The Messy Middle: Practitioner reflections on team coaching engagements that didn't go to plan
The Messy Middle Practitioner reflections on team coaching engagements that didn't go to plan
🎙️ Live webinar — free to attend
Reserve your spot below!
What we'll cover
Most team coaching and team development case studies show you what worked. This one doesn't.
In this session, Craig Howe and Oussama Labib open up the engagements that went sideways — and explore what the wreckage actually teaches us about how teams get stuck, and what it takes to move them forward.
We'll cover:
🧩 The airbrushed narrative problem — why practitioners share their wins and bury their failures, and what honest community dialogue actually looks like in practice;
🏗️ Structure meets behaviour — why behavioural diagnostics surface the symptoms while structural reading explains what generates them; how Miki Island's maturity stages and structural analysis work together, not against each other;
📋 Case patterns from the field — two anonymised engagements (an NGO board and a European Marketing Leadership Team) with a structural reading of what went wrong and why;
🤝 The contracting failure point — how most "team coaching failures" are actually contracting failures in disguise; why platforms and methodologies can't fix weak contracting — only practitioners can; drawing on IMPACT Infinity research with Jayne and Sylvie-Anne;
✅ What does work — assessing team coachability before you engage; structural assessment alongside behavioural diagnostics; recontracting as an ongoing discipline rather than an opening ritual; and why pace versus clarity is the meta-friction in scaling teams;
🎯 Implications for coaches, buyers, and the Miki Island community — how to read teams structurally, what questions to ask before commissioning team coaching, and how structural thinking enriches simulation-based work.
Your hosts
Craig Howe — Miki Island Partner, PCC, EMCC Member, Centre for Excellence, Team Coaching
Oussama Labib, Founder& Creator, Miki Island - CEO & Founder
About Miki Island Miki Island is a team development simulation that moves beyond frameworks into real behaviour. Teams play, get diagnosed, and get coached — all in one session. Used by hundreds of coaches globally and impacted 300,000 participants from leading companies such as Spotify, Microsoft, IKEA, and others.
About Teamivism Teamivism helps leaders and teams cut through complexity and unlock real performance. By building psychological safety, harnessing collective intelligence, and aligning on decisive action, we transform pressure into progress.
The result? Stronger collaboration, more intelligent decisions, and sustainable results in high-stakes environments.