Has your team lost its mojo?

Why does this happen?

There are six main causes:

1 – Threat narrows attention

When teams feel under threat, they tend to become less open, not more. The result is restricted information, centralized control, and falling back on familiar routines.

Real-world example: On January 28, 1986, Space Shuttle Challenger broke apart 73 seconds into its flight, killing all seven crew members. Engineers had raised serious concerns about the O-rings in cold temperatures the night before launch. But with launch delays creating institutional pressure, NASA officials downplayed the warnings. The threat of further schedule slippage triggered exactly the wrong response: less openness, not more.

2 – Success breeds overconfidence

Ironically, teams often become rigid not because they failed, but because they succeeded: success teaches, but it also seduces. The winning formula becomes a routine, the routine becomes an identity, and eventually, the identity becomes a prison.

Real-world example: Kodak was the world leader in camera technology and seemed unbeatable. This all changed once digital cameras arrived. The strangest part is that Kodak had actually developed the world’s first digital camera but, instead of bringing it to market, shelved it to protect its lucrative film-processing business. Its greatest strength – deep expertise in film – became the “prison” that prevented it from seeing what was coming.

3 – Psychological safety is low

When people fear embarrassment, punishment, or being labelled “negative,” they stop speaking up. Instead, the meeting becomes a theatre production called Alignment. Everyone performs agreement as nobody wants to be seen as difficult. The team has achieved something very dangerous: false consensus. But a psychologically safe team is not a comfortable team – it’s a candid one.

Real-world example: Behind the scenes, Enron hid massive debts and losses through complex accounting loopholes, and a culture of excessive risk-taking and absence of internal checks and balances led the company into increasingly dubious financial practices. Those who did raise concerns were marginalized or sidelined. The meeting rooms were full of performed alignment and nobody wanted to be the difficult person.

4 – Shared mental models become closed

Teams need shared mental models because they help people coordinate. They create speed and allow us to finish each other’s sentences. That’s useful until everyone is finishing the wrong sentence. When a team shares the same inaccurate assumptions, alignment becomes a trap. The team is united, but around a distorted picture of reality. This is why some teams can be both harmonious and wrong. They all agree, but on what? The danger is not disagreement but premature agreement.

Real-world example: Once known as the “Flying Bank” due to its financial stability, the downfall of Swissair was rooted in collective overconfidence and a failure to adapt to changing market conditions. Management saw themselves as the guardians of Swiss quality and prestige, and dismissed the threat posed by low-cost carriers. The entire leadership team shared the same flawed picture of reality, and their harmony made it worse, not better.

5 – Power and hierarchy centralize decision-making

Under pressure, teams often defer to the most senior or dominant person. This is understandable because hierarchy reduces ambiguity. Someone takes charge and decisions move faster – but at a cost. The more power concentrates, the less information may travel.

Real-world example: In the mid-2000s, middle managers at Nokia were so afraid of delivering bad news to senior leaders that they systematically filtered information upward. Engineers and product teams knew the software architecture was falling behind Apple and Android, but the senior team received a beautifully curated version of reality – right up until the moment that the market shifted beneath them.

6 – Time pressure kills experimentation

When time pressure becomes excessive, experimentation is often the first casualty. Teams skip reflection, reuse last year’s template, choose the familiar vendor, and ask the same people. They hold the same meeting with the same agenda – and, astonishingly, get the same result.

Real-world example: When Netflix came knocking in 2000 offering to sell for $50m, Blockbuster’s leadership, under pressure to defend quarterly earnings and a sprawling store network, declined. There was no room for the experiment. They were too busy optimizing the existing model to test a new one. The “we don’t have time for that right now” mindset cost them everything.