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Cohort Safety Signal Sorter

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About This MicroSim

Psychological safety is a shared belief that a group is safe for interpersonal risk-taking: no one will be embarrassed, rejected, or penalized for speaking up, admitting a mistake, or asking a question. The signal for it is rarely in what someone discloses. It is in how the room responds.

Learners work through six cards, each describing something said or done during a cohort session, and choose Safety-Building or Safety-Eroding. The feedback is immediate:

  • A correct answer flashes green; an incorrect answer flashes amber.
  • The correct category is stamped on the card.
  • A one-sentence explanation says why, so a wrong answer still teaches something.

Two cards are deliberately tricky. The participant who goes quiet after being mocked is not doing anything wrong; the silence is the visible cost of an earlier unsafe moment. The founder who polishes a canvas overnight hears no criticism at all, yet fear of judgment is already changing what the group gets to see.

How to Use

  1. Read the cohort moment on the card.
  2. Click Safety-Building or Safety-Eroding.
  3. Read the feedback, then click Next Card.
  4. After card 6, click See Results for your score and a review of all six moments.
  5. Click Try Again to sort the same six cards in a new, shuffled order.

The progress bar across the top turns green or amber for each card as you go. The stack behind the current card shrinks as cards are dealt. Nothing is saved; the score lasts only for the current session.

Iframe Embed Code

You can add this MicroSim to any web page by adding this to your HTML:

<iframe src="https://dmccreary.github.io/eight-hour-entrepreneur/sims/cohort-safety-signal-sorter/main.html"
        height="500px"
        width="100%"
        scrolling="no"></iframe>

Lesson Plan

Audience

Adult early-stage entrepreneurs and aspiring founders in a live virtual cohort.

Learning Objective

Given short statements describing things said or done during a cohort session, participants will classify each one as Safety-Building or Safety-Eroding, applying the chapter's definition of psychological safety to concrete cohort moments.

Bloom Level: Apply (L3). Bloom Verb: classify.

Duration

5-10 minutes

Prerequisites

  • Chapter 2 reading on psychological safety, including Priya's Session 2 check-in

Activities

  1. Solo sort (4 min): Each participant sorts all six cards and notes their score.
  2. Debrief the quiet signals (3 min): As a group, discuss cards 4 and 6. Nobody in either card says anything harsh. What tells you safety is eroding anyway?
  3. Name your room's norm (3 min): Each participant writes one sentence the group could say or do in the next breakout room that would make an honest "my test flopped" easier to share.

Assessment

  • Did the participant classify at least 5 of 6 cards correctly on a second, shuffled attempt?
  • Can the participant explain why a silent participant can be a sign of eroded safety?
  • Can the participant rewrite a Safety-Eroding moment as a Safety-Building response, such as replacing unsolicited advice with a clarifying question?

References

  1. Psychological safety - Wikipedia - The definition this sorter applies, including Amy Edmondson's research on team learning.
  2. Amy Edmondson - Wikipedia - The Harvard researcher who defined team psychological safety and wrote The Fearless Organization.
  3. Peer learning - Wikipedia - How learners teach each other, and why a peer's response shapes what the next person is willing to share.
  4. Community of practice - Wikipedia - Background on peer groups that learn together, the model behind a cohort's peer learning community.