Building a shared language for safe challenge — an innovation team at a global energy company

Quick answer

At an innovation team within a global energy company, IMPROV Communication delivered a full-day 5 Guiding Principles training to thirteen people working across several time zones. The aim was to balance psychological safety with healthy challenge, so ideas could be tested without it feeling personal. In anonymous feedback, every respondent would recommend the experience, and ten of eleven joined the 30-day follow-up.

At a glance

• Client: An innovation team at a global energy company
• Engagement: 5 Guiding Principles training — June 2026
• Scale: 13 team members across several time zones, one full-day session
• 100% would recommend the experience to a colleague (11 of 11 respondents)
• 6.2 / 7 likelihood to reach across the team and collaborate
• 6.5 / 7 agreed the training is worth continuing with
• 10 of 11 opted into the 30-day behavioural-change sprint

Source: anonymous post-session survey, June 2026; 11 responses from 13 team members (85%).

Why they asked us in

This is an innovation team that runs short experiments and proofs of concept, with members spread across several time zones. Their work depends on putting half-formed ideas on the table and pressure-testing them together — which only happens when people feel safe enough to speak, and robust enough to be challenged.

The team wanted to sharpen exactly that balance. Pitch sessions can tip either way: too soft, and ideas go unchallenged; too sharp, and challenge lands as personal criticism. The brief was to give the team a shared language for testing ideas hard while keeping the people safe.

The challenges that shaped our design:

• Challenge that builds, rather than blocks. The team needed a way to push on an idea without shutting the person down.
• Every voice in the room. With members in different time zones, some joining outside their own working hours, airtime was uneven and quieter contributions were getting lost.
• Sharper meetings. Long sessions and decisions that dragged were costing the team energy and momentum.

What we delivered

A single full-day training for the whole team, designed as one connected experience and led by an experienced IMPROV facilitator.

The day followed the three-phase architecture at the heart of our methodology:

• Pre-training activation. A briefing call to understand the team's context, dynamics and the specific challenges they wanted to work on, so the day spoke to their reality rather than a generic agenda.
• The session itself. Experiential exercises grounded in emotional intelligence, the neuroscience of psychological safety, and the 5 Guiding Principles of IMPROV. Participants do, then reflect, then commit. Less listening, more practising the behaviours in the room.
• Post-training reinforcement. A 30-day sprint of short Monday prompts and Friday reflections, grounded in the team's own words, to carry the behaviours into real meetings. Ten of the eleven respondents opted in.

What the participants told us

Feedback was gathered anonymously straight after the session, on a 1–7 scale alongside open reflections.

• Worth continuing with: 6.5 / 7. The team saw the value clearly and wanted more.
• Collaboration and outreach: 6.2 / 7. A strong reading of how ready people felt to reach across the team.
• Confidence to apply: 5.8 / 7. Slightly lower, as is common straight after a first session — and the reason the 30-day sprint matters.
• Would recommend: 100%. Every respondent would recommend the experience to a colleague.

Three patterns stood out.

Yes, And became the shared language. Eight of eleven named it the principle that resonated most — for an innovation team, the one that does the most work. It gives people a way to build on an idea before challenging it, so challenge and safety can live together.

The team reached for voice first. The single largest cluster of commitments was about making room for quieter colleagues — the exact airtime problem they had named going in.

Appetite to continue was high. Ten of eleven opting into the follow-up, and a 6.5 continuing-value score, point to a team that wants the change to last rather than fade.

In their own words

I didn't realise we are so wired to use the word "but" and look at the negative side, and the impact that has on ideating and being creative. With "yes, and" you reaffirm, encourage, motivate and create psychological safety. — Innovation team member

Agreeing with others can help to build upon existing ideas or solutions. — Innovation team member

I have started to speak up more frequently. — Innovation team member

My energy and curiosity expand in a more self-aware state — letting go and leaning into being playful. — Innovation team member

What they committed to on Monday

• Ask the quieter people in the room what is on their mind, and give everyone an equal chance to speak.
• Build on ideas with "yes, and" before challenging them, and challenge respectfully rather than defensively.
• Plan meetings, align on the decision, and move on without over-dwelling.

Bring this to your team

Most teams that depend on ideas face a version of the same question: how to test thinking hard without making it personal, so that everyone contributes and the best ideas win. What transfers is a shared language for safe challenge, the three phases that turn a single day into lasting behaviour, and experiential work people feel rather than sit through.

[Primary button: Book an exploration call] [Secondary button: Request a quote]