• Agile & Scrum Basics

How ‘a party for the stage’ opened my eyes

The music is loud. The windows are vibrating. Uplifting hits are coming my way. A few more meters to the training room and with every step I wonder what I will find on the other side of the door. ‘Will everyone still be looking at each other like that…?’ I put my hand on the door handle and push it down as if in slow motion. The door floats open silently, revealing an incredible spectacle. ‘This can’t be, this isn’t real!’ I think out loud and stand stunned. ‘Is this the team where no one dares to trust each other? The team members who all feel unsafe? How can this be?

Not a word of this is true. The above introduction is a fairly literal translation of what happened to me as a coach that day. Are you curious about what took place behind that door? Then read on, because I think you should be able to learn from my experience. Because it says everything about the essence and necessity of Psychological Safety in a team. So in this article, especially if you read between the lines, you can discover more about: team atmosphere, suspicion, stacked problems and partying for the stage. Think of it as the introduction to our April theme month: building trust.

Sign up for the newsletter to receive all the information about the theme month.

The effects of insecurity

Step back in time for a moment to two weeks earlier. I have just been called in to coach a team of 10 people. The team leader desperately needs my help, as the team is at a dead end. How can you tell? The atmosphere in the team is far from pleasant, let’s say spoiled. Everyone smiles kindly at each other in meetings, but underwater people don’t give each other any credit. Doors are closed. Computer screens are quickly clicked away when team members pass each other. What does that result in? Team performance has left much to be desired for months. No awards have been won, say, for years. Things are stuck and the team leader can’t get it moving. Something has to change. But what is going on? How do we get work happiness back into the organization? How do we make real impact with the team again?

I decide to start 1-on-1 interviews as soon as possible, in order to build a report. Of course, everyone individually gets the space to speak up and share with me in a safe setting what they think is going on. What strikes me? Very quickly, very deep personal conversations arise. Apparently the need to vent is very high. Not surprising, because the effects of accumulated problems in the team are frightening to say the least: sleepless nights, fatigue, tension at home, tears, more tears, the feeling of being on your toes, burnout-like symptoms. It all comes to pass.

“Surely this stays between us. This must never leave this room. I don’t want those and those to know about this”

Something fierce is going on here. Piece by piece, no one feels safe. ‘Surely this stays between us’. ‘This must never leave this room’. ‘I don’t want such and such to know about this’. At the same time, everyone also agrees that keeping it the way it is now is not sustainable. Something has to be done! And so everyone agrees to start a group session. To discuss under supervision: the lack of openness, being allowed to express your opinion, being heard and feeling safe. Together with my work psychologist colleague, I set to work on a program full of interactive interventions, both aimed at engaging in dialogues and physical exercises to get closer together and trust each other more. Soon the program is on paper and we look at each other. ‘That’s going to be a tough one,’ my colleague nods at me.

Where is that party?

Two weeks later. The day of the session, of course somewhere in a secure remote location. I just picked up my colleague, right on time, and turn onto the ring. Yep. On the brakes. Bumper to bumper to bumper. Just like the team we are about to coach, we too are suddenly stuck. But in a traffic jam. We are never going to make it,” I sigh. Not a good start to a tough and intensive session. More than half an hour late we turn onto the gravel of the parking lot. I don’t like being late anyway, but on today it’s especially inconvenient. The 10 team members are bound to be balking in the booked training room. I expect: deafening silence, tension to cut and looks to kill with.

I push the latch down as if in slow motion. The door floats open silently. ‘This can’t be, this isn’t real!’ All the team members dance on the tables. It is still morning, but the polonaise seems to have already passed. People are just barely hanging from the lamps. The music is popping out of the speakers, people are singing along loudly, and analyzing it, you could say: this party is going well! They are laughing, partying. They seem to have something to celebrate. That’s fantastic, isn’t it? Who wouldn’t want to see that in their team? The ideal start to the team session?

No. This is the team where no one really feels safe. So this “party” is not a result of a victory. Is absolutely no breakthrough or revelation. This ‘party’ is a masking of what is really going on. Showing your real self is not possible at all in this team. It is partying for the stage, because then you belong. All of you pretending that nothing is going on. Not showing the back of your tongue at all, but making a big show of it. Anything better than discussing that painfully unsafe feeling. They dance out of discomfort. Singing out of distrust.

This morning, impressive for me, ended up being the start of a success story. For me and for the team. The ‘party for the stage’ turned out to be a very clear starting point of an intensive process. In several sessions we managed to build trust with each other. This created a team with room to give your opinion, to be heard and to share feedback in order to learn (instead of damaging). And that’s how prizes were won again!

April theme month: Building trust

I hope this above story is as valuable to you as it was to me. For this whole experience showed me once again how necessary psychological safety is in a team. Or it actually showed me how disastrous the lack of psychological safety is. Yet it turns out that this is not very easy to see in daily practice, sometimes the tensions simply stay under the surface. Are not paid attention to. We are going to do that differently in April!

Do you also have tensions in your organization and teams? Do you want to know what the point of psychological safety is? What impact does psychological safety have when it is lacking or when it is present? And do you want to know what interventions lead to increased psychological safety? Follow us on our socials throughout April, sign up for the newsletter and don’t miss a single tip! We’ll share insights, interviews, real-life cases and cover smart models that will take you further.