We are going through some serious changes at the moment aren’t we? When we look back at the last 12 months, we have seen the uptake of remote working go from 27% to 48% in the UK and with 86% of people want to have a hybrid approach going forward.
But what does that mean for our teams?
Well of course more personnel within our teams are working remotely which has led to companies rationalising the workspace to save costs. This means in turn that we have to hot desk and even book a workspace in the office. This reduces the amount of time we can connect with our teammates and our team stakeholders resulting in us feeling as if we are disconnected from each other in what is ironically, a very connected world.
Reflecting on how we help our clients in order to enable them to overcome this problem, we have turned to Systemic Team Coaching. It is through utilising Systemic Team coaching that we have been able to open the eyes of clients to a world that can be connected in a meaningful way to each other and their key stakeholders.
What is Systemic Team Coaching?
Systemic Team Coaching is defined as “a process by which a team coach works with a whole team, both when they are together and when they are apart, in order to help them improve both their collective performance and how they work together, and also how they develop their collective leadership to engage with all their key stakeholder groups more effectively to jointly transform the wider business”.
It was devised and based around Professor Peter Hawkins “5 Disciplines of a High Value creating Team” and has been developed in conjunction with John Leary Joyce and Hilary Lines.
The process of Systemic Teams Coaching is depicted below. It is designed as an iterative process that enables the team to look at the dynamics of those in the team and also those external parties who are connected to the team in an Outside/Inside and Task/Process way.
Here is an example of how this has helped one organisation.
This organisation has an idea of what they were looking for and an understanding of their stakeholders but however there was little clarity on how they could manage Business As Usual (BAU) and the expectations of those stakeholders.
Steps To Success:
The Inquiry Stage
Helped the organisation gain a better understanding of their challenges at the time, who were their key stakeholders and what they expected from the team. Interviewing both team members and stakeholders to gather data that formed the basis of the STC going forward.
Issues:
The team was overwhelmed with project inquiries and were struggling with maintaining business as usual procedures.
The relationships with the stakeholders were at best cordial and needed improving especially those based globally and the team itself had lost its way with regards its fundamental purpose.
After feeding back the data through a coaching workshop the team decided what areas they wanted to focus and co-designed the coaching process that provided the right focus on the right discipline at the right time.
Co-Commissioning
The team were guided on how to unite around a purpose which, by engaging in honest conversations both as a team and key stakeholders, provided the motivational drive to improve and become a team that looked out as well as in.
Clarifying
Understanding a way to work with each other engaged the team members in looking at what they actually did in comparison to what they should be doing and how to close the gap. Clarity around roles and responsibilities helped them to prioritise better and work effectively. Productivity increased almost immediately as did the quality of conversations with peers and leaders around accountability.
Co-Creating
This gave the team members the opportunity to examine the internal relationships and work on the team dynamics. They had lost sight of the need to socially connect which meant they felt siloed. The coaching workshops provided enabled them to come up with workable solutions that provided not only productive meetings but also the social elements that gave them a sense of connectedness.
Connecting
There was a distinct disconnection with the stakeholders. This is a global company that relies on key relationships to provide a global service. The relationships were perfunctory at best which built walls instead of relationships. By looking at the data, it enabled the motivation to knock down the wall and build the relationships that would enable a great service and for a stronger flow of information.
Co-Learning
Probably the most important element to move the team forward. How were they going to capture and learn from the successful and less successful experiences going forward? Once they began to focus on this, they came up with great ideas on the best way to share knowledge ranging from MS Teams Channels, to regular formal and informal meetings.
Systemic Team Coaching is not just a process to get you from A to B. It is about enabling a holistic view of the team that looks outside as well as in. Systemic Team Coaching provides organisations with the means to focus on the areas that enable purposeful teams that include both team and stakeholder perceptions in their thought processes and practises long after the coaching program has finished.
Contact Us Today
Ready to start your team’s journey to success? TLC coach Terry Neild, is our expert in Systemic Team Coaching and is in demand!
For a no-obligation consultation, give us a call on 03450 950 480, to get your teams on the route to success today.
Sources
Hawkins P, Leadership Team Coaching, Kogan Page, 2017
Joyce J-L/Lines H, Systemic team Coaching, AoEC Press, 2018
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