Look at The Dance, Not Just The Dancers

You can place 20 of the most skilled dancers on a stage. Every dancer technically perfect. But without choreography, what you get isn’t art. It’s chaos. It’s a mosh-pit.

It’s not about the dancers. It’s about the dance they create together.

This is how we look at teams.  Not just as a collection of (hopefully) high performers, but as an emotional and relational unit.

You can have the most talented team in the business.  But when performance derails, it’s rarely because people aren’t skilled.

It’s what’s happening between people that changes everything.

What the Research Is Telling Us

Harvard Business Review estimates that 70% of change programs fail. Not because of flawed tech. Not because of strategy gaps.

But because of misunderstanding, conflict, fear, uncertainty, mistrust.

It’s what happens in the silence during or after a meeting.  The coffee conversations are backward facing, rather than about the future.  The side-glances. The conflict avoided. The trust that was never quite rebuilt.

Performance doesn’t live in org charts.  It lives in the relational space.  That invisible (but very real) energy between your people.

And when that space fractures?  Even the most high-performing teams can stall, splinter, or collapse under pressure.

The New Leadership Challenge

AI integration, restructures, ruptures, rapid change.

Right now, most (if not all) leaders are navigating the most disruptive era in modern business.
The ground shifts daily and teams are expected to just keep up. But speed without cohesion is chaos.

If your team feels like it’s drifting... if engagement is dipping and trust feels shaky…

You’re not alone.  And you're not doing it wrong.

This is what disruption looks like on the inside.

The Hidden Cost of Unrepaired Rupture

It’s not the rupture that derails teams - it’s what happens next.

• Avoided conflict turns into emotional withdrawal

• Silence becomes disengagement

• Trust fractures become full-blown attrition

• Momentum stalls while nobody feels safe enough to name the problem
  

And the longer it lingers, the more expensive it becomes in retention, productivity, and credibility.

This isn’t just a "people issue." It’s a performance risk hiding in plain sight.

The Teams That Thrive in Uncertainty? They Focus on One Thing.

Relational Intelligence.

Not just Emotional Intelligence.
Not just psychological safety.
But the active ability to manage what happens between people when things get hard.

The most effective leaders aren’t the ones who keep everything calm and smooth.
They’re the ones who can hold the space when everything gets bumpy.  Without absorbing the chaos themselves.

What This Means for Us

Let’s not pretend anymore that tech transformation is the hard part.

The hardest part is bringing people with us, through friction, rupture, and resistance, and doing it without losing connection or momentum.

 That's the real edge. Now, being steady enough to lead through that uncertainty and relationally skilled enough to keep the team intact. So performance doesn't live in your strategy or plan. It lives in what happens between your people. So maybe keep an eye out for more information on Hold the space, my new program to upskill your leaders.

And if you want to have a conversation about this sooner rather than later, please reach out to me now and we can set something up. I look forward to chatting. Thank you.