Starting meetings well
It’s easy to skip over the beginning of a meeting or workshop and dive straight into the work to get done. But spending a few minutes at the beginning of a meeting to bring the group together can play a key role in building psychological safety. That is, “a shared belief held by members of a team that the team is safe for interpersonal risk-taking.”
Work by researchers such as Amy Edmondson - who coined the phrase - and Google’s Project Aristotle, has shown that psychological safety is fundamental to developing high performing teams. Do you want to build trust and signal that your meeting is a safe space for people to share new thoughts and ideas? A short kick-off activity can make the rest of your time together more fruitful.
I tend to think of four different ways to start a meeting, though some activities will fall into more than one type. Here’s a bit more on each category of kick-off activity with one of my favourite examples that you can try out yourself.
Check-ins
A check in is a question prompt which people answer in turn. They can be whimsical or deep and perhaps a thought starter for you work together. These work well with groups who already know each other a little but would benefit from deepening connections. I found they worked well with a dispersed project team I managed who only met in person once a quarter.
One of my favourites is:
Share one professional and one personal highlight since we last met.
Pro-tip: give that caveat that people can be as superficial or as deep as they like (there’s no pressure to be super personal) and go first to set the tone, showing a little vulnerability or personality if you’re comfortable.
Ice-breakers
Perhaps the most famous of meetings starters, ice breakers have a bit of a cheesy reputation. They are really useful for groups that don’t really know each other, perhaps at the start of a training or a project kick-off meeting. There are so many ideas out there you’re sure to find one that suits your organisation’s culture and which you’re comfortable leading.
A favourite of mine:
Ask people “if you were a biscuit, what would you be, and why?” or “if you were a chocolate bar what would you be, and why?” In a large group online you can always get people to answer in the chat. If you’re meeting in person and can spare a little budget, you could even have real chocolate bars for people to pick from to sweeten the deal!
Team builders
This is another slightly loaded term, but don’t let that put you off. We can’t expect people to collaborate well with people they haven’t worked with before from a standing start. A short team activity can help people feel comfortable around each other.
One of my favourites:
The marshmallow challenge gets people building structures from marshmallows. Gelatine free jelly beans and cocktail sticks can be a more inclusive alternative. Give people a time limit and perhaps inject a bit of competition between teams. Also a good primer for a session where you’ll be asking people to thinking laterally. Which leads us to...
Creative warm-ups
Again, we shouldn’t expect people to be able to run from a budget meeting and get creative in an ideation session from a standing start. A creative warm-up let’s our brains get in gear and can also help us get comfortable with something like share our drawings which we may have inhibitions about.
My favourite is:
The thirty circles challenge, which sees how many circles you can turn into different objects. Download a template from IDEO here.
I hope you can see how using these types of activities can help you build psychological safety in a group. Let us know on Linked In if you give any of them a try, or to share your own favourites.