Team building is very different to team coaching. This isn’t necessarily just about forging stronger team relationships. Team coaching should actually help to make changes that support business goals. There should be a tangible difference after the coaching process.
To give some examples of where team coaching could really make a difference, we’ve shared some different scenarios that summarise common issues in any organisation. Do these pain points resonate with your business?
1. Conflicting C-Suite
There could be numerous reasons as to why this is happening, but a C-Suite that is struggling to work together effectively will not be good for business.
This could be the case for any senior leadership team. But for any team that is running a business, being aligned in how the team members work is kind of a must have.
Without the teamwork being present, you end up with silos, and the strategy is often then pulled in multiple different directions, meaning it becomes dangerously ineffective.
Let’s not overlook that one of the main advantages of having a team is differing viewpoints. You want people to see things from different angles, and for outputs to be debated. But ultimately everyone needs to have their goals aligned and be singing from the same hymn sheet if you’re going to be successful.
While the problem here is clear, how to solve the issue isn’t. Before we go into team coaching, we would always do a needs analysis.
A needs analysis is where you discover what's going on in terms of the dynamics, and it helps the provider determine whether team coaching is appropriate for the situation. Sometimes it proves far more useful to take some interventions before team coaching is initiated. That could mean there's a little bit of individual one to one coaching first, or some mediation that needs to happen in order to move forward.
The steps will be put in place to determine the outcome based on the ultimate needs of the business. So it becomes a meaningful exercise and not just about team bonding.
But first of all you have to make that brave decision that things are just not right.
2. Reluctance to Change
It’s not unusual for people to not like change. But what about when it’s at the board level? What about if the board wants to work in their way, and they essentially block out anyone new coming in with fresh ideas?
Too often, as humans, we can adopt a “if it ain’t broke don’t fix it” attitude. If things are just ticking along, people can feel comfortable with that, and any new suggestions can be seen as negative, because everything is working well as it is. Why change?
However, getting set in our ways is incredibly dangerous. The world around us is constantly changing, so if an organisation doesn’t change with it, then it will, at best, stand still. However, more often than not, it can end up going backwards without anyone even realising it.
Team coaching here has to work in a very specific way. We can’t just come in and challenge the comfortable environment, as we’ll get pushed out too. Instead we have to adopt different tactics. One of these is “timelining”.
With timelining, we might start really safe and just ask what things will look like in six months from now. As the landscape is probably not going to be hugely different, we know we can comfortably stretch them to it. Then we build on that to 12 months, two years, and then five years.
When they get to five years, that’s usually scarier territory, but with a great team coach, they can start to explore it. How does their current way of operating link with how they're going to be in five years’ time? This provides a nice gap analysis.
The reason we like this approach is because it comes from a place of Socratic direction. That means they identify the problem themselves, and then discuss what they need to do in order to move forwards. They need to feel that there's enough of a problem to motivate change. They need to see for themselves that there’s a burning platform, so that they feel the motivation to do something about it.
If you’re interested in finding out more about this approach, then we recommend reading either “Who Moved My Cheese” by Dr Spencer Johnson and “Our Iceberg is Melting” by John Kotter and Holger Rathgeber.
3. Organisational Objectives
A very common pain point, that we see in teams at all levels, is where they’re not working seamlessly together with each team member playing to their strengths. While this would affect how any team operates, when it comes to senior leadership, it’s going to have a far more significant impact on the bottom line.
That means that if you solve the problem of your executive teams, then you are more able to achieve your organisational strategic objectives, and you will see a genuine return on investment.
This is where you need to make sure you’ve understood team coaching and what it can do.
Team coaching is essentially helping a team. It’s not aiding a group that has come together, it’s about identifying collective objectives. Where do they as a team want to be and where are they starting from? The team collectively sets measures of success based on what they want to achieve.
The team coach holds them to account to make and monitor progress, and you should start to see significant progress in that team within about six months.
The Benefits of Team Coaching
If you’d like to dig deeper into the benefits of team coaching, then please take a lot at our previous blog “Top 5 Benefits of Team Coaching”, where we shine a light on what you can expect from this sort of coaching.
Or if you’d like to chat to our team about how team coaching could benefit your organisation, please don’t hesitate to get in touch.
