[mlloyd]

>But I also think it's pretty hard to foster an environment where people of every seniority level feel comfortable doing that.

That's because pretending to be unsinkable is much easier than working to prevent the ship from sinking. Especially when there's a perception that the problem carries very low risk. That creates situations where there's little individual benefit and a lot of reputational risk for raising the alarm.

To fix this you have to intentionally create a culture that aligns individual and organizational incentives around the behavior you want to see encouraged.

[sanderjd]

100%

Even then, people who are new will inevitably be skeptical that this kind of culture is real. And they may be right that it isn't real for them, even if you think it's real.

I saw this a bunch joining a ginormous tech company decades after its rise; old-timers thought things were true about the culture that may have still been true for them, but which didn't seem true to me.

(Also, nobody feels more betrayed than those old-timers when the culture turns cut-throat during difficult times.)