What is team coaching?

Coaches work with the entire team to reflect, improve performance, develop collective leadership and become more effective at engaging with  stakeholders in order to ultimately enable business growth.  Team coaching often focuses on some of the themes below although each team is unique so each coaching journey will be different:

• Clarity of purpose on why the team exists and who it serves
• Clear articulation and understanding of roles, success measures, objectives and working processes
• Team dynamics and culture
• Constructive and effective engagement with critical stakeholders
• Ongoing learning and transformation

The essence of who I am as a team coach is the same as who I am as a one to one coach except that the focus is on the whole team as the client rather than the individual.  In team coaching assignments I work with another experienced coach to manage the coaching process starting with diagnosing where the team is at followed by co-designing the coaching programme with the team and co-facilitating workshops to enable reflection, action and progress.  Finally there will be an evaluation of the programme and focus on ensuring the team’s progress post coaching.

There is increasing evidence of the efficacy of team coaching.   The Harvard Business Review cited research  that team coaching leads on average to a 46% increase in goal achievement compared to teams that do not receive coaching.  The Centre for Creative Leadership found that 80% of teams that receive coaching experience a significant decrease in conflicts and tensions.  Finally,  a leading UK retailer found material improvement in team and organisational performance following team coaching as a result of creating a common purpose, psychological safety within the team and improved learning.  (Source:  Building Top Performing Teams - Lucy Widdowson and Paul Barbour).