Can teams benefit from using a mindful infrastructure when defensive behaviour threatens complex innovation projects?

Projects are often doomed to fail. An explorative case study which carried out team-based complex innovation projects in a research and technology organisation suggests three main results: 1) project team leaders experienced that the complexity involved in the various aspects of team functioning, made it prone to mixed messaging; 2) one of the meetings observed indicated that defensive behaviours were prevalent; 3) the team members' self-assessment reports on team performance suggested that team outcomes improve in the presence of team psychological safety, team learning and team mindfulness. The study indicates that complex innovation projects may be negatively affected by defensive behaviours, but this behaviour can be overcome by creating a mindful infrastructure based on team psychological safety, team learning and team mindfulness.