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Hey Subscriber First Name,

If you're in the UK, you'll have felt it this past week. We've just come through another heatwave, June temperature records broken again in 2026, parts of England nudging 38 degrees and a Red Extreme Heat Warning from the Met Office. We get a few of these every year now. And every time, the country does what it always does when things get uncomfortable. It comes together.

Fans sell out everywhere. People share ice and cold water with neighbours they've never spoken to before. Offices that have been arguing about the air conditioning for months suddenly agree on a setting. Everyone has the same problem, and because of that, everyone pulls in the same direction. The usual politics goes quiet for a while, because there's only one thing worth thinking about, and that's getting through the heat.

Of course, it's not all neighbourly. The same heat that brings people together pushes others over the edge. You'll have seen it, someone squaring up in a shop over the last fan on the shelf, tempers fraying in slow traffic, a short fuse where there's normally a bit of patience. The heat doesn't change who people are. It just turns the volume up on whatever's already there.

I watch all of this every summer and can't help thinking about how similar it feels when a project hits its own heatwave.

You know the moments I'm talking about. A critical milestone is at risk and suddenly the whole team is in the same room, focused, no distractions. A supplier drops out and within hours people who've been operating in silos are collaborating like they've worked together for years. A client escalation lands and the politics between departments vanish because everyone has a bigger problem to deal with. The heat brings clarity. When the pressure is real and shared, people stop protecting their territory and start working together because they have to.

There's something powerful about that. Steven Bartlett talks in Diary of a CEO about how shared adversity reveals who raises the bar and who lowers it. When a team is under genuine pressure, you see people's true character. Some step up, stay calm, and lift the people around them. Others crack, blame, and drag the energy down. One person who stays steady during a heatwave can elevate the entire team. And one person who panics can undo the work of ten people who are holding it together.

That's the first lesson from the heatwave. Pressure bonds teams when it's shared and meaningful. When everyone understands the problem and feels like they have a role in solving it, something shifts. The noise falls away and people focus on what matters. Some of the best teamwork I've ever seen happened during the hardest periods on a project, not despite the pressure, but because of it.

But here's where the analogy gets important. A heatwave that lasts a day or two brings people together. A heatwave that doesn't end breaks them apart.

If the pressure on your project is constant, if every week is a crisis, if the team never gets a chance to cool down, the bonding effect disappears. People stop rallying and start surviving. They stop helping each other and start protecting themselves. The PM who was holding everything together quietly starts to crack, and because they've been absorbing everyone else's heat, nobody notices until it's too late.

I've seen this happen. A project hits a rough patch and the team pulls together brilliantly. But then the rough patch extends into a second month, then a third. The initial energy fades. The collaboration turns into fatigue. People start snapping at each other in meetings. Decisions get made badly because everyone's too drained to think clearly. The heatwave stopped being a moment the team rose to and became the thing that burned them down.

The difference between a heatwave that bonds your team and one that breaks it is recovery. The real heatwave shows us this too. People find shade. They take breaks. They drink water. They don't carry on as if everything is normal. They adapt their behaviour to match the conditions.

Projects need the same thing. When your team has been through a period of intense pressure, you have to create the shade. Ease the pace for a week. Cancel the meetings that can wait. Acknowledge that the last few weeks were hard and give people space to reset. The PM who drives through a heatwave without ever letting the team cool down will lose them. The PM who says "we pushed hard, now let's take a breath" keeps them for the next one.

Because there will always be a next one. Every project has a heatwave. The question is whether you and your team come out of it stronger or weaker. And that depends on how you lead through it. Rally the team when the heat arrives, stay steady so others can follow your lead, and when it passes, make sure everyone gets the chance to recover before the next one hits.

MAKING IT HAPPEN: Your Weekly Strategy

Think about the current temperature on your project. Is your team in a heatwave right now, or have they just come through one? If they're in it, ask yourself: does everyone understand the problem, and does everyone feel like they have a role in solving it? Shared understanding is what turns pressure into bonding. If they've just come through one, ask yourself: have I given them space to recover, or am I already pushing towards the next milestone? This week, do one thing that creates shade for your team. Cancel a meeting, lighten a deadline, or simply acknowledge that the last few weeks were tough. Recovery is what makes the next heatwave survivable.

CHEAT SHEETS

The free cheat sheet library is here. I'll keep adding to it. Save the link and grab whatever helps.

If this one landed, forward it to a PM whose team has been running hot for too long. Sometimes the most useful thing a leader can do is create the shade.

bilaljamil.com | Newsletter archive | Hit reply and tell me about the last heatwave on your project and how your team came through it. I read every one.

Have a great week and speak soon, 

Bilal