Teams Need Heat — But the Right Kind

Editor’s note: This essay sits within the Cultivated library on leadership, energy, and alignment. Teams are explored as systems that require directed heat — attention, urgency, and purpose — to turn potential into outcomes.

Teams Need Heat — But the Right Kind

There are endless analogies about teams as recipes.
Mix the right ingredients — skills, personalities, behaviours — and something good will emerge.

But there is a missing ingredient in most of these arguments and posts.

Heat.

Mix flour, eggs, milk, and butter and you get batter.
To make pancakes, you need heat.

Teams are the same. Capable people without heat create potential.
Heat turns potential into movement. It turns ideas into value.

Fear: The Flash Fire

Fear is a powerful form of heat.

Individually, fear can catalyse change. I recently spoke with someone whose job was draining her. Fear of staying pushed her to quit — even without a plan.

In organisations, fear is dangerous.

Fear-driven leadership creates silence, disengagement, and attrition. It burns bright and fast — like lighter fluid. Startups sometimes harness existential fear (running out of cash) in healthy ways, but fear as a management tool corrodes trust.

Use sparingly. Never as control.

Clarity and Alignment: Sustainable Heat

If I had to choose one form of heat, it is clarity.

Clear direction.
Compelling purpose.
A credible strategy.

When people know where they are going and why their work matters, energy and attention emerges naturally. Clarity and purpose create sustainable heat.

Deadlines: Micro Bursts of Heat

Deadlines are contained sparks.

They focus attention and compress effort. Think of preparing for a holiday — suddenly everything gets done. Deadlines create urgency.

Used poorly, they create stress and distrust.
Used well, they create rhythm and momentum.

Growth as Intrinsic Heat

Work that stretches people generates energy.

When tasks contribute to personal development and connect to meaningful goals, motivation becomes intrinsic. Growth paired with purpose is one of the most reliable sources of sustainable heat.

Forced Cooperation

Misaligned goals create wasted heat.

In one organisation, Development optimised for features while Operations optimised for stability. Conflict was inevitable. We introduced a shared objective: weekly releases with near-perfect uptime.

That forced cooperation.
Heat aligned to outcomes, not silos.

This was DevOps before it had a name.

Incentives: Handle With Care

Incentives are common — and often misused.

Individual rewards fragment teams.
Team rewards can feel unfair.

The healthiest incentives tie people to shared outcomes — equity, collective success, or shared metrics. Heat should reinforce collaboration and cooperation, not competition.

Competition: Short-Term Fire

Competition creates heat, but at a cost.

It can produce short-term gains, but long-term it erodes trust, creativity, and collaboration. Use competitive heat sparingly, and never as the primary engine. After all, nobody says anything useful if their competitor is in the room.

Bringing It Together

Teams are ingredients plus heat.

People, skills, and perspectives are necessary — but not sufficient. Energy and attention must be directed toward shared outcomes.

My approach to creating heat:

• Paint a compelling future
• Define a credible strategy
• Gather people drawn to the challenge
• Set realistic deadlines
• Align goals across silos
• Tie incentives to shared outcomes
• Ensure work develops people

When growth, connection, and purpose align, heat emerges naturally.
Without heat, teams remain batter. With heat, they become something extraordinary.