Conversations for Psychological and Physical Safety at Work

Creating a safe workplace is about more than just keeping people physically protected—it’s also about making sure everyone feels psychologically safe. When people feel supported and know they have what they need to handle stress, they’re more likely to thrive. By sharing the responsibility for both physical and psychological safety, we build a workplace where people feel confident, valued, and ready to do their best work.

This week’s Monday Kickstarters session explored two very different scenarios related to workplace safety and having a sense of cohesion surfaced in both. Read on to learn how our conversations can quell our fear and empower our drive for growth and connection.  

Positive Frame #1

Name It: Minister feels unsafe in their workplace.

Flip It: Minister feels safe in their workplace.

Frame It: Minister feels confident and joyful in their ability to live out their unique gifts.

Other Positive Frames:

• The Minister feels calm, confident, creative, and collaborative.
• Confidence abounds and the ministry is flourishes.
• The Ministry is healthy and effective.
• The Minister feels empowered and welcomed into the workplace.
• The Minister feels they can hear anything and listen – criticism or not – and respond without it making them feel unsafe.
• The Minister can let all the joy that brought them to their calling come through in all communications and relationships.

Generative Questions

With the selected frame in mind, it’s time to imagine that conversation taking place. What questions can we ask ourselves and the other person in the conversation that also creates the momentum to move forward in a positive direction? That’s when we turn to asking Generative Questions, like these:

• Think back to what originally brought you to this calling. Access that place and ask: How can you bring that to today? What’s the downside of not giving that to your ministry today and in the future?
• What made you feel confident that you were safe in the past?
• How amazing would it be if we moved with unity, grace, and mercy?
• When has there been a time when you were working with our teammate?
• How can we make the ministry safe for those serving and being served?
• How might you be curious about what is happening so you might tap into your joy?
• How might you leverage this: Everyone is fighting a battle you know nothing about. How might you be kind . . . always?
• Who are you at your best?
• When you have overcome challenges before, what did you do? What conditions made that happen?
• What will it feel like to overcome this challenge?
• What support would be useful for you to return to the shared workplace?
• What does confidence and joy sound like to you? Feel like (as in touch)? Smell like – what smells evoke a sense of confidence and joy?

This last generative question might seem a little off the beaten path, and that’s by intention. It was offered as a way of gently, yet positively, stimulating the brain chemistry for coherence – when the heart, mind, emotions, and physical systems are in sync.

Positive Frame #2

Name It: People are passing the buck and safety issues are at risk.

Flip It: Everyone takes responsibility, and the location and people are safe.

Frame It: Cohesion, consideration, and caring prevails; we’re recognized locally for our safety.

Other Positive Frames:

• A sense of team and consideration thrives.
• The staff and patrons take mutual responsibility for themselves and each other’s safety.
• Too many people are offering to help, and we have to ask volunteers to not help.
• We get excited about passing our safety inspections!
• Sense of caring for each other – this is my place; these are my peeps.

Generative Questions

• How do we become known as the safest club in the city?
• What experience can you contribute to the team?
• What would be fun to do when it comes to safety so we could get kudos for it?
• Could we make safety one of our selling points? If we did, what would that look like?
• Describe the safest club you’ve been in and why.
• When we have passed all safety inspections before – what were we doing?
• How can we help and look out for each other at the end of the night?
• What needs to be done? Is there a checklist we could create together that goes “above and beyond?”
• Who else might need to be in this conversation?

Cool Tip

This week’s Cool Tip is also one of the generative questions in Positive Frame #1: Everyone is fighting a battle you know nothing about. Be kind . . . always.

About Monday Kickstarters

This topic came from the fourth of our Fall 2024 Monday Kickstarters series. If you'd like to learn how to have conversations that create meaningful and productive engagement, join us for Monday Kickstarters. 

Shared by: Kelly Stewart, a certified Conversations Worth Having trainer and co-founder of the CWH Institute. The photo of the dachshund reminds Kelly of a fur-family member who embodied kindness with his human family and his canine family. It also reminds her how good it feels to feel safe.

Photo by Em Hopper