1. Introduction

Helping to create a positive and psychologically safe meeting environment is a key way that you can contribute to psychological safety in your team, as meetings are one of the most common opportunities for collaboration. For this activity, you will be asked to reflect on your experiences of psychological safety in meetings with your peers from the Apolitical community.

Part 1: Share your reflections with the Apolitical community

Take a few moments to reflect on your own experiences of psychological safety in the workplace.

It’s always useful for learning to reflect with and learn from our peers. If you follow the link below, you can share your reflections on the question, What has made you feel empowered or at ease to share your thoughts in a meeting? Why?, and see if your fellow public servants from the Apolitical community have had similar, or wildly different experiences from you.

Our Apolitical Q&A feature is here for you to learn from, and share with, the public service community. If you'd like some guidance on how to interact with the feature, you can read our community guidelines.

Pose your own questions (optional):

Got a burning question? You can also use the Apolitical Q&A feature to get help from the Apolitical community. You can submit your own questions and answer those posed by other public servants at any time.

Part 2: Reflect on what you can learn from others (optional)

Some of your fellow learners have previously shared their thoughts on psychological safety in the workplace. Have your fellow learners shared thoughts, either in the extracts below, or as answers on the Q&A feature, that you had not previously considered? If your answer is yes, what new measures will you take to ensure meetings are more inclusive? Read on to consider others’ perspectives:

What has made you uncomfortable to speak up in a meeting? Why?

"When I feel dismissed. When I don't feel others are interested in different opinions or I don't have an opening to provide input"

"When asked to speak about something I was not prepared for and didn't know I would be asked to speak about - I felt incompetent and unprepared"

Have you ever experienced an icebreaker activity you didn't like or found unhelpful? What about it was unhelpful?

"An icebreaker that required me to go talk to someone I didn't know. I'm an introvert and a shy person and it made me very uncomfortable"

Why do you think it's important to encourage participation in meetings?

"It builds engagement and a sense of team. If you participate, you remember. When everyone contributes, we get more fulsome input/knowledge/understanding”

"The morale and confidence of the meeting participants are boosted when they feel their ideas/input matters."

"Participation of employees in meetings is important to inform discussions that are relevant to them and help in addressing issues and concerns in a me"

2. Conclusion

In this activity, you have had time to reflect on your own experiences in meetings, and have considered why others may choose to participate, or not, depending on the environment the meeting has been set up in. Next week, you’ll be thinking about giving and receiving feedback.

Weekly Commitments

That’s week two done! Just like last week, download your commitments sheet and write down two ways you will implement what you have learned in your role.

Click the link below to download a commitment sheet. You will be asked to write two commitments on how you plan to implement your new learning in your role.

Download your Week 2 Commitment Sheet here