Rosenverse

This video is only accessible to Gold members. Log in or register for a free Gold Trial Account to watch.

Log in Register

Most conference talks are accessible to Gold members, while community videos are generally available to all logged-in members.

How to Build and Scale Team Safety

Gold
Monday, January 8, 2024 • DesignOps Summit 2020
Share the love for this talk
How to Build and Scale Team Safety
Speakers: Alla Weinberg
Link:

Summary

Without a culture of safety, people literally can't think. We can't collaborate, create, or innovate. That is because as human beings, we are biologically hardwired to belong to a tribe that can protect us from outside threats. Unfortunately, most of us don’t feel a sense of safety in our work tribes. When our work relationships don’t feel safe, we armor up and spend precious energy protecting ourselves from each other instead of learning, collaborating, and well just … working. In this workshop, DesignOps professionals will get practical tools to build and scale the safety of their teams.

Key Insights

  • Feeling unsafe lowers a person’s operating IQ from around 100-120 to as low as 50-70, impairing cognitive function.

  • The brain processes information bottom-up: first checking physical safety (brainstem), then emotional safety (limbic), before allowing thinking (cortex).

  • Team safety is created collectively, while trust is built between individuals.

  • Physical, emotional, and psychological safety must be addressed in that order to enable effective thinking and collaboration.

  • Structured, regular meetings are the most effective lever to build and scale safety within teams.

  • A ‘boundary conversation’ where team members share what feels physically safe or unsafe can help build inclusivity.

  • Celebrating mistakes openly creates psychological safety that encourages learning and innovation.

  • Remote teams require intentional communication agreements to reduce ambiguity and build safety.

  • Safety deficits often exist between leadership and teams, requiring targeted conversations starting within smaller groups without leaders.

  • Anonymous surveys and dashboards can help track safety levels objectively and highlight unseen issues.

Notable Quotes

"Without safety, human beings literally can’t think."

"Our brain doesn’t know the difference between a tiger trying to eat us or an angry email from our manager."

"Trust is created between two people. Safety is created in a group of people."

"I feel internally relaxed when I’m in a group and we’re talking with each other and I don’t have to strategize about what I’m going to say."

"Meetings tell us what kind of conversations we are having and what kind of conversations we are not having."

"If our body doesn’t feel safe, or we can’t share emotions, we won’t be able to think or do work effectively."

"Mistake celebration meetings normalize errors and allow teams to get ahead of problems quickly."

"Starting small with relationship-building is key when safety is lacking, especially in large or hierarchical groups."

"Offering anonymity in safety surveys helps people be honest when they don’t feel safe to share openly."

"Deep listening means hearing not just what is said but what isn’t said, especially for people with different language or cultural backgrounds."

Ask the Rosenbot
Sarah Brooks
Theme 3 Intro
2021 • Civic Design 2021
Gold
Shelby Switzer
Making Space for Community Knowledge-sharing in a Distributed World
2021 • Civic Design 2021
Gold
Greg Petroff
Design is the Differentiator: Bringing New Design Innovations to a Very Antiquated and Very Large Industry
2021 • Design at Scale 2021
Gold
Bria Alexander
Opening Remarks
2022 • DesignOps Summit 2022
Gold
Patrizia Bertini
Pushing DesignOps’ Influence into New Global Markets
2022 • DesignOps Summit 2022
Gold
Christian Bason
Innovating With People: Unleashing the Potential of Civic Design
2021 • Civic Design 2021
Gold
Lisa Welchman
Cleaning Up Our Mess: Digital Governance for Designers
2018 • Enterprise Experience 2018
Gold
Emily Danielson
“I mean, I can lift a shovel”: Design Skills in Disaster Response
2022 • Design at Scale 2022
Gold
Lily Aduana
5 Reasons to Bring Your Recruiting in-House (and How To Do It)
2021 • Advancing Research 2021
Gold
Christopher Taylor Edwards
Design as a Team Practice, A Practical Guide to Cross-functional Collaboration
2021 • DesignOps Summit 2021
Gold
Robin Beers
Research as a Catalyst for Organizational Transformation
2021 • Advancing Research 2021
Gold
Fredrik Matheson
First-time users, longtime strategies: Why Parkinson’s Law is making you less effective at work – and how to design a fix.
2016 • Enterprise UX 2016
Gold
Louis Rosenfeld
Opening Remarks
2023 • Advancing Research 2023
Gold
Reginé Gilbert
Asking the Right Questions: Life, Hope and Moving Forward During the Pandemic
2022 • Design at Scale 2022
Gold
John Cutler
The Alignment Trap
2023 • Design in Product 2023
Gold
Laurent Christoph
Scale the impact of DesignOps in 3D: Diligence, Decision, Discipline
2025 • DesignOps Community

More Videos

John Cutler

"You have to go from being able to deliver a message in three bullets and then turn around in the next moment and deliver a massive service blueprint or customer journey."

John Cutler

Oxbows, Rivers, and Estuaries: How to navigate the currents of change (without burning out)

December 3, 2024

Darian Davis

"When fellow co-workers label an individual as difficult, it's hard not to treat that individual as a problem."

Darian Davis

Lessons from a Toxic Work Relationship

January 8, 2024

Dave Gray

"Kristen wrote the book Design of Orgs for Design Orgs and her experience partly informed this canvas."

Dave Gray

Group Activity: Making Sense of DesignOps

November 7, 2017

John Cutler

"I never thought I'd say this, but can someone please for love of God, just make a RACI so we can align on who's responsible for things."

John Cutler

The Alignment Trap

November 29, 2023

Abby Covert

"Diagrams provide transparency in the face of uncertainty by showing what there is to know, even if the news is not good."

Abby Covert

Stuck? Diagrams Help

October 27, 2022

Mark Interrante

"Small micro changes every week add up — ask your team what tiny improvements they’ve made recently."

Mark Interrante

Collaboration Flows in Product Development

June 9, 2017

Devon Powers

"Afrofuturism shows us the future must reckon with the past and center difference and diversity."

Devon Powers

Imagining Better Futures

March 9, 2022

Prayag Narula

"Your primary function as a research team is to build a culture of research, not just react to project requests."

Prayag Narula

How to Empower Your Designers to Do Good Research – And Why You Want To

June 10, 2022

Peter Van Dijck

"Skills are like onboarding material for the model; you write them as simple markdown files that describe workflows or tools."

Peter Van Dijck

Hands on AI #3: Claude Code for UX people

October 22, 2025