Hello and welcome to the 8th edition of Getting Teamwork Right!

It seems that the heat has been rising in many parts of the world and where I sit in Dubai the temperature is now knocking on the high 40s as we are firmly in the grip of summer. This made me think about heat within the team. What happens when tensions occur and the mercury rises on the relationships between people on your team?

I certainly witnessed this myself in the coaching room recently where one of the team felt it necessary to remove himself from the session. There was tension in the room. Things were said that he didn't agree with and the heat meant that he felt he would rather leave than make things worse by talking any further. One of the blog posts I'm sharing this week is about this incident and why it actually is a positive for that team.

The process of coaching teams often starts with trying to work out where the team is when we start the work. This can be difficult to understand or see as it is very emotionally driven and sometimes it's useful to have a very simple diagnostic, which I share in my second blog post in this edition. Is your team in the red, yellow, or green zone?

Lastly I'm sharing a book review for a great read about team culture. If you like the occasional book about teams, then do check out Daniel Coyle's book "The Culture Code."

I hope you and your team are keeping cool but if you do need a bit of help trying to reduce the temperature, give me a call. I'd love to see what I can do to help. — Andy Fieldhouse

Difficult Conversations at Work

When a team member walked out of a coaching session, it could have felt like a failure. It wasn't. This post explores what happened, why it was actually a sign of progress, and what difficult conversations in the workplace really tell us about the health of a team. If tension has ever derailed one of your team discussions, this one is for you.

The Culture Code — Daniel Coyle

This week's video is my review of Daniel Coyle's "The Culture Code" — one of the best books I've read on what actually makes teams tick. Coyle spent years inside some of the world's highest-performing groups and distilled it down to three things: build safety, share vulnerability, and establish purpose. If you want to understand what great team culture really looks like under the surface, this is essential viewing and reading.

Is Your Team in the Green Zone or the Red Zone?

Before you can improve a team, you need to know where it actually is. This post shares a simple but powerful diagnostic — red, yellow, or green — that cuts through the complexity and tells you what kind of coaching or leadership the team needs right now. Quick to read, immediately useful.

When the Heat Rises, Create Space Before You Continue

When tension enters a team conversation, the instinct is to push through or shut it down. Try neither. Instead, name what you're noticing — "I can feel this is difficult for people right now" — and give the team a short break before continuing. That pause isn't weakness. It's the thing that keeps the conversation alive long enough to become useful.

Ask Andy

Do you have a question that I can help you with? Send it to me on the link below and I will answer it. I'd like to publish one answer every fortnight — so that any readers with a similar concern can benefit. I will ask if you are OK for me to use your question, and I will make you and your situation anonymous before I share it.

Book a Call

If you want to find out more about how we could help your team or organisation, I'd love to hear from you. You can book a Microsoft Teams call with me here: