Psychological Safety Cards

How to use

How the game came about

It started with a training request on psychological safety. Shortly before the session, Till Laßmann happened to be visiting us – over dinner came the idea of offering his graphic recording as a free add-on. That day raised a bigger question: how could this drawing talent be used to create something that does not yet exist and that outlasts a single training? Effectuation, essentially – we looked at what could be built from the means at hand. The result: a quintet of five dimensions of psychological safety, each with scenes that make the topic tangible.

Serious play as a stance: culture is built conversation by conversation – or card by card.

What the game builds on

Edmondson – a condition for learning. Psychological safety is a group-level phenomenon, not an individual trait. It emerges when people speak up without fear of humiliation, share mistakes and offer ideas. And it needs active tending – installing it once is not enough.

Clark – four stages. Safety matures in stages: from inclusion safety through learner and contributor safety to challenger safety. The card ladder from 7 to Ace mirrors exactly that progression – from the personal spark to the structure that holds.

Sources: Edmondson, Administrative Science Quarterly 1999, and The Fearless Organization 2018 · Clark, The 4 Stages of Psychological Safety, 2020.

The deck

45 cards: five suits of eight cards each (7 to Ace) plus five anti-heroes. For three players or more. Each suit has its symbol, each card a concrete micro-intervention.

• Embracing Mistakes (plaster)
• Open Dialogue & Feedback (speech bubble)
• Support and Trust (holding hands)
• Decision-Making & Shared Ownership (scales)
• Belonging & Appreciation (heart in an embrace)

Eight levels per dimension – from individual initiative to structure

Card	Level	Meaning
7	Individual initiative	A personal, one-off act that sets psychological safety in motion.
8	Active responsibility	A self-initiated contribution, made regularly, that tends to psychological safety.
9	Contribution to the group	A visible offer that strengthens trust and communication in the group.
10	Starting dialogue	A deliberate impulse towards open, constructive conversation and shared ideas.
Jack	Group dynamics	An impulse at group level that carries across many situations.
Queen	Team development	A team undertaking that embeds practices of psychological safety.
King	Cultural change	Leadership behaviour that models psychological safety and develops it into a norm.
Ace	Embedding structure	Psychological safety becomes part of structures, rituals and established rules.

The five anti-heroes

Each anti-hero embodies the opposite of its dimension and makes visible what destroys psychological safety.

• The Blamer (Embracing Mistakes) – destroys learning culture by focusing on blame instead of growth.
• The Silencer (Open Dialogue & Feedback) – suppresses open dialogue and stifles creative contributions.
• The Tyrant (Support and Trust) – demands obedience and creates fear instead of trust.
• The Divider (Decision-Making & Shared Ownership) – blocks collaborative decision-making and shared ownership.
• The Whisperer (Belonging & Appreciation) – divides teams through secrecy and exclusion.

The rules

Setup and goal. Shuffle the cards; each player receives six. The rest goes face down in the middle, with one card face up beside it. The first player to lay down five cards of one dimension wins – in any order. The anti-hero does not count towards it.

A turn. A turn has a visible beginning and a visible end: first draw a card – face down from the pile or face up from the discard – then take your action, then discard one card.

The anti-hero. Place the anti-hero face up in front of you and read out what it does. Then ask one person for a specific card and give one of your own in return.

What carries the game. Whoever gives up a card may comment on it: have I seen this before? What do I make of it? The winner presents the five cards of their dimension at the end.

Beyond the game

• Team retrospective – a round as an opener, then two cards as an experiment for the next sprint, reviewed in the following retro.
• Leadership development – Jack to Ace as a mirror: which cards do I already play, which do I avoid, and why?
• Change support – the anti-heroes give resistance a language: which anti-hero is at the table in this project right now?
• Onboarding – new colleagues learn through the cards how the team wants to talk about mistakes, feedback and trust.
• Pulse check – three diagnostic questions per dimension, together a short check of 15 questions before and after working with the game.
• Coaching – individual work along the card ladder: where do I stand between single impulse and embedded structure, and what would be my next card?
• Intervention catalogue – 40 concrete micro-interventions, sorted by maturity, as a toolkit for workshop design beyond the game table.

Status

The prototype is ready to be played. Anyone who would like to play it in a workshop, support the launch or carry it further is welcome to get in touch.

Illustrations: Till Laßmann.