Team Coaching

with

Jill Fairbairns (BA MSc C Psychol AFBPsS)

Team coaching provides what it takes to become a high performance team. It builds energy and focus for your team as a collective entity. It enables them to raise their game on the special contribution that they, working together, deliver to the organisation.

It is most effective when

When team coaching is needed

  • When the team is faced with a huge new challenge, meaning they’re at the heart of critical strategy work or major organisational change
  • When the team’s work is good but not aligned with the rest of the organisation and their performance could be great if they were
  • When the team’s doing well, but they could go from good to great if they combined more effectively
  • When the team’s work is good but it could be great if they made a collective impact on the people around them
  • When they’re just starting out as a new team

Outcomes from Team Coaching

  • Quicker decision making and shorter implementation times
  • Improved working relationships between team members
  • Improved relationships between the team as a whole and their stakeholders
  • The team meet and even exceed the expectations of stakeholders
  • A raised feel-good factor for all members of the team
  • Sustained progress after the end of the coaching programme
  • A positive impact on the business from dealing with problems in the leadership team

The results that teams achieve over a 6-18 month programme are more than the sum of the parts. If your team are ready and willing to put their time and commitment into a team coaching programme, the value is sure to be realised.

How it works

Team coaching is a journey that the team and I design together. We plan to bridge the gap between where they are now and where they want to be. We use the activity of the team as the subject matter for learning and change.

Events and activities in a team coaching programme include

  • Work on the quality of conversations in the team
  • Team development days
  • Real-time coaching during business meetings
  • Individual coaching of all team members on team contribution

I create a bespoke programme from these activities to meet the team’s particular needs and aspirations.

As your team coach, I usually work with an Associate, or invite you to nominate one of your own people to partner with me. We observe strict standards of confidentiality and professional discipline.

Three Step Approach

Step One: Contract, Inquiry and Diagnosis

Clarify the team’s coaching needs and formulate 'road map' for team coaching programme.

Step Two: Decision Point.

Team and team coach decide next steps together. Are they ready and willing to go ahead with full team coaching programme?

Step Three: Run the team Coaching Programme.

Work on bespoke mix of activities and make significant progress towards agreed team goals.

STEP ONE: Contract, Inquiry and Diagnosis

Contract

Meeting with leader, then with whole team. Get joint agreement to go ahead with the first stage: Contract, Inquiry and Diagnosis.

Inquiry

Collect data to establish baseline for team coaching programme – to include:

  • Outside-in analysis: to understand team context. Interview sponsors and senior stakeholders about expectations of team and about performance against these. Explore business context and current business strategy. Optional addition: upward or 360° appraisal of team.
  • Inside-out analysis to understand the team and how they work. Observe team business meetings. Examine current team objectives and performance data. Interview all team members about the team. Conduct psychometric personality profiling.

Diagnosis

Map findings from Inquiry against “The five disciplines of high performance teams”. Provide observations on current team development needs and suggest staged team coaching programme in a road map.

STEP TWO: Decision Point

Meeting of whole team:

  • To make sense of findings from Stage One
  • To review priorities for team development and the team coaching programme
  • To enable team to make collective decision about whether to go ahead

STEP THREE: Run the team coaching programme

Timescales vary lasting from 6 to 18 months. Team Coaching Programme tailored from the team’s selection of the following:

  • 2-4 off-site meetings of whole team together to work on: clarifying collective purpose, objectives and team roles, developing a team scorecard, stakeholder mapping and management; addressing apparently intractable problems faced by the team; monitoring and evaluating progress of the team coaching programme
  • Training workshops for whole team or small groups to work on shared development needs: e.g. influencing skills; dialogue skills
  • 3-6 individual coaching sessions per team member on effectiveness in team roles and improving team contribution
  • Live coaching at normal business meetings (3-5). Provide occasional ‘time-outs’ to reflect on meeting effectiveness and how to improve it.

The programme comes to an end with a learning review in the team.

Examples of Team Coaching Programmes

Teams can and do learn to become more effective with team coaching

Jill works at clients' premises, at her own offices in West London, and by telephone.

Situation

Several months after a merger, a new leader from one legacy organisation was appointed to a transnational team formed mostly from the other one. At the same time a new round of severe cost cutting was imposed on the whole business.

Team Coaching Programme

We focused on clarifying team purpose, establishing a team scorecard, building and maintaining relationships with senior stakeholders. At the same time all team members led an initiative on change management processes and skills involving staff down to first line leadership level.

Outcomes

After one year, legacy rivalries were superseded by collective commitment to performance imperatives, and the team was recognised for business discipline.

Situation

A long-term strategy review led by this global network leader drew attention to necessity for urgent re-think of 5-year operational priorities.

Summary of one-to-one interviews in team showed agreement on strategic review but opposing views on next steps. Splits on global leadership team were apparent between line and functional roles, and between long-term associates of leader and relative newcomers.

Team Coaching Programme

We aimed to build collective leadership of a major project to re-cast organisation’s purpose, vision, strategy and 5 year operating plan. Began with team negotiation of varying contributions to ‘collective leadership’ and setting ground rules to guide behaviour. Programme involved one-to-one coaching and team away-days.

Outcomes

Radical approach to managing into the future emerged from united team, and was accepted by corporate executive body.