Psychological Safety with LSP

August 30, 2022

Business Applications

Tshung-Hsien "Sam" Yang

During the Coffee Chat, participants shared LEGO® SERIOUS PLAY® models representing their discomfort in certain situations. Sam presented on psychological safety and its importance in team performance and generating value. They discussed the use of LEGO® SERIOUS PLAY® in creating a safe space for participants to share their opinions and the need for facilitators to have solid skill-building techniques. At the beginning a question was asked to participants: “build a model of uncomfortable situation where you don't speak up”. A participant shares her model of feeling like an outlier in a group with a scorpion representing danger and a flag representing their idea to speak up. Another participant shares her model of discomfort in a meeting with strangers represented by orange blocks and leaning back. Another participant shares her model of being unable to speak up when they have no ideas, are out of topics, or time is short, with a minifigure holding a clock as a representation. Sam defines psychological safety as the belief that one will not be punished or humiliated for speaking up with ideas, questions, concerns, or mistakes. He shows that Google's internal research found psychological safety to be a fundamental part of team performance and generating value. Without psychological safety, people may hide information and create a culture reluctant to share information, leading to a reinforced loop of selective information and poor decision-making. Fear of interpersonal risk is a common trigger for lack of psychological safety, and it can affect anyone regardless of rank or position in a team or organization. Trust and psychological safety are different concepts, with trust being about how one sees others and psychological safety being about how one feels others see them. Sam talks about how LEGO® SERIOUS PLAY® (LSP) can help with engagement and diversity and inclusion efforts, and how building models can create a safe space for participants to share their opinions.