Psychological Safety Ladder Canvas
The Psychological Safety Ladder Canvas is a team assessment tool created by Gustavo Razzetti of Fearless Culture in 2021 that treats psychological safety as a ladder with three levels: belonging, diversity of thought and innovation. Team members rate statements for each level individually with green, yellow or red, the team scores each level as strong, weak or broken, and then agrees which behaviours to change, starting at the lowest level that needs repair. The model is inspired by Timothy R. Clark's four stages of psychological safety.
Facilitation script
- 1
Introduce the three levels of the ladder and the ground rules: ratings are anonymous, examples describe situations and not people, the aim is changed behaviour.
10 min - 2
Individual rating of the statements for all three levels with green, yellow or red.
10 min - 3
Collect the ratings on the canvas and calculate each level's share of positive ratings. Label each level strong, weak or broken.
10 min - 4
Discuss the picture: where ratings diverge, what situations sit behind them, what surprises the group.
20 min - 5
Choose the lowest weak or broken level. Collect behaviours that support and damage safety there, in silence first, then cluster.
15 min - 6
Agree two or three team behaviours and commitments, name who watches over each, and set a date to reassess.
10 min
Tips
Use anonymous rating, either through an online board with hidden authorship or by collecting dots in a way that does not show who placed which; the first honest picture matters more than any later discussion.
Brief the team's manager beforehand that their task in the room is to listen and ask, and to speak last.
Work on one level only.
A team that tries to repair belonging and innovation in the same session ends up with a long list and no change.
Common pitfalls
Ratings are placed openly while the manager watches, so the canvas turns green and the team concludes there is nothing to work on
Someone tries to find out who gave a red rating, which confirms the very fear the exercise is measuring and makes the next assessment worthless
The team jumps to the innovation level because it sounds most attractive, while the belonging level is weak and undermines everything built on top of it
The session ends with the scores and no agreed behaviours, leaving people who voiced concerns more exposed than before and with nothing gained
The percentages are treated as precise measurements and compared between teams, although they come from a handful of subjective ratings
Variations
Survey first: collect the individual ratings anonymously a few days ahead and start the session with the aggregated picture, which leaves more time for the repair step. Repeat run: reassess after three to six months with the same statements and compare levels. Remote: use the online template with private voting. Larger departments: run the canvas team by team; an average across teams hides exactly the differences that matter. The source gives no group size or timings, so the 60 to 90 minutes here are a working estimate for one team.
Where it fits
When to use it
A team talks about psychological safety in the abstract and needs a concrete starting point for what to change
Survey results suggest people hold back concerns or ideas, and the team wants to understand where exactly
Meetings are polite and quiet, and disagreement surfaces only afterwards in private
A team is asked to experiment and take more risk and you want to check whether the conditions for that exist
A team has done some work on safety and wants to measure whether it moved
When not to use it
The team is in an acute conflict, or there are allegations of bullying or harassment: a rating exercise exposes people and settles nothing; involve HR or a trained mediator
The manager is likely to react defensively or look for who gave the red ratings; coach the manager first, or collect input through an anonymous survey run by a neutral party
The group is not a real team with shared work; the statements then have no common reference, and a general Team Health Check or a simple check-in fits better
You only have 30 minutes: rating without the repair step leaves people with a bad score and no next move, so use a lighter pulse such as Trust Battery
Leadership wants a number for a dashboard: scores from this canvas are a conversation aid for one team and are not comparable across teams
Related methods
Frequently asked questions
What is Psychological Safety Ladder Canvas?▾
The Psychological Safety Ladder Canvas is a team tool by Gustavo Razzetti of Fearless Culture, published in 2021, for assessing and improving psychological safety. It describes safety as three levels, belonging, diversity of thought and innovation, which a team climbs one after the other. Members rate statements per level, the team scores each level and agrees behaviours to change.
What are the three levels of the ladder?▾
The first level is belonging, the basic interpersonal safety of being accepted as part of the team. The second is diversity of thought, where people feel able to voice different views and take interpersonal risks. The third is innovation, where people challenge the status quo and experiment. Each level rests on the one below.
How is the canvas scored?▾
Each person rates the statements with green for yes, yellow for maybe or red for no. For every level the team looks at the share of positive ratings: 75 percent or more is considered strong, 50 to just under 75 percent weak and under 50 percent broken. The score points the team to the level to work on; it is not a benchmark.
How does it relate to Timothy Clark's four stages of psychological safety?▾
Razzetti names Clark's four-stage model as the inspiration. The canvas condenses the idea of progressive stages into three levels and adds a rating and repair procedure a team can run in a workshop. It is a separate tool and not part of Clark's own material.
Should ratings be anonymous?▾
In most teams, yes. People rate more honestly when their colleagues and manager cannot see who chose red, and the first honest picture is what makes the rest of the session useful. Use private voting on an online board or collect paper ratings and transfer them yourself.
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Try it freeMethod descriptions on Workshop Weaver are original content written by our team, based on established facilitation practices. This method was inspired by work from Gustavo Razzetti / Fearless Culture.