Team coaching is a process in which we as team coaches create a safe space for the team to step back, notice and make meaning of hidden blind spots and realities in their behaviours, processes, communication styles, relationships and how they collaborate.
It’s quite different from facilitation or “away days”. The emphasis is on the coaches creating the space and time for the team to develop the capability to step back, reflect and work out the answer to challenges and issues for themselves.
When people are thrown together the dynamics which emerge can be surprising. In fact, research has shown that only 13% of all teams actually drive performance; the rest fail to improve. Teams are complex, dynamic social structures and we recognise that every team is unique, but most teams face similar challenges which include, but are not limited, to: Building trust; Increasing psychological safety; Working through conflicts; Communication failures; Team relationships; Leadership; Common purpose; Change What we do “A team is not a problem that needs to be analysed and solved but a potential to be unfolded” ‘Meier 2005’
Our team coaching programmes are tailored to meet the needs of the team. We like to start with individual meetings with the team leader and the team members so we can understand what the dynamics and the goals are. This may be followed by a diagnostic tool to help identify strengths, gaps, areas of improvement and to agree key goals for the programme. The programme will then move into a series of coaching sessions where we work with the team in raising their awareness, whilst helping them to rethink the way in which they work together and creating those better choices that deliver enhanced performance. We are not with the team forever and to ensure that the change is sustainable we normally do some live action coaching sessions where we coach the team as they go about their normal business.
We have a number of diagnostics that we can use depending on the teams needs. An example of a diagnostic is teamSalient® which measures team effectiveness and provides relationship maps, in-built benchmarking against other, similar teams together with team action plans to chart progress. It consists of an online survey for each team member and often stakeholders to completes. Starting with teamSalient® allows us to baseline your team’s current leadership capability/effectiveness, as well as allowing the team to understand their existing strengths and development areas. A pulse can be run 6 – 9 months post-launch to demonstrate the post-development improvement.
