Good Teams Are a Recipe With Heat: How Energy and Alignment Drive Performance

Teams need heat - but the right ones

You’ve probably seen the countless posts on LinkedIn about building teams using cooking analogies. Mix the right ingredients — skills, personalities, behaviours — and you’ll get a great team. Some even go as far as using pancake recipes:

• 110g plain flour
• Pinch of salt
• 2 eggs
• 200ml milk + 75ml water
• 50g butter

Individually, the ingredients aren’t much. Together? They become something tasty.

Teams are the same. Individuals bring skills, behaviours, and perspectives. Alone, their impact is limited. Together, they can scale work and create outcomes far beyond what one person could achieve.

But almost all of these analogies miss a key element: heat.

Mix flour, eggs, milk, and butter, and what do you have? Batter. To make pancakes, you need heat.

It’s the same with teams. Just putting capable people together doesn’t guarantee results. Without heat, you have a room full of capable individuals, potentially doing nothing — or simply coexisting.

So what is this “heat,” and how do you generate it in teams?

Fear: The Flash Fire

Fear is a fine form of heat — but it’s tricky.

Individually, fear can motivate action. I recently spoke to someone whose job was “crushing her soul.” She feared what continued inaction might do to her. That fear gave her courage to quit — even with no alternative lined up. It was fear driving her to act.

👉 When we feel something we move —> check out this article on moving people into motion

In business, fear from leaders or managers, however, is dangerous. Leaders who use fear as a tool create panic, competition, and disengagement. People stop speaking up. Good people leave.

Fear in the wrong place burns bright but briefly — like lighter fluid.

The right kind of fear, though, can exist contextually. Startups often operate under the fear of running out of money. That fear motivates focus, energy, and problem-solving without crushing the team’s soul.

As Edward Deming famously said: “Drive out fear.” Use fear carefully, and never as a tool of control.

Clarity and Alignment: My Heat of Choice

If I had to pick one form of heat that consistently works, it’s clarity and alignment.

• Clear goals
• Compelling purpose
• An inspiring strategy

When people know the direction and how their work contributes – and are excited about bringing this future to life – heat emerges naturally. They move with energy because they understand the stakes, see progress, and feel their work matters.

Clarity + purpose = sustainable heat.

Deadlines: Micro Heat

Deadlines are small, contained bursts of heat. They create urgency and focus.

Think about getting ready for a holiday. Suddenly, packing, checking the cats, putting the house on vacation mode — it all gets done. The deadline creates energy and attention.

At work, deadlines serve the same purpose, but only if they’re realistic and well thought out. Misaligned deadlines create stress and diminish trust.

Meaningful Personal Growth

When work develops people, it generates heat intrinsically.

If a task stretches someone slightly outside their comfort zone and contributes to their growth, energy and attention naturally follow. Pair this with a clear mission and strategy, and heat becomes sustainable.

Forced Cooperation Goals

Sometimes, teams have competing goals, or are working in absolute chaos. This creates misplaced heat — energy is spent wrangling instead of producing results.

A powerful tool is forced cooperation: overarching goals that require collaboration across teams.

An example from my own career: Our Development team focused on new features, while Operations prioritised platform stability. Conflict was inevitable. Setting a shared goal between both departments — new releases weekly with 99.999% uptime — forced cooperation and aligned energy. Heat now serves the outcome, not individual agendas. This is how we created DevOps before it had a name.

Incentives: Handle With Care

Incentives are the most commonly used form of heat — but often misapplied.

Individual rewards can fragment teams. Team rewards can feel unfair if some contribute more than others.

A better approach? Incentives tied to stakes in outcomes, like startup equity or collective success. Everyone contributes, everyone benefits. Heat becomes aligned with collaboration, not competition.

Avoid perks or rank as primary motivators — they often generate destructive competition. True heat comes from shared success, not limited rewards.

Competition: Short-Term Fire

Competition creates heat, but it comes with costs. When leaders pit teams or individuals against each other, heat is generated — but so is division, disengagement, and a loss of trust. Competition also fosters silence.

Short-term wins are possible, but in the long run, constant competition erodes collaboration and creativity. Use competitive heat sparingly and carefully.

Bringing It All Together

The lesson is simple: good teams are a recipe with heat.

The ingredients—people, skills, perspectives—are necessary, but not sufficient. You need energy and attention directed toward shared goals.

Here’s my approach to creating heat in teams:

1. Paint a bright, compelling picture of the future.
2. Define a strategy to overcome obstacles along the way.
3. Gather like-minded people interested in the challenge.
4. Set realistic deadlines and measurable goals.
5. Force cooperation with shared objectives where needed.
6. Manage low performance and slackers
7. Use incentives tied to outcomes, not perks.
8. Ensure the work develops individuals and clearly contributes to meaningful goals.

When people feel growth, connection, and purpose, heat is generated naturally. Engagement follows as a side effect.

Without heat? Human potential is wasted. Teams stay as batter. With heat? You turn those ingredients into pancakes—or something even better.