September is looming or maybe it is beckoning? Whichever way you are feeling at this moment, heading back to school has an innate sense of freshness and promise that most of us can feel, or at the very least, remember. Summer has provided some time to rest and play and well-being feels possible in this transition space.

How do we keep well-being going through the year and sustain that “start-up” feeling of possibility in our teams?

If you have read Beyond Self-Care: Leading a Systemic Approach to Well-Being for Educators, you will know that there are three interconnected parts of well-being, Self, Other and System that work together to support workplace well-being. Just acknowledging all three parts is a great place to start. You don’t have to tackle all three at once but acknowledging that you see and care about all of them really matters.

While I’m eager to dive into a discussion about all the great exercises and activities in the areas of Self, Other and System, there is something that must come first and the back-to-school transition is the perfect time to embed it into your teams: psychological safety.

Talk about Psychological Safety.

Talk about what psychological safety is and why it matters. Tell your team about what you have learned about psychological safety and how important it is to health, happiness, and success at work. Share some of the research or tell the story of Project Aristotle (p.52 of the book) or dive into the podcast on this topic, but also make it clear that everyone’s input, feedback and ideas about how to create safety in a team are needed and valued.

Get to know each other.

Kickstart the year with a focus on relationships by creating time and space for connection. This can be as simple as sharing highlights of the summer or having an extra few minutes for social connection at the beginning or end of your meeting. If you have any new team members, this is a perfect opportunity to welcome them personally and connect them to the group. Daniel Coyle calls these ‘threshold moments’ and reminds us how important they are to strong work cultures. He has an excellent tip sheet for welcoming new team members on his website called the PALS Onboarding Method.

I really like the idea of activities that help people get to know each other on a more personal level. There is the added benefit of self-awareness when we share a bit about ourselves with our team. One of my favourite exercises to lead is a personal values exercise from Brené Brown called Living Into Our Values. People choose their top two values and dig into what those look like in action. It is a great opportunity to share with others and to learn a bit about what is important to each person on the team. It also highlights our common humanity as we can hear some of the things that are important to us reflected in our colleagues.

I often adapt this exercise when I facilitate workshops with school districts and add a layer of co-creating artifacts that help remind teams of these values throughout the year.

Create a “how we work together” plan.

School start-up is a perfect time to create a team plan or charter that outlines how you will work together. My friend and colleague, Tom Geraghty has a resource that is helpful with creating a team charter. He defines a Team Charter as “a document co-created by all team members, outlining everything important about the team such as shared values, behaviours, expectations, goals, and communication styles.”

For Workplace Well-being, I highlight two key elements in a charter:

Feedback

Make sure to be clear about the importance and expectation of feedback to well-being, learning, and team success for everyone.

Conflict

The other element to make sure to include in a charter is conflict. Given that conflict should be expected, it is important to have a plan for what to do with it when it shows up. Differentiate between relational conflict and task conflict and have a plan for both. What is the difference between good, productive conflict that should be embraced and encouraged and when does conflict become damaging? Create a plan together for both.

One step at a time.

Admittedly, moving slowly is not a particular strength of mine, but it is comforting to remind ourselves to slow down and remember that we don’t have to do it all in that first meeting.

In the interest of not doing everything at once, check out the next blog post that digs deeper into the answer (or at least some possible answers) on how to set your team up for well-being when you are already starting from behind. What do you do when there has been previous trauma, hurt, grief or a loss of trust? It is not an easy topic but it is an often silent but necessary topic to talk about.

If you have thoughts or ideas to add, please comment below or send me a message as I would love you to be part of the conversation.

School Year Start-Up: Setting up for Workplace Well-Being