Team coaching: Your competitive advantage
Leveraging diversity to create inclusive and highly performing cultures
What is team coaching?
Team coaching is the art and practice of facilitating and challenging a team to maximise its relationships and dynamics. The purpose is to improve its enjoyment and performance, in service of the organisation.
Like one-to-one, team coaching is not a single event but rather a journey that requires dedicated time and space to unfold. The intention is to create an emotionally safe and engaging space where experiential learning and collective change can occur.
The client is the team including the leader. Within this context a team is considered an interrelated group of people come together to achieve a common goal. It is not the sum of its parts but something else — what is also called the ‘third entity’.
The coach maintains a soft focus on the ‘third entity’ — on the whole team as a relational living system — which is constantly evolving.
How does it work?
The industry offers many different methodologies of team coaching:
Some focus more on performance and the development of agile teams; others focus on the relationship system dynamics, or/and the development of collective leadership, and more. I learned — after having certified with the finest schools of practice — that they share many commonalities and principles.
Overall the coaching journey has three main phases:
Discovery & Assessment
The coach might use different diagnostic tools to evaluate the starting point: where is the team today. This assessment is essential to understand their strengths, main themes and the specific challenges they are facing.
Then, the coach ‘reveals the team/system to itself’ by sharing these findings.
As the team starts becoming aware, they identify and align on the direction forward for the coaching as well as on an action plan — all facilitated by the coach.Ongoing Coaching
Takes place through several weekly or bi-weekly sessions. Preferably conducted in person, but often virtually when people are geographically dispersed. More on what happens at this stage is in the section below.Completion and next steps
As there is always an end to an arc, team coaching must come to its completion. In this phase the team captures the learnings; evaluates the journey behind and celebrates its success. Most importantly the team identifies the new baseline, and chooses where to go next. The coach might remain connected to the team with check-in from time to time to support the continued integration of the learnings.
What happens during the sessions?
The stance of the coach is to hold the team as naturally creative, resourceful and whole — they have all it takes to do the work and she/he empowers them to tap into their own collective creative intelligence and leadership.
One of the premises of team coaching is 'work with what is working’: while playing to their individual and collective strengths the team finds momentum to achieve its desired goals.
By working with the team’s own agenda, the coach is able to tackle challenges as they emerge in real time at work: the deeper issues are revealed and worked on.
In that sense coaching is an experientially and contextually-driven learning experience. Science has proven this is the most effective method for adult learning and growth.
The coach helps the team listening and seeing itself in action. It’s like holding a mirror, so that they in turn become conscious of how they are together and then able to change what’s not serving them anymore (beliefs, behaviour, attitudes, etc.).
Real change happens not only during the sessions but also in between. When the team puts into practice what they learn through the coaching, and holds itself accountable to practice in their work. In coaching language we call this continuous process ‘deepening the learning while forwarding the action’.
An important part of the coaching is training in the adaptive and inter-relational skills that are so instrumental in leadership and teamwork.
If needed bespoke workshops might include: understanding system dynamics; collective leadership and accountability; how to leverage diversity and dissent; developing a creative and positive mindset; how to manage change and conflict productively; team toxins and their antidotes; communication skills; emotional intelligence and resilience; and so much more.
The real magic happens when the team taps into its collective intuitive, creative and emotional resources to resolve its challenges and thrive.
The role of the coach is to challenge, champion and empower them; to sense what’s is needed in the moment, and provide it as the process unfolds.
Coaches call this competence ‘dancing in the moment’. A skilled and experienced coach is good at wearing different hats: the coach, the trainer, the mediator; the leader; the consultant (only when some directives are needed and/or requested by the client).
How could it benefit your team?
Practicing together allows for an emotionally safe space whereby the team dreams, plays, fails, and learns together — as a result discovering how to embrace vulnerability; transforming conflict and difficult situations into opportunities; building empathy, care, and trust toward each other.
As the team grows more steadfast and cohesive — rediscovering itself as a whole — a shift of consciousness from the ‘me’ to the ‘we’, occurs.
The galvanising realisation for its members to belong to something much bigger than themselves, calls for a collective sense of responsibility and accountability.
What emerges is a renewed sense of identity, clarity on shared values and purpose, and the behavioural code amongst them — their team culture.
The team becomes both the observer and the observed; the dreamer and the dreamt.
Research has shown that team coaching increases both positivity and productivity by an average of over 20%. It is the competitive advantage every organization should invest in. Its benefits go a long way beyond performance and results, and bear ripple effects within the organization and society at large.
How do you find the right team coach for your team?
Please check your candidates’ qualifications; there are many people who are self-proclaimed coaches, with no formal training. Probably with the best intentions, they are harming the profession as well as people and organisations they serve. Make sure they hold certifications by the International Coaching Federation (ICF) to work specifically with teams and systems. Although individual and team coaching have some bases in common, holding a team requires a unique training and years of experience. If you are interested in my qualifications and experience please check them at the bottom of the ‘About’ session on the site.
Ultimately find someone you trust and has some understanding of your industry, although that’s not mandatory.
Invest in team coaching as it really makes a lasting difference. If you want to learn more, please feel free to contact me at roberta@namanhandpartners.com. I’d be delighted to hear from you.