Turning Conflict Into Growth: The Power of the Flame Meeting
At the highest competitive levels, there are always a few teams that shine above the rest.
Having strong mechanics, high-level strategy, and clean execution are keys to success. What truly separates top teams is their ability to solve human problems faster.
When players have unresolved issues with staff or teammates, it affects their mindset. The accumulation of these unresolved issues eventually breaks the team.
At the end of the day, it does not matter how good a player is if they do not buy into the system.
Top teams have the strongest cohesion, and that is how they get maximum performance from their players and staff.
The problem is that solving these issues is very difficult. It requires a culture where people can openly discuss sensitive topics without backlash. Even then, it is still emotionally hard.
Over a decade ago, I developed a simple but effective tool to accelerate solving human problems in competitive esports.
Through the years, many staff members have used it but struggle to execute it properly. If misused, it creates more harm than good.
I called it “The Flame Meeting.”
What Is a Flame Meeting and Why Is It So Powerful?
First of all, it is not a meeting where players are allowed to flame each other. I named it this way because it was memorable and kind of amusing.
Years later, I heard stories of coaches on other teams running “flame meetings” where players flamed each other to death while coaches watched. That is a coaching crime.
The Flame Meeting is a team meeting inspired by group therapy but adapted to the needs of a high-performance team.
Conceptually, it is very simple: players discuss how others’ behaviors and actions harm them or the team.
Although the concept is simple, the execution is not.
When you ask a twenty-year-old player to describe which behaviors from a teammate hurt the team, you will often get a shallow answer. Most people avoid saying anything meaningful because they do not want to upset their teammates.
The staff must create an environment where feedback comes from the players without staff influence. At the same time, the interaction must be moderated to ensure honesty and productivity.
This process is powerful because:
Players rarely give honest feedback to one another. When they do, it has a strong impact.
Those who do it regularly tend to be passive-aggressive or toxic. With staff oversight, feedback is delivered without emotional weight and becomes easier to accept.
Players pay more attention to other players than to coaches. A coach can repeat something ten times with no effect. A teammate says it once, and suddenly it matters.
When a player receives feedback, accepts it, and opens up, the rest usually follow. This creates an environment where uncomfortable conversations can happen without becoming harmful.
How to Do It Correctly
Process Structure
The whole process usually lasts between 12 and 16 hours.
Interviews: 1–2 hours per player. Total 7–10 hours.
Formatting and preparation: 2–4 hours.
Although, now with ChatGPT probably it can be done much faster.
Team meeting: 2–4 hours.
Post-meeting follow-up.
Follow-up in the next weeks is essential to ensure the feedback has an impact. I don’t count these hours as part of the Flame Meeting because this should already be part of the weekly schedule.
Preparation
Define staff responsibilities. Ensure everyone knows their role. If it is your first time, spend extra time preparing.
Restructure the weekly schedule. Each player will spend 1–2 hours in a 1:1 and 2–4 hours in the team meeting. You cannot simply add this on top of the normal schedule, something must be postponed or canceled.
Explain the process to the players. A simple five-minute meeting explaining the purpose and structure is enough.
After this, add all 1:1 sessions (2-hour slots) and the team meeting (two 1.5-hour slots with a 10-minute break) to the calendar.
1. Individual Interviews
This is where you want players to be brutally honest. They can flame as much as they want. In reality, few are direct. You must guide them with open questions and follow-up questions.
General Interview Tips
Explain that feedback will be edited and anonymized. The more honest they are, the more they help the team.
Do interviews face-to-face whenever possible. Body language matters.
If online, use webcams and ensure the player is fully present.
Conduct all interviews in a short time window, ideally within two days. Weekly changes can make early interviews outdated.
All interviews must follow the same question structure.
The follow-up questions can vary, but ideally you should ask the same type of questions to everyone. If the questions differ too much, the feedback will be less effective in the team meeting.
Follow-up questions are more important than the initial ones. It’s where you discover the details.
If a player gives very short answers, he is probably avoiding “blaming” teammates. In that case: reiterate the value of the exercise, assure anonymity and ask more follow-up questions.
Take notes during interviews. Recording and transcribing is time-consuming and error-prone.
If two staff members can do interviews together (coach + psychologist), that is ideal.
Take notes during the interview instead of recording and transcribing. It saves time.
The best setup is having the head coach and the psychologist do the interview together, with one asking questions and the other taking notes, though this also takes time.
AI transcripts can help, but miss technical terms, so you still need to review everything.
Take a short break around the one-hour mark.
If the interview is 1.5 hours, break at 45 minutes. If it’s closer to 2 hours, break at 1 hour. With experience, you will be able to estimate the interview length better.
Question Structure
Interview the players following this structure.
Players: Go through all positions one by one. Ask about in-game communication, champion pool, mechanics, work ethic, professionalism, and anything that affects performance.
Ask the player about himself last.
Staff: Ask about coaches first. Strategy, leadership, teaching, relationships, scrims, post game reviews, drafts, scouting, stage performance… everything. Then ask about the psychologist (1:1s, theory sessions, impact in scrims, relationship with teammates), manager, and others.
Organization: Ask about internal communication, apartments, food, logistics, support staff, and anything that can improve.
Final question: “Is there anything else you’d like to add?”
How to Ask
Do not guide the answer, such as asking: “X’s comms are low. What do you think?”
Start with open questions, then narrow down with follow-ups.
Think of follow-ups like a flashlight with an adjustable beam:
Wide beam: “What do you think about his communication?”
Focused: “What do you think about how he gives feedback?”
Specific behavior: “How do you feel when he criticizes you?”
Specific incident: “During this moment he said Y, and you responded Z. What happened?”
If you’ve worked with these players for a while, you can tell when they are holding things back. Use that awareness to ask better follow-up questions, but do not influence their answers.
2. Formatting the Text
Create a document to clean and structure the feedback.
Organize it as:
Players (one by one)
Staff (head coach, assistant, psychologist, manager, etc.)
Organization
Group all feedback about each player or coach and anonymize it. It’s important to remove anything that could reveal who gave the feedback.
If two players were involved in an incident, anonymity is impossible, but that is fine.
Do not add coaches’ opinions. This process is designed for players to open up.
If something is repeated several times, group it into one line and write “3x” at the start.
3. Team Meeting
Do the meeting at the beginning of the day, ideally before scrims. Everyone must be sharp.
The meeting will be emotionally draining and may affect scrim performance, but it is worth it.
If offline, gather around a TV or screen. Phones away to avoid distractions. If online, use webcams and ask everyone to close all apps (Discord, the game, etc.) to ensure full attention.
Remind Everyone:
This process exists to help the team improve.
The information is anonymized and grouped.
Staff did not add their opinions, they are only facilitators.
Establish Rules:
Feedback will be shown on a screen and read by the head coach.
Order: players, staff, organization.
No interruptions unless the player does not understand something.
After listening, the player says what he agrees with, disagrees with, or needs clarified. When it’s the staff’s turn, they’ll do the same.
Each person ends by summarizing the most important feedback.
How to Manage the Meeting
At the start of the meeting, players are usually quiet, so staff must ask more questions. As they open up, this becomes less necessary.
When players start talking to each other, let the conversation flow. Only step in if it becomes unproductive or turns into blaming. The coach’s job is to keep it productive.
After reading a player’s feedback, always ask if he agrees, disagrees, or has questions.
Players may say “I said that because of X.” That is good. Thank them when they take responsibility or share something difficult.
If someone disagrees, discuss it openly and give the player space to explain.
If several players gave the same feedback and the player still disagrees, spend time helping him understand why others see it that way.
If a player says “I agree with everything,” ask what surprised him most and what he sees as the top three points.
If a player barely engages, go through each line and ask for his thoughts. It takes time, but it is better than getting nothing.
If a player says “I disagree with everything,” ask him to rank the feedback by how much he disagrees and explain the top three. Then ask which items he thinks impact the team the most and explain those too. This gives insight into how he thinks, and even if he does not admit it, feedback often influences behavior later.
When reviewing feedback about the staff, acknowledge mistakes and say you will work on them. Explain your reasoning when needed, but do not make excuses.
4. Post-Meeting
Doing the interviews and the meeting already brings a lot of value, but acting on the feedback is what speeds up player and team growth.
After the meeting, give each player a document with only their own feedback. Add the most important points to their individual plans, agreed on with each player.
Follow up weekly to check their progress, and ask teammates if they see improvements.
Staff should also meet to review what worked and what did not. Interviews reveal things players notice that staff miss, and things staff see that players overlook. Some players take feedback well, others do not, but everyone grows from the process.
Staff should use everything learned to adjust how they work with each player and update team goals. Sometimes it can even change the team’s overall direction.
Who Should Run the Process?
Ideally, the head coach.
However, the psychologist may take a larger role if the coach is not strong at managing difficult conversations.
Interviews
The psychologist has the best skill set for managing conversations, but the coach has the game knowledge for strong follow-up questions.
In an ideal world, one person runs the entire process. This avoids bias and information gaps.
If you are short on time and have enough staff, you can split the interviews. Ensure everyone follows the same approach so the interviews stay consistent.
If this is your first time, the coach and psychologist should do interviews together. It takes more time, but:
The psychologist can lead with strong initial questions and mediate if there’s an emotional reaction.
The coach can handle the follow-ups with in-game context.
They can give each other feedback.
They can analyze the information more effectively.
Leading the Team Meeting
If the head coach is good at managing difficult conversations, he should lead the meeting. It carries more weight when the leader handles tough situations.
If the coach is strong in strategy but weaker in emotional management, the psychologist can take over the process.
As a bonus, this also improves the players’ perception of the psychologist’s work.
Is There a Shorter Version?
Yes, but it is much less effective.
If you are short on time or intimidated by the process, you can skip 1:1 interviews and give players 15 minutes to prepare written feedback, then follow the same structure.
The problem is that you lose the follow-up questions, which are where the real insights come from.
This only works if your team is already very open and comfortable giving honest feedback, which is rare.
Most of the time, the short version is used because staff do not know how to run the full process or do not see its value.
Ten years ago, I ran the entire process myself while scrimming, watching VODs, drafting, etc. There is no real excuse not to do it. It’s too important.
Closing Thoughts
This is one of the most important processes for speeding up the resolution of human conflicts in competitive environments.
It is underused, and most teams that try it do it poorly.
Common problems include:
Interviews not conducted, or they include too many leading questions.
Players do not open up in the meeting, and staff cannot facilitate effectively.
And the most common mistake, not holding one at least once a month.
The value compounds with consistency. You begin seeing whether players acted on feedback, and players become more open.
It works like group therapy. One session helps, but the real benefits come from regular practice.
Now, take action.
Three weeks after starting scrims, run a Flame Meeting. The first time, your interviews will be mediocre and the meeting won’t be as effective as you want.
It will still be extremely helpful. You will see immediate impact and gain experience that makes future meetings better.
Once you see the value, it becomes a pillar of your coaching.
