The $2.6M Mistake That Changed How I Build Trust

🍽️ Why the Best Leadership Happens Around the Table

Where Food Industry Leaders Are Made – One Habit at a Time!

🎯 Quick – Timely – Impactful Lessons of Leadership

🤝 Building Trust in High-Stakes Environments

When Silence Costs Millions

Nobody said anything.

That's what haunts me most about that decision.

Seven people in the room. All of them knew it was the wrong call. Not one spoke up.

Including me.

The decision? A distribution expansion that looked brilliant on paper. New market. Strong demand. Aggressive timeline.

The reality? We weren't ready. Our logistics couldn't support it. Our team was already stretched thin. Our systems would crack under the load.

Every operations person in that room saw it. But the VP was excited. The CFO was committed. The timeline was set.

So we stayed quiet.

Six months later, that silence cost us $2.6 million in failed implementation, damaged customer relationships, and a team that almost collapsed under the strain.

That's when I learned: Trust isn't built in big moments. It's built in whether people feel safe enough to speak in small ones.

🥖 Opening Bite

Between 2012 and 2016, Google conducted the largest study on team effectiveness ever attempted.

Project Aristotle analyzed 180 teams. Hundreds of variables. Thousands of data points.

They wanted to crack the code: What makes teams succeed?

They expected to find:

- The smartest people perform best

- Homogeneous teams work better

- Introverts or extroverts dominate

- Certain personality combinations excel

None of it mattered.

The #1 predictor of team success wasn't talent, experience, resources, or structure.

It was psychological safety.

Harvard professor Amy Edmondson defines it as: "A belief that one will not be punished or humiliated for speaking up with ideas, questions, concerns, or mistakes."

In psychologically safe teams:

- People speak up when something's wrong

- Mistakes are learning opportunities, not career threats

- Questions are welcomed, not seen as weakness

- Dissent is valued, not punished

Google found these teams were 27% more likely to exceed performance goals, had 40% lower turnover, and generated significantly more revenue.

But here's the challenge for food industry leaders: We operate in high-pressure, high-stakes environments where speed matters, mistakes are costly, and "speaking up" can feel like slowing everything down.

Distribution deadlines don't wait. Food safety can't be compromised. Customers demand perfection.

So we default to command-and-control. Move fast. Execute. Don't question.

And in doing so, we create exactly the environment where critical information stays hidden until it's too late.

🔥 From the Kitchen

After that $2.6M disaster, I became obsessed with understanding why smart people stay silent. 

I interviewed my team. I asked hard questions. I looked in the mirror.

Here's what I learned:

People don't speak up when they believe:

1. Their input won't be valued anyway

2. They'll be seen as negative or not a team player

3. The decision is already made

4. Speaking up will damage their relationship with leadership

5. They'll be blamed if their concern proves wrong

And I had created that environment without even realizing it.

Not through explicit threats. Through subtle signals:

- Defending decisions when questioned

- Moving quickly past dissenting opinions

- Praising agreement and execution over debate

- Showing frustration when timelines were challenged

- Focusing on what went wrong instead of what we learned

My team wasn't afraid of me. They were afraid of disappointing me. And that's just as dangerous.

Building psychological safety required me to change first. Not my team. Me.

I had to become the leader who:

- Explicitly asked for concerns, not just agreement

- Rewarded people who caught problems early

- Admitted my own mistakes publicly

- Showed curiosity about different perspectives

- Slowed down when speed would create bigger problems

The CRA Admired Leadership research confirms this: Leaders create psychological safety not through policies or programs, but through daily behavioral modeling. Their studies show teams mirror their leader's behavior around risk-taking and vulnerability within 30 days.

If you want a team that speaks up, you have to speak up about your own uncertainties first.

🍽️ The Recipe

THE PSYCHOLOGICAL SAFETY FRAMEWORK FOR HIGH-PRESSURE ENVIRONMENTS

Most leaders think psychological safety means being nice. Being comfortable. Avoiding conflict.

Wrong.

Psychological safety isn't about comfort. It's about candor.

Amy Edmondson's research shows that psychologically safe teams have MORE conflict, not less. But it's productive conflict focused on ideas, not personal attacks.

Here's the framework I use to build trust in food industry environments where stakes are high and time is short:

PILLAR 1: FRAME THE WORK AS A LEARNING PROBLEM, NOT AN EXECUTION PROBLEM

When you frame work as pure execution, you signal: "I already know the answer. Just do what I say."

When you frame work as learning, you signal: "We're figuring this out together. Your input matters."

Instead of:

"Here's the plan. Execute it."

Try:

"Here's my thinking. What am I missing?"

Instead of:

"Any questions?" (implies: there shouldn't be)

Try:

"What concerns do you have?" (implies: concerns are expected and valued)

Food industry example:

"We're rolling out new food safety protocols. I've designed this based on compliance requirements and efficiency. But you're the ones executing this daily. Walk me through where this might break down in real operations."

Notice the shift: From "implement my plan" to "help me make this plan better."

PILLAR 2: ACKNOWLEDGE YOUR OWN FALLIBILITY

This is the hardest one for experienced leaders. We've spent years building credibility through expertise. Admitting we don't know feels like weakness.

But research from Harvard Business School shows that leaders who acknowledge uncertainty create teams that are 38% more likely to surface critical risks early.

Powerful phrases:

• "I might be wrong about this."

• "I haven't thought through every scenario."

• "This is my best guess based on what I know today."

• "I need your expertise because you see things I don't."

Real example from my leadership:

In a strategy meeting about warehouse automation, I started with: "I've researched three vendors. I'm leaning toward Option A. But I've never actually run warehouse operations day-to-day like you have. So I want to show you my thinking, and I need you to tell me where my blind spots are."

Three managers immediately identified issues with Option A that would've caused major problems. We went with Option B and saved significant operational headaches.

If I'd presented Option A as "the decision," those concerns would've stayed buried.

PILLAR 3: MODEL CURIOSITY BY ASKING LOTS OF QUESTIONS

 The leader sets the tone for how the team handles disagreement and uncertainty.

If you get defensive when questioned, your team learns: Don't question.

If you show curiosity when questioned, your team learns: Questions make us better.

When someone challenges your idea:

❌ "Well, based on my 20 years of experience..."

✅ "Tell me more about what you're seeing that I'm not."

❌ "We already considered that."

✅ "What makes you think this could be a problem?"

❌ "That won't work because..."

✅ "Help me understand your logic. Walk me through it."

This doesn't mean you abandon your expertise. It means you create space for other expertise to surface. 

PILLAR 4: REPLACE BLAME WITH CURIOSITY

This is critical in the food industry where mistakes can have serious consequences.

When something goes wrong, your response sets the entire culture.

Blame response:

• "Why didn't you catch this?"

• "Who approved this decision?"

• "How did this happen?"

These questions shut down psychological safety immediately. People stop reporting problems until they're too big to hide.

Curiosity response:

• "Walk me through your thinking."

• "What information did you have when you made this decision?"

• "What would need to be different to prevent this next time?"

These questions surface the actual system failures instead of finding a person to punish. 

Real example:

A driver delivered the wrong product to a major customer, costing us a $50,000 contract.

Old me would've focused on the driver's error.

 Instead, I asked: "What was unclear about the delivery instructions? What systems failed that let this leave the warehouse?"

We discovered the labeling system was confusing, the warehouse had no verification checkpoint, and delivery drivers had no easy way to confirm orders before leaving.

We fixed all three. The driver became our best advocate for the new system because he wasn't blamed, he was part of the solution.

PILLAR 5: SANCTION CLEAR VIOLATIONS WHILE PROTECTING HONEST MISTAKES

Here's where leaders get confused about psychological safety.

Psychological safety does NOT mean no accountability.

It does NOT mean tolerance for negligence, dishonesty, or clear policy violations.

Amy Edmondson's framework distinguishes between:

Preventable failures: Someone didn't follow known process → This requires accountability

Complex failures: Multiple factors, unclear situation, reasonable judgment → This requires learning

Intelligent failures: Thoughtful experiment that didn't work → This requires celebration

• Food safety violation that was ignored? Accountability.

• Delivery mistake from confusing systems? Learning.

• New menu item that customers didn't like? Celebration for trying.

When you're clear about which failures deserve consequences and which deserve curiosity, your team learns to take smart risks while maintaining standards.

🥘 From the Line

Let me tell you about the meeting that changed everything.

After implementing these pillars, I called my leadership team together and said:

"I need to acknowledge something. I've created an environment where it's easier to agree with me than to challenge me. Not through anything I said explicitly, through how I've responded to questions and concerns." 

"That needs to change. So I'm asking each of you: In the last six months, what have I done or said that made it harder for you to speak up?"

Silence.

Long, uncomfortable silence.

Then my operations director spoke:

"When we raised concerns about the expansion timeline three months ago, you said 'I hear you, but we need to move forward.' That told us the decision was already made, and our concerns didn't really matter."

Another leader: "You ask for input, but when we give it, you explain why your approach is better. We've learned it's easier to just agree."

Another: "When something goes wrong, your first question is 'Why did this happen?' We hear that as 'Who screwed up?' So we only tell you about problems when we've already fixed them."

It hurt to hear. But it was exactly what I needed.

I thanked them. Committed to changing those behaviors. Asked them to call me out when I slipped back.

And that conversation became the foundation for the trust we built over the next year.

According to research from Brené Brown, vulnerability from leaders creates permission for vulnerability from teams. When leaders admit their mistakes and ask for feedback on their own behavior, teams become 60% more likely to report problems early. 

That one conversation probably saved us from another $2.6M mistake.

🍷 Plated: The Trust Equation

Harvard professor Frances Frei developed the Trust Equation:

Trust = (Authenticity + Logic + Empathy) ÷ Self-Interest

Authenticity: Do people experience the real you?

• Logic: Is your reasoning sound?

• Empathy: Do you care about their experience?

• Self-Interest: Do they believe you're acting for the team or yourself?

Most leaders focus on logic. We present data, build compelling arguments, explain our reasoning.

But logic alone doesn't build trust.

In the food industry, where we pride ourselves on operational excellence and efficiency, we often neglect authenticity and empathy.

1. We think admitting uncertainty damages credibility.

2. We think empathy slows decision-making.

3. We think authenticity is unprofessional 

But research proves the opposite: Teams led by authentic, empathetic leaders outperform teams led by purely logical leaders by 26% in complex problem-solving.

Why?

Because when people trust you as a human, not just an expert, they tell you the truth 

And truth is what you need to make good decisions. 

🧂 Season to Taste

Before you move into your week, sit with these questions: 

1. What behavior am I modeling that might make it harder for my team to speak up?

Be honest. Are you:

- Defending your ideas when questioned?

- Moving quickly past concerns?

- Showing frustration with questions?

- Focusing on blame when things go wrong?

- Presenting ideas as decisions instead of proposals?

Pick one to change this week. 

2. When was the last time someone on my team disagreed with me publicly?

If you can't remember, that's your answer

Either your ideas are perfect (unlikely), or your team has learned that disagreement isn't safe.

3. What's one question I can ask differently this week?

Instead of "Any questions?"

Try: "What concerns do you have?"

Instead of "Why did this happen?"

Try: "What was your thinking?"

Instead of "Here's the plan"

Try: "Here's my thinking. What am I missing?"

Small language shifts create big cultural changes. 

🔪 This Week's Prep

THIS WEEK'S CHALLENGE: The Vulnerability Test

In your next team meeting, try this:

1. Present an idea or decision you're considering (not one that's final)

2. Explicitly say: "I might be wrong about this. What am I not seeing?"

3. When someone raises a concern, respond with genuine curiosity: "Tell me more about that."

4. Thank them specifically for raising the concern

5. Adjust your approach based on what you learned

Track what happens:

- How did it feel to admit uncertainty?

- Did anyone speak up who usually stays quiet?

- Did you get information you wouldn't have gotten otherwise?

This is how trust is built. One vulnerable moment at a time.

📚 Go Deeper

Want to master psychological safety? Read these:

"The Fearless Organization" by Amy Edmondson

The definitive research on psychological safety in the workplace. Essential reading.

"The Trust Edge" by David Horsager

Practical frameworks for building trust in business environments.

"Dare to Lead" by Brené Brown

How vulnerability creates stronger leadership and healthier cultures.

🔗 This Week's Cross-References

Struggling to admit uncertainty? Wednesday's Breaking Bread newsletter explores the 3-minute daily practice that rebuilds broken trust, even after major failures.

Want to create lasting safety in your culture? Friday's Mindful Leader reveals why silence is the most expensive sound in leadership, and how to break it.

💬 JOIN THE CONVERSATION

Question for you: What's one behavior you're committing to change to build more psychological safety?

Share in the comments. Let's learn from each other.

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📧 What's Coming Next Week

The theme: Courageous Conversations

Research shows the average avoided conversation costs $7,500 in wasted time and lost productivity. We're fixing that.

Monday (The Leadership Table): The Crucial Conversations Framework for Food Industry Leaders

Wednesday (Breaking Bread): How to Give Feedback That Actually Changes Behavior

Friday (The Mindful Leader): The Conversation You're Avoiding Is Costing You More Than You Think 

See you Wednesday for the practice that rebuilds trust after it's been broken.

🎧 LISTEN INSTEAD OF READ

Catch my A Student of Leadership Micro Podcast for quick, behavioral leadership insights in 6-8 minutes. This week: "The $2.6M Silence" - what happens when psychological safety fails.

Think of it as your daily leadership vitamin: quick, potent, essential. 

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🪑 The Leadership Table, a publication by Robert Adams, A Student of Leadership