What are some common barriers to trust and psychological safety in teams?

Barriers to trust and psychological safety in teams often include ineffective communication, which leads to misunderstandings and diminished trust; micromanagement, which undermines autonomy and suggests a lack of confidence; unresolved conflicts, which can create a toxic environment; inconsistent behavior, which causes confusion and erodes trust; lack of accountability, leading to frustration and disrupted cohesion; a negative feedback culture, which stifles openness and risk-taking; and exclusion or bias, which undermines team members' sense of inclusion and safety.

One of the biggest barriers is a lack of understanding about what psychological safety is and why it matters. Unless everyone on the team shares the same definition, it's going to be hard to have everyone on the same page and pulling in the same direction. Clarity is key and requires asking the question, "What do you understand by the term?"

Communication also has to be a two way street. We learn all about what to say and how we speak but far too little about how to listen. Oscar Trimboli describes five levels of listening. Deep Listening is an awesome tool which can help to improve communication and reduce conflict.

As the saying goes by Peter Drucker, “culture eats strategy for breakfast”. But no culture exists without structure. It’s super important to set up structures, roles and goals so people can focus on delivering value rather than spending enormous amounts of energy trying to figure out where “ I fit in”.

Common barriers to trust and psychological safety in teams include: 1. Lack of communication or transparency in decision-making processes. 2. Fear of judgment or reprisal for sharing ideas or feedback. 3. Power imbalances and perceived favoritism. 4. Unclear roles or responsibilities leading to confusion. 5. Past negative experiences or unresolved conflicts. 6. Micromanagement or lack of autonomy stifling creativity. 7. Absence of empathy and understanding among team members. 8. Inconsistent or unfair treatment of team members. 9. Cultural or diversity-related misunderstandings. 10. Inadequate recognition or appreciation of contributions. These barriers can erode trust and inhibit open communication, affecting team cohesion & performance.

I love the examples of organisations who build cultures where considered risk-taking is encouraged : Google: Through its "Moonshot" initiatives, encourages risk-taking, acknowledging that failure is part of breakthrough innovation. Coca-Cola: Their "Fabulous Failures" initiative shares stories of past product flops to inspire learning. Etsy: Hosts "Failure Forums," where employees share lessons learned from mistakes. Intuit: Emphasizes a "Fail Fast" culture, where quick iteration and learning from mistakes are key to innovation.

No one sets out to fail, and failure can be an uncomfortable space to find yourself in. Overcoming this starts by demonstrating that failure is seen as part of the learning process and a willingness to try something different for a better outcome. Celebrating trial and error in addition to success promotes the exploration and experimentation of new ideas and processes.

Two things I find helpful in alleviating fear of failure: 1. I start by acknowledging that the fear of failure is completely natural and that it's something everyone experiences. I share examples of situations when I've been afraid of failure as a leader and failed. 2. Talking about fear of failure is one thing but I found that creating a space in team settings where people could share their failures/obstacles and what they learned from them is a powerful tool.

Two words that can erode trust and safety are FAULT and BLAME. If leaders and team members look to assign blame or find fault, the house of cards we call psychological safety can crumble. The key is to create an environment where individuals take accountability for their actions, own up to mistakes, and learn how to improve. Deming once said that up to 95% of issues can be attributed to system or management issues (originally it was 85% but he upped it later). So encourage team members to look to errors as opportunities to improve the system. Hold team debriefs to determine where improvements are needed. Spend 5-10% of the team’s time improving the system. Worry less about blame and fault and the team will feel safe and trust will grow.

Image, loss of face and identifying oneself results with results. It is often not about the failure itself, but about "what other people might think" or "how it looks for others". There is an element of image involved and shame and fear for not getting future assignments. I have deep interviewd dozens of CEOs, founders and other leaders and I have some very clear patterns in terms of Fear of Failure. Most of the interviewed (all high-performers) deepest fears were not about an error or failure itself, but related to other people, such as Fear for: Losing trust of the team Being "stabbed in the back" Being seen as a flawed leader due to flawed personal habits To create a "learning environment", we need to work with these deeper fears.

How can you prove the effect of something's absence? That's why diversity is one of the least understood barriers to organizational success. The answer is nuanced but clear. Research by INSEAD on the pharmaceutical industry for example indicates that diversity may have a negative effect on overall performance. However, on psychologically safe teams, diversity actually is associated with high performance. So when you have people of different backgrounds on the same teams in open and transparent organizations, all parties thrive. At companies that don't value openness, diverse teams may not have the ability or executive buy-in to succeed, so diversity is blamed. That's why only psychological safety and diversity together make the difference.

Ensure everyone knows their value to the team and other team members are aware of each others value to the team. When the team realizes everyone is a valued member of the team bringing their own strengths and expertise it helps the team appreciate each other.

Curiosity and a desire to understand is the key to driving diversity and celebrating the unique differences and strengths others contribute to a discussion. When you know you are valued and respected, it stimulates a greater appreciation of difference and strengthens social bonds

Stagnation. & Cohesion vs Differences Lack of diversity sooner or later leads to a slow down of input, new ideas and innovative ways of seeing and doing things. It means your team will sooner later stop growing or at least slowing down growing and eventually be overtaken by other teams and companies. Similar to the Soviet Union and The Roman Empire crashed under their own weights due to long term standstill. Diversity adds new ideas, perspectives and forces all to sharpen themselves. Lack of diversity in the short run may make it easier to create team cohesion (like an army unit), but impairs critical thinking over time. Finding NEW cohesion WITH diversity is not only achievable but also elevates and keeps up innovation and growth.

Poor, inadequate or incorrect communication is the bane of many workplaces. It's not enough to share a memo; it's vital that a wide variety of communication channels are used, the language used is clear and succinct and that the messenger actively seeks to ensure that what was shared has been correctly interpreted by all.

Communication is one of the hardest parts of being human. I mean, even the inner dialogue is super hard sometimes. So when it comes to having a dialogue with your team, I think it’s super important that if there’s something Your colleagues or the teams must know that Can’t be missed I think that the best way to make sure you’ve reached your audience, by asking them to repeat what was said. I know that this is not possible in every interaction, but if it’s something of importance that must not be misinterpreted, I think that’s the best way.

Have feedback built into discussion to ensure any misunderstandings or confusion is cleared up quickly. Feedback should be actionable, factual and used to improve interactions instead of being punitive.

In my experience, lack of engagement indicates that the team members don't feel heard and that their opinions don't ultimately contribute to decision-making. If they feel like their contributions aren't meaningful, the engagement suffers. So I always tried to explain why I made a certain decision and which of their inputs factored into that decision.

Agree with the above, with lack of understanding around what PS is standing out the most. Just because you *say* you create a PS environment doesn’t mean you do. I think for certain people it is a buzz term without much thought behind it.

It is still important to hold people accountable for their work and to apply it across the group. Expectations across the team need to be equitable. If team members experience bad behaviors or performance being ignored especially for certain people on the team that can erode trust.

The thing with trust is that everyone has their own interpretation of how they experience it. Find out about those experiences and base the team's 'Trust Charter' on that. I think it's also important to do this at the very early stages of team formation. The reason for this is that any act (knowingly or unknowingly) that compromises trust makes recovery challenging