From blame to learning over five months — a supply chain team at a global energy company

Quick answer

Over five months, IMPROV Communication delivered a five-session 5 Guiding Principles Masterclass to a 16-person supply chain team at a global energy company. The aim: shift the team's default response to problems from blame to learning. Willingness to raise tough issues rose from 4.5 to 5.4 out of 7 by the programme's midpoint and held at 5.1 five months in. Every final-survey respondent would recommend the programme — average 6.1 out of 7, nobody below 5.

At a glance

• Client: the supply chain team of a global energy company
• Engagement: 5 Guiding Principles Masterclass — five sessions across five months, October 2025 to March 2026
• Scale: 16 participants, four internal ambassadors, psychological safety measured at the start, midpoint and end of the programme
• 4.5 → 5.4 — "members of this team are able to bring up problems and tough issues" by the midpoint, still at 5.1 in month five
• 6.1 / 7 — how strongly respondents would recommend the programme to colleagues (none below 5; 12 respondents)
• 5.5 / 7 — "the programme helped me understand and deal with failure constructively"

Source: anonymous surveys at the start, midpoint and end of the programme using Amy Edmondson's seven-item team psychological safety scale (negatively worded items reverse-scored, so 7 is always the healthier answer), plus a final feedback survey in March 2026. Between 11 and 16 responses per measurement point — a small team, honestly measured.

Why they asked us in

Supply chain work runs on coordination — across borders, suppliers, carriers and deadlines. When something goes wrong, the cost of silence is concrete: a late shipment nobody flagged, missing documentation nobody mentioned, a near miss nobody reported.

The team named its own pattern at the start of the programme, and named it plainly: when something went wrong, the default response was a blame game. Someone gets pointed at, the conversation ends, and the underlying problem remains. The question behind the brief was how to replace that reflex with something better — a team that surfaces problems early and treats failure as information.

The challenges that shaped our design:

• The blame reflex. Root causes stayed hidden because conversations stopped at the first "who".
• Speaking up. Before the programme, "members of this team are able to bring up problems and tough issues" scored 4.5 out of 7 — the team's own assessment of where the silence lived.
• Making it last. Most training fades within thirty days. This team needed the change to survive the winter.

What we delivered

Five experiential sessions across five months, October 2025 to March 2026, each building on the last — with the space between sessions treated as part of the design, not a gap in it.

Session	Focus
Session 1	Introduction to the 5 Guiding Principles of IMPROV — psychological safety as an experience, not a slide
Session 2	Emotional intelligence deep-dive — Do Not Judge Yourself
Session 3	Psychological safety training — Do Not Judge Others
Session 4	Embrace Failure — the three types of failure, the Five Whys, near miss reporting
Session 5	Make Each Other Look Good

Each phase of the engagement followed the three-phase architecture at the heart of our methodology:

• Pre-training activation. An anonymous psychological safety survey at the start, the midpoint and the end of the programme — so the team could see its own movement, and so could we.
• The sessions themselves. Experiential exercises grounded in Amy Edmondson's research on psychological safety and failure, and the 5 Guiding Principles of IMPROV. Participants do, then reflect, then commit.
• Post-training reinforcement. Four internal ambassadors carried the work between sessions with structured follow-up meetings and visible initiatives in the office, and the management committee received a Manager Reinforcement Guide — because manager reinforcement is the strongest predictor of whether new behaviours survive.

What the participants told us

Psychological safety was measured anonymously at the start, midpoint and end of the programme, five months apart at the endpoints.

Statement (1–7, 7 = healthiest)	Oct 2025	Nov 2025	Mar 2026
We can bring up problems and tough issues	4.5	5.4	5.1
It is safe to take a risk on this team	4.3	5.1	4.6
No one would deliberately undermine my efforts	3.8	4.9	4.5
My unique skills and talents are valued and used	4.8	5.5	4.9
Team psychological safety (all seven items)	5.0	5.3	5.2

Note: negatively worded items reverse-scored. Sample sizes 16, 13 and 11. Full data available on request.

The lift held. Among the eleven people who completed all three surveys, the composite moved from 4.9 to 5.3 and stood at 5.2 in month five. A rise that survives five months — through winter, through quarter-end, through daily supply chain pressure — is behavioural change, not a post-training glow.

The movement happened where the team needed it. The items that started lowest — raising tough issues, trust, feeling valued — are the ones that rose. The items that were already healthy stayed healthy.

The tools stuck. In the final survey, half of all respondents named the Five Whys as something they will keep using — the tool built precisely to carry a conversation past the first "who". Respondents rated the programme's help in dealing with failure constructively at 5.5 out of 7, and their confidence raising concerns at 5.4. The honest number in the set is application to daily work at 4.4 — which is exactly the number the ambassador and manager reinforcement phase exists to move.

In their own words

The Yes, and exercise when everyone could add to a proposal. People were much more enthusiastic. — Participant, after Session 1

It "broke ice" between us, created positive atmosphere. After the session I feel more comfortable communicating with my colleagues. — Participant, after Session 1

I speak up more. — Participant, final survey

For me, the emotional intelligence part was the most impactful, and I now use the method of feeling and identifying before reacting. — Participant, final survey

Yes and. Not blaming culture. — Participant, final survey

Wish all departments can take on these sessions at some point. — Participant, final survey

What they committed to

• Speaking up in meetings instead of holding questions back
• Running the Five Whys when something goes wrong, instead of stopping at the first person to point at
• Reporting near misses so problems surface before they grow
• Praising colleagues' work visibly — sharing issues and how they were fixed
• Pausing to name the emotion before reacting under pressure

The demand at the end of the programme came from the team itself: requests for other departments to receive the training, and an unprompted ask for a Level 2.

Bring this to your organisation

Most teams that run on coordination have a version of the same pattern: when something goes wrong, the conversation finds a person and stops. What transfers from this engagement is the shape of the work — measurement across the programme so change is visible, experiential sessions people feel rather than sit through, and a reinforcement structure of ambassadors and managers that carries the change past the thirty-day mark where most training quietly fades.