When Lack of Trust Turns Teams Into Isolated Individuals | Prabhleen Kaur

Prabhleen Kaur: When Lack of Trust Turns Teams Into Isolated Individuals

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"Teams self-destruct despite best efforts when they lack trust." - Prabhleen Kaur

Prabhleen observed a troubling pattern while shadowing a team: stand-ups had become a register activity where people reported individual status without any connection to the sprint goal. There was no "we" in the conversation—only "I."

The team had experienced a missed deadline due to a PR conflict that wasn't merged in time, but instead of addressing it openly, everyone focused on fixing the immediate problem while avoiding the deeper conversation. The discomfort was never voiced, and resentment accumulated silently.

Prabhleen explains that team destruction is never about one action—it's about the accumulation of unspoken concerns that eventually explode at the worst possible moment. To rebuild trust, she recommends starting with peer reviews that encourage natural collaboration and conversation.

Scrum Masters must be vocal about challenges in front of the entire team, modeling the openness they want to see. For teams that have completely withdrawn, anonymous feedback and scheduled one-on-ones can create safe spaces for honest communication. The key insight? Trust is rebuilt when people realize they will be heard and understood, not judged.

In this segment, we talk about how trust is the foundation of effective teams and how its absence leads to working in silos.

Self-reflection Question: When your team experiences a failure or missed deadline, do you create space for open conversation about what happened, or does everyone quietly move on while resentment builds?

Featured Book of the Week: Scrum: The Art of Doing Twice the Work in Half the Time by Jeff Sutherland

Prabhleen recommends Scrum: The Art of Doing Twice the Work in Half the Time by Jeff Sutherland as a foundational read for understanding the spirit behind the framework. "When I actually read the book and understood the nuances of rugby and how the team should be, everything started making sense. I grew beyond the Scrum guide, beyond following rules—it's about how the team operates around you as a collective," she explains. Prabhleen also highly recommends Turn the Ship Around by David Marquet, summarizing its core message as "leaders lead leaders." Both books shaped her understanding that frameworks exist to enable collaboration, not to create compliance. Check out the David Marquet episodes on the Scrum Master Toolbox Podcast for more insights on intent-based leadership.

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About Prabhleen Kaur

Prabhleen is a Certified Scrum Master with 7+ years of experience helping teams succeed with SAFe, Scrum and Kanban. Passionate about clean backlogs, powerful metrics, and dashboards that actually mean something. She is also known for making JIRA behave, driving Agile transformations, and helping teams ship value consistently and confidently.

You can link with Prabhleen Kaur on LinkedIn.