile Enabler in your organization and course correct the antipatterns effectively.