The Geometry of Trust: Why Good Teams Stop Working

Bangkok Scientifique is a friendly monthly gathering where specialists share important ideas with curious people in an accessible, informal setting. No specialist background is required, only an interest in how people, organisations and systems really work.

This month, we are looking at why do capable teams become slow, cautious and overloaded with meetings?

Sometimes the problem is process. Sometimes it is leadership. But often, underneath both, is something harder to see: trust.

We tend to treat trust like a switch that is either on or off. In reality, it behaves more like a structure. It forms over time, takes on a particular shape, and can gradually bend out of true.

At its core, trust is a prediction about how someone will act when you cannot watch them or control the outcome. That prediction rests on three things: ability, care and consistency.

When those signals are strong, people can delegate, raise problems early, challenge decisions and act without waiting for permission. When they weaken, organisations compensate. Meetings multiply, approvals pile up, managers supervise more closely and employees become increasingly careful about what they say.

The result is a hidden tax on the organisation. Work still gets done, but more slowly, with more friction and far more effort.
In The Geometry of Trust, Tareef will explore how trust is formed, how modern working conditions distort it, and how teams can make it more visible through everyday behaviour.

He will look at the pressures created by hybrid work, organisational change, performance measurement, artificial intelligence and constant uncertainty. He will also examine why employees hide problems, why some teams move quickly without losing accountability, and how much management overhead is really an attempt to compensate for low trust.

The session will be relevant to anyone who leads people, works in teams, shapes organisational culture or has wondered why intelligent groups sometimes make work much harder than it needs to be.

Tareef is a researcher and product builder working at the intersection of AI, people analytics and behavioural science. Happily.ai is his sixth technology startup. After repeatedly finding technical problems easier to solve than people problems, he became fascinated by human behaviour at its most practical level.

Rooted in his MIT research, his work explores how data and design can improve employee health, happiness and performance.

Thursday, 30 July 2026 at 19:00
Public House, Sukhumvit 31

All BKKSci events are free of charge. We do, however, ask that you consider supporting Public House by purchasing food or drink during the evening. They have kindly agreed to host us at no cost, and this is our way of thanking them.

BKKSci welcomes regulars, first-timers, specialists and the simply curious.

So, what is slowing your organisation down: process, people, or trust?