How SydKIP laid the foundations for even better cooperation in a new department in Region Syddanmark

This is the story of how managers and staff had the courage to change direction with us when a desire to learn feedback techniques opened up a completely different development focus in a department of talented employees.

Signe Skaarup Andreassen is the manager of a department in the Region of Southern Denmark that works with quality development in the practice sector. The department is called SydKIP.

"KIP stands for Quality in Practice. Among other things, we support the general practitioners in the region in quality development," explains Signe.

At the beginning of 2022, Signe had a plan: She wanted to work with feedback techniques. Both to create better collaboration internally in SydKIP and to have some tools when working with others outside the department, such as the general practitioners in the region.

Danni here at Feedwork could help with that. But when the feedback workshop started, it became clear that we had missed something.

"Even though we had booked half a day on feedback, it quickly became clear in the room that there was actually another need that was more important. We realized that we could take a step back and talk about the prerequisites for giving and receiving feedback instead."

This shift created both a more useful day for the employees and allowed us to create even better learning with Signe and the others from SydKIP about what they actually needed. Here's why:

Gained language to manage big changes in the department

Signe tells us:

"On paper, SydKIP is 3 years old. It became an independent entity in January 2020. But then covid came in March 2020, and the employees have been working from home a lot since then. I myself was not hired until 2021. So in practice, we are actually a very new department consisting of 14 people with different seniority, history and educational backgrounds."

And what did that mean for the department?

"Some employees had moved over from other locations in the house, and some were hired into this new unit. So the understanding of what SydKIP was for these employees was historyless. While other employees had more history with them. So we simply had very different prerequisites and expectations for our collaboration on the joint task. We discovered at this theme day that we hadn't really had a language to talk about it. We did."

Employees learned the basics of psychological safety, which opened up some constructive conversations across the team. Because even though the psychological safety in a workplace may already be at a good level, it can be rewarding to talk about things like

- How do we create the space to have multiple opinions?

- How do we signal to each other that we embrace each other's different backgrounds and histories?

- And how do we become even better at creating these safe spaces in other people's homes?

Tools for increased psychological safety with dedicated effort

Together with Signe, we therefore changed the effort from one theme day to instead be a process focused on psychological safety that ran throughout the rest of 2022. The process was a mix of meetings with employees, who learned new tools for cross-collaboration, and sparring between Signe and Danni.

"The collaboration between Danni and I enabled us to make a systematic effort," says Signe. "My impression is that we have increased psychological safety in the department and that everyone contributes to maintaining and further developing it. In addition, I had good sparring with Danni between meetings, which made me feel completely comfortable letting Danni lead the process at the meetings."

Signe's story is an example of how a task can change while we're standing in the room because, of course, employees should work on what they need to work on the most - and not be dragged through the slides we've brought that day.

In our experience, it makes sense to work with psychological safety as a foundation for giving and receiving feedback. Just as it was the case in Signe's department, which was given a language for the major (but at the same time somewhat invisible) change process they had been through with the establishment of the new unit under covid.

To learn more about how we work with psychological safety, take a look here:

https://www.feedwork.dk/viden/webinar-sadan-oger-i-jeres-psykologiske-tryghed

https://www.feedwork.dk/viden/psykologisk-tryghed-skab-en-kultur-hvor-medarbejdere-toer-udfolde-sig

https://www.feedwork.dk/viden/5-ting-du-kan-goere-for-at-styrke-dine-kollegers-tillid-til-dig

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