Building Trust in Teams - The Foundation of Self-Organization | Tom Molenaar

Summary

---

Podcast Summary

Scrum Master Toolbox Podcast: Agile Storytelling from the Trenches

Episode: Building Trust in Teams - The Foundation of Self-Organization | Tom Molenaar

Host: Vasco Duarte
Guest: Tom Molenaar
Date: September 30, 2025

---

Episode Overview

This episode focuses on the foundational role of trust in building self-organizing and high-performing Agile teams. Tom Molenaar, an experienced Scrum Master and Agile Coach, joins Vasco Duarte to explore real-life dynamics within Agile teams, particularly how trust (or the lack thereof) underpins team performance, psychological safety, willingness to engage in conflict, and ultimately, results. Through Tom's personal story and practical interventions, listeners gain insight into diagnosing trust issues and fostering healthier team environments.

---

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Book Recommendation: "Empowered" by Marty Cagan

• [01:34] Tom Molenaar: Tom highlights Empowered as a book that deeply influenced his approach to team development.
  • Themes from the book:
    • Empowering teams to deliver great products
    • Coaching ordinary people into extraordinary teams
    • Practical tools: active listening, constructive feedback, regular one-on-ones
    • Setting clear expectations
    • Celebrating success and cultivating a culture of learning from failure
  • Quote:
    • “It hands out a lot of tools you can use as a Scrum Master to develop your team. And that’s what I really like about Empowered.” (Tom, 02:52)

2. Case Study: Trust Issues in a Performing Team

• Surface vs. Subsurface Performance
  • Tom describes joining a seemingly high-performing team (good delivery, established processes), but noticing dynamics indicating not everyone was engaged.
  • Half the team would not speak up or contribute during important meetings—dominated by just a few voices.
  • Decision-making was effectively top-down, crushing opportunities for constructive conflict.
• Detection through One-on-Ones
  • Tom used one-on-one meetings to uncover that several team members felt judged, unsafe, and unable to contribute freely in groups.
  • Quote:
    • “They felt they were holding back during team meetings, that they felt they were judged or… didn’t feel free.” (Tom, 06:07)
  • This lack of psychological safety stifled open discussion and creative problem-solving.

3. The Lencioni Pyramid: Model for Team Health

• Understanding Layers
  • Tom utilizes the Lencioni pyramid to frame these issues:
    • Trust (foundation)
    • Constructive conflict
    • Commitment
    • Accountability
    • Results (visible tip of the pyramid)
  • Quote:
    • “The top of the pyramid is always visible: the results, but the lower, fundamental trust isn’t that visible.” (Tom, 07:24)
• Significance for Agile Teams:
  • Trust creates space for conflict and innovation.
  • Without it, teams might perform outwardly "well" while limiting true growth or sustained success.

4. Diagnosing and Addressing Team Dysfunction

• Identifying Red Flags:
  • Inability to speak up
  • Lack of open conflict (issues left simmering, not discussed)
  • Unbalanced decision-making power
  • Poor or autocratic decision outcomes
• Action Steps Taken:
  • Tom brought findings into retrospectives, using exercises to open discussion around safety, feedback, and disagreement.
  • Gradually, more team members began sharing ideas, balancing dynamics.
  • Quote:
    • “We started addressing that… bit by bit, the voices that lowered down a bit felt more space to bring in their ideas, and eventually the dynamic got more balanced and more healthy.” (Tom, 08:51)
• Practical Interventions:
  • Retrospectives aimed at trust-building
  • Lencioni-based exercises
  • Encouragement and modeling feedback and dissent

5. The Payoff: Morale and Results

• Improvements Noticed:
  • Happier, more engaged team members
  • More inclusive decision-making
  • Better team results
• Quote:
  • “In the end, people feel better. Right. They feel better because they are trusted and they trust the others. They feel better because the results start showing up. They feel better because they can raise the topics that are bothering them.” (Fosco/Vasco, 09:21)
  • Summary Insight:
    • Addressing foundational trust not only boosts team performance but enhances workplace satisfaction and psychological safety.

---

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On Empowered teams:
  • “It hands out a lot of tools you can use as a Scrum Master to develop your team.” (Tom, 02:52)
• On discovering hidden issues:
  • “They felt they were holding back during team meetings… they didn’t feel free.” (Tom, 06:07)
• On invisibility of trust issues:
  • “The top of the pyramid is always visible: the results, but the lower, fundamental trust isn’t that visible.” (Tom, 07:24)
• On successful intervention:
  • “Bit by bit, the voices that lowered down a bit felt more space to bring in their ideas, and eventually the dynamic got more balanced and more healthy.” (Tom, 08:51)
• On the outcomes of trust:
  • “They feel better because the results start showing up. They feel better because they can raise the topics that are bothering them.” (Fosco, 09:21)

---

Timestamps for Key Segments

• [01:34] – Tom’s book recommendation & takeaways from “Empowered”
• [03:55] – Description of the dysfunctional team dynamic
• [06:03] – Examples from one-on-ones showing lack of trust
• [07:24] – Introducing the Lencioni pyramid to describe team trust
• [08:09] – Using retrospectives and exercises to improve trust
• [09:19] – Observed improvements in morale and outcomes

---

Conclusion

This episode spotlights how trust is the critical enabler for openness, collaboration, and achievement in Agile teams. With practical advice and a relatable case study, Tom Molenaar and Vasco Duarte present tools and concepts (like the Lencioni pyramid and one-on-ones) that any Scrum Master can leverage for diagnosing and improving team health. For Scrum Masters, Agile Coaches, and team leads, the episode underscores that investing in trust is never wasted—and often, the key to unlocking a team’s true potential.

Transcript

[Vasco]

Hey there, agile adventurer, just a quick question. What if for the price of a fancy coffee or half a pizza, you could unlock over 700 hours of the best agile content on the planet? That's audio, video, E courses, books, presentations, all that you can think of. But you can also join live calls with world class practitioners and hang out in a flame war free and AI slop clean slack with the sharpest minds in the game. Oh, and yes, you get direct access to me, Vasko, your Scrum Master Toolbox podcast. No, this is not a drill. It's this Scrum Master Toolbox membership. And it's your unfair advantage in the agile world. So if you want to know more, go check out scrummastertoolbox.org membership. That's scrummastertoolbox.org Membership. And check out all the goodies we have for you. Do it now. But if you're not doing it now, let's listen to the podcast.

[Fosco]

Hello everybody. Welcome to our Team Tuesday here on the podcast this week. Joining us is Tom Molinaar. Hey Tom, welcome back.

[Tom Molinaar]

Hey Fosco. Thanks.

[Fosco]

So Tom, on Tuesdays we talk about teams. But before diving into the team story, share with us. What's the book that most inspired you in your career as a Scrum Master?

[Tom Molinaar]

Yeah, that was a pretty tough question actually because there are so many good books on the topics of team development. And one of the books that I read in the recent years that had a huge influence is Empowered. It is written by Marty Kagan and yeah, basically it talks about empowering teams and an organization to, yeah, to deliver great products. But also it talks a lot about coaching teams and developing ordinary people into extraordinary performing teams. What I like about the book is that it's very structured and it's really talking about all the necessary elements without too much diving into details. So for example, he talks a lot about effective coaching, like the need for regular one on ones, how you use active listening and how you provide constructive feedback and where and when to do it. Talks about setting clear expectations and goals for the team, how you celebrate success, how you introduce a culture of learning from failure. So yeah, basically it hands out a lot of tools you can use as a Scrum Master to develop your team. And that's what I really like about Empowered.

[Fosco]

That's a great recommendation. Empowered by Marty Kagan. The link is in the show notes everybody. So check it out. And it's a great book to mention in the episode about teams, right, because it's all about teams and helping teams become extraordinary teams. High performing Teams, although not all teams become extraordinary or high performing, some get into this kind of like routines or even spirals that lead to trouble. So tell us that story, Tom. A team that you worked with, Walk.

[Vasco]

Us through how these small little behaviors.

[Fosco]

Approaches, maybe even just, you know, off comments, kind of grew and became a whole dynamic for that team and eventually led to problems.

[Tom Molinaar]

One of the teams that I, that I worked with in the last couple of years, at first when I joined the team it seemed that they were performing quite well, they were reaching their goals. On a product level, their collaboration was pretty okay, their agile process was in place. But as I worked longer with the team I noticed that in the team dynamics there was, there were a few dominant voices in the team and like half of the team didn't really speak up or wasn't engaged during refinement and yeah, basically they were just taking orders. So I felt like I had to address that, that dynamic. And basically what was going on is that the team didn't feel there was enough space to have constructive conflict or for a couple of team members to speak up because there were a couple of team members more dominant. So on the surface level the performance was quite good. But when you zoomed in on the team, there was a lot of room for improvement to make this team more balanced instead of trust. So that's where it all starts for me. There was a. Yeah, basically, of course trust is a degree and some in some parts on the professional side there was trust but on a personal side you could feel that there was a lack of trust.

[Fosco]

Give a few examples of like, you know, maybe interactions that illustrate that lack of trust on a personal level.

[Tom Molinaar]

The first one is not speaking up and it got very clear because I was having one on ones with team members and in our one on ones it was raised that they didn't get, that they felt they were holding back during team meetings, that they felt they were judged or yeah, they didn't feel free. So that was a big sign of that they didn't feel comfortable to express their ideas about the product or technical solutions and that they basically just took orders from that dominant voice or a couple of dominant voices that were telling the team what we need to or not what of course, but how to build it and how to proceed. But in our one on ones, the other team members did race that they didn't feel it was a safe climate. So yeah, basically that was destroying the team for quite a while already. So when there's no trust, there's also no room for constructive conflict. And what I like about the Lencioni pyramid, this is a model that I use a lot in team dynamics, because basically, the trust pyramid, trust is the foundation. When there's trust, there's room for constructive conflict, then there's room for commitment, accountability, and eventually results. And the top of the pyramid is always visible, the results, but the lower fundamental trust isn't that visible.

[Vasco]

At least.

[Fosco]

Not for the untrained eye. Right. Like, when you have a lot of experience, you can start to detect these behaviors just like you did.

[Tom Molinaar]

Right.

[Fosco]

This inability to speak up, letting the conflict simmer instead of talking about them. Like, all of those are indications of the lack of trust.

[Tom Molinaar]

Yeah, basically. Also poor decision making. So when I saw that, I started to use our retrospectives because in one on ones, we I already saw what was happening and what we could do in team dynamics. So I started using the retros to talk about Lancioni, do exercises to build trust, and also have that conversation about safety in the team, about speaking up or how to give and receive feedback that it's. And, yeah. About disagreeing. And when we started addressing that, bit by bit, the voices that lowered down a bit felt more space to bring in their ideas, and eventually the dynamic got more balanced and more healthy with better decisions and eventually a better. Better outcome, better results.

[Fosco]

And the cool thing about these processes is that in the end, people feel better. Right. They feel better because they are trusted and they trust the others. They feel better because the results start showing up. They feel better because they can raise the topics that are bothering them. And sometimes there are topics that are bothering, and we need to be able to talk about those. So, like, this. This. What's the state, the morale of the team? Right. Like, do they feel good about what they're doing, how they're doing it, and the results they're getting? That is also a great sign. It may not be necessarily trust, it may be that there's trust, but there's also other things that are not in place, like inattention to results. Like the pyramid suggests, the length of functions.

[Tom Molinaar]

Yeah.

[Fosco]

So we need to be able to see more than just the lack of trust. But that's the intention, right, to get to that point where the team feels good about what they do, how they do it, and, of course, the results that they eventually get. That's a great story. Thank you for sharing that, Tom.

[Tom Molinaar]

You're welcome.

[Vasco]

All right, I hope you liked this episode, but before you hit next episode, here's the deal. This podcast is powered by people like you, the members who wanted more than just inspiration. They wanted real tools and real connection to people who are practicing Agile. Every day we're talking access to over 700 hours of agile Gold, CTO level strategy talks, summit keynotes, live workshops, E courses, Deep Dive interviews, books, and if you're into no Estimates, we got the pioneers of no Estimates in those Deep Dive interviews as well. Agile Business Intelligence, creating product visions, coaching your product owner courses. You name it. You'll get invites to monthly live Q&As with agile pioneers and practitioners, plus a private Slack community which is free of all of that AI slop you see everywhere. And of course without the flame wars. It's a community of practitioners that want to learn and thrive together. It's the best place to connect with community and learn together. So if this podcast has helped you before, imagine what you will get from this podcast membership. So head on over to scrummastertoolbox.org membership and join the community that's shaping the future of Agile. We have so much for you, so check out all the [e-mail] membership because listening is great, it's important. But doing it together, that's next level. I'll see you in the community.

[Tom Molinaar]

Slack.

[Podcast Host]

We really hope you liked our show. And if you did, why not rate this podcast on Stitcher or itunes? Share this podcast and let other Scrum masters know about this valuable resource for their work. Remember that sharing is caring.