• Understand that the organisation is a system, not simply a collection of individuals. This means understanding how all the working parts fit together and reviewing and enabling the system as a whole. This can be difficult where there has traditionally been a prevalent hierarchical or blame culture but careful evaluation of the conditions that individuals exist under, together with processes that make it easy for them to do the right thing and difficult to do the wrong thing ,can be helpful
• Build psychological safety within the team. Psychological safety exists when nothing you say or do will be used against you as long as you mean well. Essentially it is a trust that exists between all members of a team that promotes their ability to grow and become their best selves. Remember that achieving safety is not always comfortable, but magic doesn’t happen in the comfort zone. We have to stretch ourselves in order to progress, otherwise we stay as we are. But this has to happen in a positive context, without any evidence of malevolence.

Safety is not the same as comfort

Whether you’re talking about the gym or a team environment, the following hold true:

To build psychological safety the required behaviours need to be encouraged within the whole team, not just in a top-down fashion. Encourage feedback, be authentic, look for learning opportunities, questions, non-judgemental sharing of struggles and mistakes. Don’t ignore anyone, take things personally, punish suggestions that don’t work, dismiss any contributions, or get agitated.

Remember that everyone is approaching their life with a positive intent – always actively look for it.