The Unwritten Playbook: Winning as a Team

Team Whispering: Navigating the Human Dynamics No One Prepared You For

"We’ve gone through three project managers already," the client director told me casually as we walked to my first team meeting. "The team can be… challenging. But I’m sure you’ll be fine."

My stomach tightened. The technical brief had mentioned nothing about team problems—only a seemingly straightforward system migration that was now six months behind schedule.

When I entered the room, the temperature seemed to drop ten degrees. Twenty pairs of eyes assessed me with expressions ranging from scepticism to outright hostility. One developer was pointedly wearing headphones. Two architects sat as far from each other as the room allowed. The business analyst was frantically documenting everything as if preparing evidence for a future trial.

No technical challenge could explain why three PMs had already failed. This was about human dynamics—the aspect of consulting they never adequately prepare you for.

Welcome to the fourth instalment of "The Unwritten Playbook," where I’m sharing the consulting truths learned through hard-won experience. Today, we’re exploring the hidden skill of "team whispering"—how to read, navigate, and positively influence the human systems that ultimately determine project success.

Team Temperature Reading: Spotting Phase Indicators in the First Meeting

While technical consultants meticulously assess system architectures, we often miss the equally critical architecture of human dynamics. The ability to quickly diagnose a team’s developmental stage gives you an immediate advantage.

In my first decade of consulting, I misdiagnosed team dynamics repeatedly. I’d mistake polite formality (forming) for healthy collaboration (performing), or interpret passionate debate (storming) as dysfunctional conflict. These misreads cost me dearly in credibility and effectiveness.

Through painful experience, I’ve developed a "team temperature" assessment that I now conduct in my first interactions with any client team:

Physical Indicators:

• Seating arrangements (clustered or dispersed?)
• Body language (open or defensive?)
• Eye contact patterns (who looks at whom?)
• Energy level (engaged or withdrawn?)
• Who arrives together and leaves together

Communication Patterns:

• Who speaks first and last?
• Who interrupts whom?
• Which topics create tension or animation?
• Are disagreements expressed directly or through passive aggression?
• How are decisions actually made versus how they’re supposed to be made?

Team Artifacts:

• State of documentation (collaborative or protective?)
• Email communication styles (inclusive or selective?)
• Meeting structures (rigid or flexible?)
• How success is measured and discussed

For example, in that challenging team I mentioned earlier, I quickly observed:

• Technical staff sat on one side, business staff on the other
• Eye contact happened within subgroups but rarely across them
• Technical discussions created animated debate while timeline discussions were met with silence
• Documentation was extensive but focused on protecting individual responsibilities

These indicators told me this team was stuck in storming phase, with tribal divisions and trust issues that no amount of technical expertise alone would solve.

Unwritten Rule 1️⃣: Your first job at any client is to diagnose the team’s developmental stage—this determines everything from how you introduce ideas to how you handle disagreements.

The Four Faces of Teams: Recognising Development Phases in the Wild

Theoretical models of team development are clean and linear. Real teams are messy, often displaying characteristics of multiple phases simultaneously or regressing under pressure.

Here’s what these phases actually look like in consulting environments:

Forming: The Polite Facade

• Excessive deference to authority figures
• Over-reliance on formal processes
• Limited volunteering or initiative
• Superficial agreement that masks uncertainty
• Private conversations after meetings where real concerns emerge

Consultant Approach: Create safety through structure, facilitate introductions that go beyond roles to include expertise and interests, make your expectations explicit, model appropriate vulnerability.

Storming: The Battlefield

• Factions forming around different approaches
• Passive-aggressive behaviour in meetings
• Excessive documentation to “cover” oneself
• Bypassing formal channels to get things done
• Complaints about other team members to you

Consultant Approach: Acknowledge tensions without taking sides, create decision-making frameworks that depersonalise disagreements, redirect energy toward external challenges, establish ground rules for constructive conflict.

Norming: The Community

• Inside jokes and shared references
• Comfortable challenging ideas without challenging people
• Spontaneous collaboration outside formal structures
• Problems raised directly rather than triangulated
• Team members speaking about “we” instead of “I” or “they”

Consultant Approach: Reinforce positive behaviours, help codify effective practices, introduce tools to enhance collaboration, gradually reduce your facilitation as the team self-regulates.

Performing: The Orchestra

• Fluid role exchange based on needs
• Problems solved at the appropriate level without escalation
• Continuous improvement without prompting
• Productive conflict that leads to better outcomes
• Mutual accountability rather than top-down control

Consultant Approach: Focus on optimisation rather than fundamentals, provide advanced challenges that stretch the team, document their effective practices to sustain after you leave, begin preparing for your eventual transition.

I once worked with a financial services team that appeared to be performing beautifully in technical discussions but reverted to forming behaviours whenever executives joined the room. Understanding this contextual regression was crucial to effectively navigating governance discussions.

Unwritten Rule 2️⃣: Teams rarely exist in a single development phase—they often display different phases in different contexts or around different topics. Map these variations to navigate effectively.

The Outsider’s Advantage: Using Your External Position Strategically

Being an outsider to established team dynamics is commonly seen as a disadvantage. In reality, it can be your greatest asset if leveraged properly.

As a new consultant to a team with established patterns, you have unique advantages:

• No historical baggage or allegiances
• Permission to ask “naive” questions
• Temporary immunity from political consequences
• A fresh perspective on entrenched problems
• The ability to speak truths insiders can’t safely voice

I once joined a government project where a fundamental architectural decision was causing significant implementation problems, but the team couldn’t address it because the architect who had made the decision was now the programme director. As the external consultant, I could question this decision by framing it as "helping me understand the context" rather than challenging authority. This opened a conversation no internal team member could have initiated.

To leverage the outsider advantage:

1. Use the “fresh eyes” period deliberately
   → Document observations and questions during your first two weeks
   → Ask fundamental questions before you’re socialised into the team’s assumptions
   → Look for patterns that team members may no longer notice
2. Create safety through neutrality
   → Avoid being pulled into pre-existing conflicts
   → Demonstrate that you can hold multiple perspectives simultaneously
   → Acknowledge the validity of different viewpoints before offering alternatives
3. Bridge between subgroups
   → Identify “translators” in each faction who can work constructively
   → Create mixed working groups around neutral topics
   → Highlight complementary strengths across divided groups
4. Introduce external perspectives strategically
   → Use “I’ve seen similar situations where…” rather than “You should…”
   → Present alternative approaches as options to consider, not corrections
   → Reference external standards or best practices to depersonalise suggestions

The outsider advantage diminishes over time as you become part of the team system, so use it deliberately and early.

Unwritten Rule 3️⃣: Your initial outsider status is a wasting asset—use it strategically before you become embedded in the team system.

Storming Weather: Surviving When You Become the Lightning Rod

Despite your best efforts, there will be times when you become the focus of a team’s storming behaviours. This is especially common when you’re brought in to drive change or when your role challenges existing power structures.

On a digital transformation project, I became the target of a coordinated undermining campaign from a group of technical leads who saw our new approach as threatening to their status. They questioned my expertise in meetings, withheld critical information, and created back-channels to senior leadership.

Strategies that helped me weather this storm:

1. Recognise it’s rarely personal
   → Team resistance to consultants often reflects past negative experiences
   → Opposition may be to what you represent, not who you are
   → Understanding the fear or threat behind resistance helps address the real issue
2. Document meticulously but discreetly
   → Keep records of agreements, decisions, and action items
   → Follow up verbal conversations with written summaries
   → Create audit trails without appearing defensive
3. Find allies without creating more divisions
   → Build relationships across organisational boundaries
   → Identify respected team members who can validate your approaches
   → Create coalitions around outcomes, not personalities
4. Address issues directly but privately
   → When faced with undermining behaviour, address it one-on-one first
   → Focus on the impact on project outcomes, not your feelings
   → Offer face-saving ways to change behaviour
5. Maintain your centre
   → Remember your value and purpose
   → Establish support systems outside the client environment
   → Know when to escalate versus when to adapt

The most powerful response to becoming a lightning rod is to remain consistently professional, outcome-focused, and non-reactive. Nothing defuses opposition like delivering results while refusing to be drawn into political battles.

Unwritten Rule 4️⃣: When you become the target of team storming, the winning strategy is rarely direct confrontation—it’s consistent delivery combined with patient relationship building.

Accelerating Trust: Techniques to Fast-Track Acceptance

The challenge for consultants is that we don’t have the luxury of time to build trust naturally. We need to accelerate trust-building to be effective quickly.

When I joined a telecommunications client for what was supposed to be a six-week engagement, I knew I had days, not months, to establish enough trust to influence their technology decisions.

Fast-trust techniques that have proven effective:

1. Demonstrate competence quickly but humbly
   → Show relevant expertise through specific, applicable examples
   → Acknowledge the limits of your knowledge transparently
   → Learn the client’s terminology and use it appropriately
2. Find low-risk opportunities for early wins
   → Identify small, valuable contributions you can make immediately
   → Solve annoying problems that have been neglected
   → Make someone else look good through your support
3. Practice consistent reliability in small things
   → Be punctual for every meeting
   → Follow through on every commitment, no matter how small
   → Respond to communications predictably and promptly
4. Demonstrate understanding before solution
   → Articulate the team’s challenges in their own terms
   → Reference the history and context of issues accurately
   → Connect your proposals to their priorities and values
5. Personalise relationships appropriately
   → Learn and remember personal details without overstepping
   → Find authentic common ground beyond the project
   → Respect the personal/professional boundary of each team member

The most powerful trust accelerator I’ve found is appropriate vulnerability—admitting what you don’t know, asking for help when needed, and sharing relevant challenges from past experiences. This counterintuitive approach signals confidence and authenticity more effectively than projecting infallibility.

Unwritten Rule 5️⃣: Trust formation follows a predictability equation: (Credibility + Reliability + Intimacy) ÷ Self-Orientation. Maximise the numerators and minimise the denominator to accelerate trust.

Cross-Cultural Team Dynamics: The Invisible Dimension

An often overlooked aspect of team dynamics is how cultural differences create invisible currents that influence team development and interaction patterns.

On a global banking project spanning teams in London, Singapore, and Mumbai, I naively applied my Western-centric understanding of team development. This led to misinterpreting the Singapore team’s deference to hierarchy as lack of initiative (when it was actually respect) and the Mumbai team’s indirect communication as evasiveness (when it was conflict avoidance).

Dimensions of cultural difference that impact team dynamics:

1. Power distance – How comfortable people are with questioning authority
2. Uncertainty avoidance – Tolerance for ambiguity and risk
3. Individualism vs. collectivism – Personal recognition vs. group harmony
4. Direct vs. indirect communication – Explicit statements vs. contextual understanding
5. Task vs. relationship orientation – Focus on deliverables vs. connections

When working with cross-cultural teams, successful consultants:

• Establish explicit team norms that bridge cultural differences
• Create multiple channels for input to accommodate different comfort levels
• Adjust facilitation styles based on cultural contexts
• Discuss communication preferences openly
• Use cultural differences as team strengths rather than obstacles

I now begin international projects with a simple exercise where team members share their cultural preferences for feedback, decision-making, and conflict resolution. This pre-emptive discussion prevents countless misunderstandings.

Unwritten Rule 6️⃣: Cultural differences add an invisible layer to team dynamics that can accelerate or impede development depending on how consciously they’re managed.

The Departure Paradox: How to Leave Teams Stronger Than You Found Them

The final test of a consultant’s impact on team dynamics isn’t how the team functions while you’re there—it’s how they function after you leave.

The departure paradox is that the more central you become to a team’s success, the more difficult and potentially damaging your eventual departure will be. This creates a tension between being valuable now and ensuring sustainability later.

I learned this lesson painfully when a project I thought was a tremendous success collapsed within months of my departure. I had become the central node in the team’s communication network, the primary decision-maker, and the conflict resolver. When I left, these functions left with me.

To leave teams stronger than you found them:

1. Build systems, not dependencies
   → Create processes that don’t rely on your presence
   → Document decision-making frameworks, not just decisions
   → Establish communication patterns that will outlast you
2. Distribute your knowledge deliberately
   → Identify who needs to know what after you’re gone
   → Create learning opportunities through delegation
   → Document not just what to do but why and how
3. Develop internal champions
   → Identify who will carry forward key initiatives
   → Invest in their capability development
   → Give them visibility and credit with leadership
4. Plan for your obsolescence from the beginning
   → Define explicit success criteria for your role
   → Create transition plans early, not as an afterthought
   → Gradually reduce your involvement in routine functions
5. Engineer a proper handover
   → Create formal knowledge transfer sessions
   → Introduce overlaps with replacements when possible
   → Remain available for limited consultation after departure

The most successful project transitions include a "fading out" period where your involvement gradually decreases rather than stops abruptly. This allows the team to adapt incrementally to your absence.

Unwritten Rule 7️⃣: Your ultimate success is measured by how unnecessary you’ve made yourself by the end of the engagement.

Case Study: Transforming a Dysfunctional Team

Let me return to that challenging team I mentioned at the beginning—the one that had burned through three project managers before my arrival.

After my initial assessment, I realised several dynamics were at play:

• A historical conflict between two technical leaders that had created tribal divisions
• Business stakeholders who felt ignored and had withdrawn from meaningful participation
• A culture of documenting failures rather than solving problems
• Lack of psychological safety leading to information hoarding
• No shared definition of success beyond individual deliverables

Rather than diving into technical solutions, I focused first on team dynamics:

1. I established a simple team charter that defined shared success criteria
2. I created mixed working groups that deliberately crossed tribal boundaries
3. I introduced a decision-making framework that required input from both technical and business perspectives
4. I held one-on-one conversations with key players to understand their concerns
5. I modelled constructive conflict by openly discussing tensions rather than avoiding them

The turning point came when I facilitated a retrospective focused not on the project but on how the team worked together. By creating a safe space to acknowledge the elephants in the room, team members began to see each other as people rather than obstacles.

Progress wasn’t linear—we had setbacks and difficult moments. But over three months, the team moved from dysfunctional storming to productive norming. The project that was six months behind eventually delivered successfully.

The most gratifying moment came a year later when I returned for a different project and found the team still functioning effectively, having maintained the practices we established long after I had gone.

Conclusion: The Human Operating System

Technical consultants often focus obsessively on technology systems while neglecting the human operating system that ultimately determines success. We analyse database performance in minute detail but miss the team dynamics that are causing delivery bottlenecks.

The reality is that in consulting, technical challenges are rarely the true limiting factor. Human dynamics—trust, communication, conflict, and collaboration—almost always determine whether a project succeeds or fails.

Developing your ability to read and influence these dynamics isn’t a soft skill—it’s a core consulting competency. The best technical solution implemented by a dysfunctional team will fail. A good solution implemented by a high-functioning team will succeed and evolve.

As you progress in your consulting career, invest as much in understanding team psychology as you do in understanding technology. Learn to recognise team development phases, navigate political currents, build trust quickly, and leave sustainable team systems behind.

Because ultimately, your technical implementations will be updated or replaced, but the human impact of how you helped teams work together can last for years.

In the next post in this series, I’ll explore "Leading Without a Title: The Consultant’s Guide to Stealth Influence"—the unwritten rules of how to lead and influence when you have responsibility but no authority.

Until then, remember that the most powerful technology you’ll ever work with is the human operating system. Learn to debug it as carefully as you would any code.

What team dynamics challenges have blindsided you in your consulting work? Share your experiences in the comments below!

Photo by Hannah Busing on Unsplash