Translating CEO Forum Phases to Teams (Part 1) 

In an article I wrote last year for CEOWORLD Magazine titled “CEO forums, Maximizing Psychological Safety Is Hard: CEO Forums Explain Why,” I described a four‑phase journey that CEO peer advisory groups experience as they create and work to sustain psychological safety among their members. As I reflected on this framework, a natural question emerged:

To what extent can that same four‑phase model apply to organizational teams? In other words, can this construct be mapped into departmental and cross-functional teams? What are the possibilities and limits of doing so, and how do we keep our forums and teams operating in the upper right quadrant?

One of the main challenges is that groups/forums and teams are formed for different reasons. A group is created for the benefit of its individual members, who participate to support their personal growth and help others with their challenges and goals. Teams, on the other hand, assemble to produce a shared work product or reach a goal that can only be achieved collectively. Given their different purposes, let’s explore how each of the four phases translates into an organizational or team context, identify the most significant challenges, and point out where the model encounters limitations and needs adaptation. 

Phase 1: Entry & Trust‑Building 

In CEO forums, Phase 1 focuses on newcomers arriving, getting acquainted, setting ground rules, establishing confidentiality, and feeling comfortable enough to engage. For an organizational team, this directly corresponds to what Bruce Tuckman called the forming stage, where team members clarify “how we’ll work together,” and remind each other of the importance of mutual respect, curiosity, candor, and building relationships.  

Possibilities: 

– This phase is very important for teams, whether a long-standing team is renewing its norms or a new cross-functional team is forming. Focusing on trust-building early on brings benefits like sharing ideas more freely, quicker alignment, and fewer misunderstandings. 

– Because typical operational teams already meet regularly, they can establish the trust rhythm more quickly than CEO forums, which usually meet less often. 

– Team leaders can act as the “forum convener,” explicitly demonstrating vulnerability and team norms while proactively fostering trust.  

Limitations: 

– Many organizational teams skip this phase or rush through it because “we’ve done this before.” The repetitive nature of trust building is often sacrificed in the rush to “get to work.” It’s like a team trying to assemble a gas grill without reading the instructions first — it usually doesn’t go well. 

– Organizational barriers such as hierarchy, performance targets, and time pressure can hinder genuine trust development. For example, team members might feel monitored or penalized for mistakes, which undermines their sense of safety from the start. 

– The trust dynamic differs between a peer forum (where all members are peers) and internal teams that often include formal power differentials. 

In the forum context, this phase is when members begin to speak more candidly, ask tough questions, challenge one another, share deeper issues, and experience the positive results of doing so, thereby deepening psychological safety. For an organizational team, this would mean team members feel comfortable raising difficult subjects, such as process failures and interpersonal friction. They see these conversations not as personal affronts, but as ways to serve the team, their clients, and their craft. They push each other constructively from a place of caring.   

Possibilities: 
– This is where organizational teams can benefit significantly: by consciously creating space for challenge and dialogue, teams break out of superficial “safe” conversations and move into deeper learning, innovation, and adaptation. 
– Leaders can embed regular “check‑in” or “challenge” rhythms (e.g., retrospective meetings, “what aren’t we saying” or “does anyone see this differently” discussions) to accelerate this phase. 
– Teams that adopt a peer‑forum mindset can build a sense of belonging and encourage greater participation, thus enhancing psychological safety beyond a typical “leader speaks, team listens” dynamic. 

Limitations: 
– In an internal team, the fear of professional consequences (e.g., negative performance reviews or being labeled “difficult”) can limit open challenges to the process or the leader. 
– Many organizational leaders lack the facilitative skill or process discipline to hold genuine challenge conversations safely; if a team “tries” but the leader reacts defensively, trust may regress. 
– The presence of conflicting incentives (e.g., competing projects, budget pressures, functional silos) may limit how freely team members engage in open challenge. Again, in a CEO forum, the sole focus is peer growth; in a team, there are competing demands.    

Summary 

In Part 2, we’ll examine Phases 3 & 4, and offer thoughts on where this model works (and where it doesn’t), along with practical takeaways for leaders.