Research from Adaptavist reveals the ‘blame game’ hinders innovation, creates security challenges, and could cause a major incident
LONDON, UNITED KINGDOM, March 12, 2025 /EINPresswire.com/ -- Four in 10 IT leaders are too afraid to acknowledge their mistakes due to a culture of ‘blame’ and ‘fear’ across their organisations, according to new research from Adaptavist, the digital transformation technology and solutions provider. This is having a significant impact on innovation, quality of output, performance, and psychological safety, and risks undermining IT resilience, the study of 400 IT leaders in the UK, US, and Germany revealed.In fact, Adaptavist’s research, conducted by Censuswide, showed that 44% believe that lack of psychological safety is hindering innovation in their organisation, while 42% said that a fear of acknowledging mistakes compromises their company’s cyber security.
Worryingly, it’s not just a ‘blame’ culture that’s leading to concerning challenges. 44% of IT leaders revealed that their organisation still prioritises speed over quality in software development. Urgency to complete tasks often leads to mistakes, especially when paired with the heavy workloads often facing IT teams; in fact, 39% of leaders admitted that they are concerned their team’s excessive workloads could lead to a major incident.
In the UK, tech cultural challenges are in an even worse situation, as UK IT leaders consistently reported greater concerns in comparison to their US and German counterparts. For example, 54% of UK IT leaders said that lack of psychological safety is hindering innovation, compared to 42% of US and 37% of German respondents. Likewise, 47% of UK IT leaders fear acknowledging mistakes, compared to 39% of US and 36% of German.
Male IT leaders also showed significantly higher rates of fear around acknowledging mistakes (45%) compared to their female counterparts (29%), suggesting gendered differences in how leaders experience psychological safety in the workplace.
Jon Mort, CTO of Adaptavist commented: “The technology industry’s culture of excessive workloads, fear, and blame has been allowed to develop over the last few decades due to the high-stakes nature of IT. This is, and has always been, an extremely damaging mindset that risks security, innovation, and workplace wellbeing.”
Mort goes on to argue that ‘radical candour’ - a communication framework for specific and sincere praise and kind and clear criticism - is key to improving tech culture. He continues:
“Adopting a ‘radical candour’ approach is key to creating an effective feedback loop that prioritises efficiency and learning, without ever inducing ‘blame’.”
Interestingly, Adaptavist’s research found that 41% of IT leaders said their organisation already supports a radical candour approach to addressing feedback, whereas 55% admit this is not necessarily in place. On the other hand, one in four IT leaders indicated that their organisation still advocates for a culture of ‘blame’ over ‘learning’, suggesting that there is still a misalignment between expectations and reality when it comes to tech culture.
ENDS
About Adaptavist and The Adaptavist Group
Founded in 2005, Adaptavist is a global technology and innovative solutions provider that helps organisations improve agility and overcome the challenges of digital transformation.
We are experts at delivering innovative and tailored solutions, and quality services across some of the world’s most trusted technology ecosystems, including Atlassian, AWS, monday.com, GitLab, and many more.
It is the pioneer brand of The Adaptavist Group, a global family of companies with one common goal: to make business work better. We combine the best talent, technology, and processes to make it easier for our customers to excel–today and tomorrow.
The Adaptavist Group exists to support clients’ day-to-day workflows, business transformation, and high-growth strategies. We offer a comprehensive but always evolving range of services across five key practices: agile, DevOps, work management, ITSM, and cloud. Our depth of knowledge across these practices unites us in our mission to help businesses embrace continuous transformation and make it their competitive advantage.
Notes to editors:
Research conducted by Censuswide on behalf of Adaptavist between 08.10.2024 and 16.10.2024. Censuswide surveyed 400 people with responsibility for software development in organisations with $10 million or more in annual revenue in the UK (100 respondents), US (200 respondents) and Germany (100 respondents). Respondents’ demographic profile determined by natural fall out as there is no reliable data available to represent the national population. All data based on this survey unless otherwise stated.
Jasmine Gray
TFD Think Feel Do
adaptavist@wearetfd.com