I can tell within few minutes what a team is actually carrying.

• How people walk into the room.
• Whether they make eye contact with each other or look at their phones.
• How long it takes for someone to laugh, and whether the laugh is relaxed or performative.
• Where the tension sits in the room, and who is holding it.

Nobody has said anything yet. But the body has already given me the full picture.

Eyebrows that are knitted, or pinched. A braced spine that has collapsed forward, the torso compressed, not enough oxygen moving through the system. Feet that are not fully on the ground – crossed, tucked, hovering. Shoulders that are up and forward. Jaws that are set.

These are stress signals. And they tell me far more about what a team needs than any engagement survey or pre-session briefing ever has.

What I have learned from walking into hundreds of corporate rooms over more than ten years is this: teams do not hide stress. They carry it visibly in their bodies. Most people have just stopped noticing, because they are carrying the same thing themselves.

The work I do starts before anyone speaks. It starts with the room.