Confidence that carries a team through hard times
ROOM TO ACT is a Neuroblitz programme that builds psychological safety in existing teams under pressure. Some teams are already in the thick of it, others want to prepare for what is coming. Either way, the work strengthens what a team needs then: open conversations, trust in its own abilities and a view of what lies ahead.
In our booklet, this programme is called SPIELRAUM.
When ROOM TO ACT fits
A hard phase is on the horizon
A restructuring, a savings round or new demands are coming, and the team wants to be ready before things get tight.
The pressure comes from outside
The market, regulators, customers or understaffing ask a lot, and the team still has to work well together.
Something has happened
The facts are settled, and different readings of what happened are still at work in the team.
The team has gone quiet
Emails are written to cover backs, mistakes go unmentioned, and everyone waits for someone else to act.
What carries teams through hard times
Researchers call it Psychological Capital: four resources that can be developed, known together as HERO. They are the common thread of ROOM TO ACT.
Hope
We have a goal and can see more than one way to reach it.
Efficacy
We trust ourselves to take on what is difficult.
Resilience
Setbacks knock us back, and we get up again.
Optimism
We expect our actions to make a difference.
Psychological safety does not mean anything goes
Teams need both: the courage to raise mistakes early, and clear limits. So we work out what counts as a mistake everyone can learn from, where a duty has been breached, and what follows in each case.
That includes the question of which tasks need a hundred per cent and where eighty is enough. Under pressure, this quickly becomes the real argument.
How much room does your team have?
Rate five everyday signals. You get a first picture and a question to start with.
Where you could start
A personal estimate, not a team diagnostic. Your answers stay in your browser and are not stored.
How the programme works
Understand
Conversations with leadership and a team survey show what is going on, and what the team has already come through.
Make it speakable
In half-day sessions with the subteams, what has only been said in the corridor comes onto the table.
Bring it together
On a shared day, the whole team talks with its leadership about the patterns that have emerged.
Anchor
The team writes its guardrails and decides what will apply in the next hard phase. After some time, we review them together.
Building blocks
We work with these formats, depending on the team's situation.
What you have afterwards
A shared picture of the situation
The team's patterns and strengths, named so that everyone can work with them.
Clarity about mistakes and limits
The team knows what gets discussed openly and where consequences follow.
Guardrails for working together
Written by the team itself, with clear responsibilities.
A recommendation for leadership
What needs leadership now, and what the team can take on itself.
Where ROOM TO ACT comes from
The programme goes back to our work with a department that was still preoccupied with a critical incident a year after it happened. We worked first with the individual subteams, then with everyone together.
One thing became clear, and we have taken it seriously ever since: as soon as leaders dealt with things directly, many knots came undone.
What the research says
Amy Edmondson studied 51 work teams. Where people felt able to take interpersonal risks, teams learned more from each other, and this was linked to better performance.
Edmondson (1999), Administrative Science Quarterly.
A meta-analysis of 51 samples found that people with higher Psychological Capital show more engagement and better performance, along with less cynicism and stress. This research looks at individual employees. Applying it to teams is our step.
Luthans, Youssef & Avolio (2007), Psychological Capital. Avey, Reichard, Luthans & Mhatre (2011), Human Resource Development Quarterly.
Frequently asked questions
Does something have to have happened first?
No. ROOM TO ACT also fits when a team sees a hard phase coming and wants to prepare. We then work with what can be foreseen.
How is ROOM TO ACT different from classic team development?
ROOM TO ACT starts with a specific strain and stays with it. Work in the subteams, clarity about mistakes and limits, and joint work with leadership are all fixed parts.
And how does it differ from HELIX?
HELIX connects units that are due to start working together. ROOM TO ACT works within an existing team.
When is ROOM TO ACT the wrong choice?
Ongoing employment law proceedings belong in other hands, and personal crises need professional support. The programme also requires leaders who are willing to face the team's questions themselves.
What stays confidential?
We agree in advance with leadership and the team what stays in the room and what is fed back, and in what form.
Who is behind it
Dr. Ben Hartwig founded Neuroblitz. At the Max Planck Institute, Ben researched molecular genetics and epigenetics. Add to that over 20 years of improv theatre in five groups, six of them with Springmaus, with more than 1,000 performances, festivals and tours around the world. Since 2019, Ben has worked with language models, including in the theatre project Improbotics.
Contact us
info@neuroblitz.de