In today's dynamic and fast-paced environment, teams play a pivotal role in achieving organizational objectives. However, the existence of a team does not guarantee success. Effective collaboration, synergy (the total being greater than the sum of the individual parts), and a shared sense of purpose are essential for teams to thrive. This is where team coaching steps in. Team coaching is a powerful approach that enables teams to maximize their potential, enhance performance, and drive results. In this blog post, I will explore the concept of team coaching, its benefits, and how it can transform teams into high-performing units.

Team coaching is a structured and collaborative process aimed at enhancing the effectiveness of a team as a whole. It involves a coach working collectively with the team, rather than focusing solely on individual members. A team coach acts as a facilitator, guide, and catalyst, empowering the team to identify and overcome challenges, develop stronger relationships, leverage strengths, and align their efforts towards a common vision. Team coaching goes beyond skill-building or problem-solving, as it also focuses on the team's collective intelligence and fosters a culture of learning and growth.

Several benefits of team coaching have been identified:

1. Improved Communication and Collaboration: Team coaching encourages understanding of others through open communication, creating a safe space for team members to express their thoughts, ideas, and concerns. Through effective communication, teams can build trust, resolve conflicts, increase creativity, and collaborate more efficiently, leading to higher productivity and innovation.

2. Enhanced Team Dynamics: By identifying and addressing underlying dynamics within the team, coaching helps create a supportive and cohesive environment. It allows team members to understand each other's strengths, weaknesses, and preferred working styles, leading to improved teamwork and stronger relationships.

3. Increased Accountability: Team coaching instills a sense of shared accountability within the team. By setting clear expectations, defining roles and responsibilities, and establishing team goals, coaching helps the team members take ownership of their actions, fostering a culture of responsibility and commitment.

4. Leveraging Diversity: Teams consist of individuals with diverse backgrounds, skills, and perspectives. Team coaching harnesses this diversity by encouraging inclusive decision-making, valuing different viewpoints, and leveraging the collective wisdom of the team. This leads to innovative solutions and a broader range of perspectives.

5. Sustained Performance: Team coaching is not a one-time intervention; it is an ongoing process that supports continuous improvement and sustained performance. By nurturing a growth mindset and fostering a learning culture, coaching helps teams adapt to change, overcome obstacles, and thrive in complex environments.

Skills of a Team Coach:

An effective leadership coach may not be a good team coach as the complexity of leadership coaching is multiplied by the number of team members. So good team coaches, need to be excellent leadership coach‘+’.

The plus is a team coach who is aware of the complexity of organisations, competing objectives, timelines, motivations, plus being aware of the power of the collective. A team coach takes a system thinking perspective, viewing an organisation as a series of nested systems, overlapping and interacting. Through this systems perspective the team coach can help team members understand the collective reality and the implications of the system in which they work in. Through this team members can collectively identify strategies to achieve success.

With this systems perspective, the team coach will need to be aware of stakeholder engagement, team confidentiality, team contracting and objective setting. For example, how does the team agree an objective or purpose which is exciting and motivational for each member, rather than being a compromise to get someone on board? A 50/50 ‘give-and-take’ compromise may be expedient, but not optimal in the long term.

A leadership coach needs to be aware of individual preferences, and adapt to the needs of their individual client. A team coach needs to understand this, plus group problem solving approaches, for example, ‘talk-it-out’ people vs ‘internal problem solvers’ and how to get the best of both and collectively, team creativity and innovation, power, dominance and conformity which goes beyond hierarchical position.

Conclusion:

Team coaching is a transformative approach that empowers teams to unlock their full potential, foster collaboration, and achieve outstanding results. A team coach needs first-class coaching skills, excellent communication, emotional intelligence, active listening, a helicopter perspective of the system, strong empathy while remaining objective without colluding with the inner world of the team, and excellent facilitation skills.

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About the author

Ian Day, Director at Coaching programmes, Centre for Lifelong Learning, University of Warwick