In practice: I was with a team a couple of weeks ago that had just landed a big project in a new area. This team has high trust and was actually too polite. Members were waiting for others to act so as not to step on their toes. The team leader, frustrated, told them how to move forward. Speed of execution? A victim to politeness.
This is not a role clarity problem. This is a role clarity addiction.
"Not my lane" is a very expensive sentence. It sounds disciplined, professional. It's how “grown-ups” in well-run companies signal they respect each other's territory. And it's how the hardest problems in the business — the ones that are by definition cross-functional — quietly become nobody's job.
This team needed to see why their politeness was so expensive: high trust had tipped into deference. The thing they prized — care for each other — was depriving each of them of the partnership they needed. That was the attitudinal shift: stepping up isn't an overstep, it's the generous move. From there, the tactical piece was easier — a decision framework so people knew when to act, when to consult, and when to escalate, instead of defaulting to "wait and see."
Great teams have crystal-clear roles, and they get out of those roles the moment the problem outgrows any one of them. I say it this way: don’t go to the trouble of BUILDING a team if you’re not going to USE the team.