ULSTER GAA: Psychological safety in the club

THERE are many benefits for our clubs in becoming more welcoming, inclusive, equitable and diverse.

Being a club that engages with EDI (equality, diversion and inclusion) means that we are living out the values of the GAA and putting actions in place to ensure our club communities are a place where “Where we all belong.”

Firstly, being more equitable and inclusive means we are living up to our social and moral responsibilities. It can help ensure reduced conflict and discrimination in the long-term and improved performance and innovation, an increased talent pool in terms of players, coaches, volunteers. Similarly, if we promote EDI in the club and have a greater consensus amongst a wide variety of people, we will avoid groupthink and engage in better decision making. Ultimately, this allows for increased participation and engagement; the long-term sustainability of our clubs and our games.

An important element to promoting EDI at club level is ensuring that there is psychological safety in our clubs.

Google carried out a study into effective teams and found that despite the emphasis many of us place on impact, dependability, meaning, structure and clarity, that psychological safety is what underpins all of this.

Psychological safety is the belief that team members can express their ideas, ask questions, admit mistakes and raise concerns without fear of negative consequences. It’s a shared understanding that interpersonal risks are safe to take within a group .

Our club executives and sub-committees are teams of their own, working on behalf of the entire club. It’s best to ensure we are getting as much as we possibly can from our teams and the wide variety of experiences and ideas that the people who make up our teams bring to the table.

Some of the ways we can ensure psychological safety in our team meetings, for example, is by simply encouraging open communication and by regularly asking for input.

In our work with our clubs and the commitment that comes with that it can be easy to overlook the importance of showing empathy for the whole person or volunteer. It’s always appreciated when an interest is taken in your whole life, not just in the work you’re doing for the club as a volunteer.

Similarly, we should try to embrace mistakes as learning opportunities and demonstrate vulnerability by being open
about times where we got things wrong ourselves.

Finally, a useful first step to ensuring psychological safety in the club in our effort to promote equity and inclusion could be a simple psychological safety audit by asking our teams and members if they feel that they are seen and heard, whether it be in committee meetings or in club life and how we can change things to improve this.