Global energy company
Virtual team development for distributed team of specialists
How best to support employees in different parts of an organization? And how do we create space for there to be room for different attitudes, opinions, and for us to share half-finished ideas in a workplace?
These, in our view, are important issues to discuss for any company. And this is especially obvious for a global innovation company like Novonesis.
“We already have a fairly high level of psychological security, but we wanted to work strategically with it in a way that was easy for leaders around the world,” says Camilla Dahl Jensen.
Camilla is a social worker and wellbeing specialist at Novonesis. This means that, among other things, she creates initiatives to reduce sickness absence and increase well-being globally.
“Psychological safety had been on my radar for a while. I read Amy Edmondson's book The Fearless Organization and realized that this topic was a crucial foundation for everything from being able to have meaningful conversations about well-being to ensuring high performance.”
But how do you successfully roll out a course on psychological safety for 6,500 employees from China to the head office in Bagsvard?
“We were falling into dialogue cards, so we wanted a solution that was both different and at the same time easy to go to for leaders with very different prerequisites around the world. And it had to be a solution that was independent of an external consultant standing in a room.”
Around this time, Camilla saw a webinar with Danni and Morten about psychological safety.
“I saw how present they were on the screen and how they involved those watching along. So maybe they could facilitate just such a course for us—through the screen.”
In collaboration with Camilla, we created a tailor-made online course on psychological safety in Danish and in English. Novonesis executives around the world accessed the course through the company's own platform, and they can use it in their teams as they see fit.
The course was made available to Novonesis so that the leaders themselves convene their teams for the course. Then they watch the videos together in a meeting room and do the exercises together. Without Danni, Morten or any other consultants having to be physically present at any point in the process. Included in the course are introductory videos for the manager, so that they can get started without any additional prerequisites.
Were the leaders in on it? Also to that extent.
Camilla says:
“I am very proud of how much space the program has gained in our organization. I had the opportunity to send out an email to all the managers when we invited to kick-off. And we try to be critical with what we spam all managers with. 170 managers attended when we had the global launch, and that was a lot! In itself, it was a great learning that it has such a high priority for the leaders in the company across regions and workspaces.”
Camilla has been through the first part of the process herself in her team of six employees.
“My manager was surprised at how much we got out of it, as we already have a high level of confidence in the team. There is really a lot to be gained from the tools of psychological reassurance.”
Camilla elaborates:
“One of the things that resonates most strongly with me was this exercise: Everyone answers anonymously to the question: “What does it take courage from you to do?” The answers came up on a post-it on the wall and we realised we could all have written any of the statements. But the biggest eye-opener was that when a group of managers did the same exercise, it turned out that they had exactly the same insecurities as us. It shows that thoughts such as 'how will people think of me if I bring this up? ' is absolutely universal. And to know among one's colleagues that one is not alone with doubts and fears — it is enormously disarming.”
Novonesis has thus developed and deployed a digital solution that teaches managers and employees the basic principles of psychological safety and how they can work with them in practice. No matter where in the world they are and in what time zone they are in.
“The process works especially well because it is adapted to our organization,” says Camilla. “Danni and Morten took the time to interview five different leaders across regions — including a colleague from China and one from the United States — and it was a very respectful way to enter into the collaboration. Clips from these interviews were then used in the video material, where the leaders, for example, tell how this relates to our values. All in all, it was an incredibly trusting and open collaboration that created a really good online solution for our company.”
You can now access your own digital courses on psychological safety.
Contact our consultant on the assignment if you are curious to hear more.
Read about previous projects and collaborations with our clients. Perhaps you have similar challenges?
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