The Innovation Code:
Why Trust and Open Communication Are Essential for High-Performing Teams
Chad Enlsey
2/8/20252 min read


Sam had just joined a new product development team at a tech startup. Excited and full of ideas, he expected an environment where he could contribute, collaborate, and learn. Instead, he found himself walking into a culture of silence. Critical project updates were buried in private Slack messages. Team members hesitated to ask questions in meetings for fear of looking uninformed. And when a major feature release failed due to a last-minute miscommunication, blame was quietly assigned but never discussed.
Within a few months, Sam had stopped offering ideas. He had learned the unspoken rule: Keep your head down, don’t ask too many questions, and protect your work. The team’s innovation slowed, engagement dropped, and small communication gaps snowballed into major operational failures.
Trust Is the Foundation of High-Performing Teams
This scenario is all too common, even in industries that pride themselves on being forward-thinking. Teams that struggle with trust and transparency often find themselves trapped in a cycle of inefficiency, misalignment, and lost potential. But when teams prioritize open communication and mutual trust, they unlock the ability to solve complex problems, take smart risks, and drive real innovation.
Why? Because trust enables ownership, and ownership drives accountability.
Transparency is empowering – When teams have access to information, they make better decisions.
Awareness builds ownership – When team members understand the bigger picture, they take initiative rather than waiting for direction.
Ownership fuels accountability – When people feel responsible for outcomes, they invest in the team’s success.
Without trust, teams default to defensiveness and self-preservation. With trust, teams move forward with confidence, agility, and creativity.
What This Means for Innovation Culture
In industries like tech—where speed, agility, and creative problem-solving are the difference between success and failure—trust is not a "nice-to-have"; it’s a competitive advantage. Some of the world’s most innovative companies, from startups to Fortune 500 giants, intentionally build cultures that prioritize psychological safety—the belief that team members can take risks, ask hard questions, and voice new ideas without fear of embarrassment or retaliation.
When employees trust that they can challenge assumptions, admit mistakes, and ask for help, they are far more likely to experiment, iterate, and push boundaries—all essential ingredients for innovation.
So, What Can We Do?
If you lead a team—or are simply part of one—there are concrete steps you can take to foster trust and open communication:
Set the Tone with Transparency – Leaders and managers should model openness by sharing information, decisions, and reasoning behind them. Default to transparency rather than secrecy.
Encourage Honest Conversations – Create a culture where feedback (both giving and receiving) is normalized. Regular team retrospectives and open Q&A sessions can help.
Normalize Admitting Mistakes – Teams that embrace failure as part of learning grow faster. Leaders should openly discuss their own missteps and what they learned.
Empower Ownership – Give team members autonomy over their work, and trust them to make decisions. When people feel they have a stake in the outcome, they hold themselves accountable.
Recognize and Reward Openness – Reinforce the behaviors you want to see. When someone speaks up with a tough question or takes responsibility for a problem, acknowledge it.
The Bottom Line
Trust and transparency aren’t just feel-good concepts—they’re essential to creating teams that innovate, execute, and win. Teams that communicate openly and operate with trust don’t just avoid failure; they create breakthroughs. And the good news? It’s not luck or magic. It’s a choice—one that every team, in any industry, can make.
Need help improving trust and communication on your team? Contact Enbridge Solutions to learn how we level up team cohesion, performance, and impact for teams in the leading companies worldwide. - TeamBuilding@EnbridgeSolutions.com


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