“Susan! I need an intervention for one of my production teams. How soon can you organize some training and a team-building retreat? Line B’s numbers have fallen since we brought in those new members.”
“Jenny, I hear you. Line B won “Most Outstanding Team” for three consecutive quarters last year, and now are in the bottom quartile. It does sound like a performance problem. Why not join me for a chat later today, I want to introduce you to our new Coach?”
“A coach? For what? Are you going to have someone work with the new Crew Supervisor? But I feel it’s more than one person that has issues. Not sure I have the budget.”
“No. Not one-on-one. A Coach for the team. And I promise, if it’s the right solution, it will be affordable.”
“A team coach? Are you going to take them out for a group run every day or give them drills on the new equipment? Sounds arbitrary. I want something targeted.”
“Ha, ha. No. Not quite. I know in the past our go-to solutions for performance issues are training and team-builders. But let me ask you this? How sure are you that the issues are just the newbies affecting your team dynamics or not knowing the equipment? There could be a number of other issues at play. I know you’re anxious to get your numbers up, but I want to encourage you to take a broader, longer-term view. Didn’t your line guru just retire? And if I recall, Line B has been shut down for safety issues three times in as many months. If you involve the crew in identifying and interrogating the issues with professional assistance, coming up with possible solutions and agreeing on an action plan to achieve clear targets linked to the corporate ones, they are more likely to turnaround their performance, and keep it going even if new issues arise.
“So you’re saying coaching is like teaching them to fish?”
“No, more like taking them to sea, on a boat, with someone who can help them navigate the waters to find places where they can catch more fish.”
“More fish! I like the sound of that. How about 3.30 p.m.?”
What is Team Coaching?
Team coaching applies the principles of one-on-one coaching to the team as a whole to create long-term change.
While coaching for leadership development and individual growth has been around for some time, smart organizations are recognizing the value of coaching for teams as well. Leveraging both individual and collective understanding and strengths to resolve issues and plan for performance, is a surer way to achieve targets and sustain success.
Just as we learned in the previous article on “What is Coaching?”, the best way to understand what Team Coaching is, is to understand what it is not. That is, Team Coaching is not team building, mentoring, training, or facilitation. While all these team-based interventions can lead to improvements in collaboration, communication, morale and performance, these modalities lean towards one-off problem-solving. The outcomes are often temporary, with short-term impact.
- Team building: A short-term intervention, often geared towards improving team dynamics, boosting morale and engagement of members through fun group activities or experiential exercises. Typical duration ½ day to 2 days. Average 1 day.
- Team-facilitation: A one-off exercise, in which the facilitator creates a conducive working environment for a team to work together to solve a problem, plan or achieve a common goal, using guided conversations, simulations and other tools. Typical duration ½ day to two days.
- Team-mentoring: An on-going engagement between either a mentor (expert or experienced person) and a mentee team, or a mentor team of expert or experienced persons and an individual mentee, to allow access to advice on work related matters.
- Team-coaching: An on-going process in which a coach provided support to empower teams to co-create the conditions needed to sustain high performance through continuous improvement, innovation, responsiveness, adaptability and goal alignment. Typical duration 3 – 18 months.
- Team training is a form of training that departments or business teams complete together
As highlighted in the table below, Team coaching provides the most benefits.
Team coaching is not the same as group coaching. It involves individuals working collectively towards a shared outcome, as opposed to a group of individuals with a common concern, working towards personalized outcomes. An example of a team coaching experience would be an operations crew in the same organization working on a culture-shift. An example of a group coaching experience would be an association of female executives interested in achieving work-life balance.
With the support of the right coach, and the benefit of time, the focus will shift from individuals working to achieve their own goals, to individuals working together to achieve their part of shared goals, using linked objectives and targets. Over time, a well-coached team will acquire the skills to assess performance requirements, identify ways to eliminate performance blocks (systems and processes, working conditions, equipment, knowledge, skills, behaviors, relationships, group dynamics, leadership culture). Of course, this must also be paired with leadership support to ensure the team is aware of and provided with the permissions and resources to align with the overarching strategic requirements.
What does a Team Coach Do?
A team coach partners with a team to co-create a reflective process and empowering environment, that allows members to leverage their abilities and potential to define and achieve a common purpose and shared goals.
Similar to one-on-one coaching, a team coach contracts with the team to establish the terms of reference; conduct assessments using diagnostic tools such as 360 assessments, engagement surveys, group dynamic profiles; interrogate outcomes/clarify root-causes and assumptions; establish shared goals with measurable performance objectives and develop action plans. Once the foundation is laid, the Coach will continue to meet with the team on a set schedule to review progress, assess goal achievement and outcomes, and integrate learnings into future plans.
When engaging a team coach, keep in mind that the engagement is neither one-off nor short-term. Typically, to realize benefits, the team should be committed to working with the coach for at least three months to a year or more. Some issues, such as a culture change may require more than a year, though the frequency of meetings may decrease over time.
While the cost to engage a Team Coach is higher than that of the cost for individual coaching, it can be considered more cost-effective than a series of unlinked activities trying to find solutions or only providing one-on-one coaching to a select few.
Do we need a Team Coach?
Sustained performance comes from equipping and empowering teams to become self-learning and self-managing over time.
As the business world environment grows more competitive and complex, more organizations are recognizing that the traditional ways of managing people and performance are not cutting it. Even as companies turn to new technologies and artificial intelligence to automate processes, increase efficiency, increase output, reduce risk, and reduce overheads, at the foundation and sometimes the heart of competitiveness and sustainable growth there will always be people. How we lead, organize and manage people is rapidly changing. How well is your company keeping pace? Visit the MLI Coaching Centre to find out.
