Team & Group Coaching

Research shows that individual performance is far more dependent on the team environment than had previously been thought. In fact, high individual performance by one or more people in a team doesn’t necessarily lead to a high-performance team. Sometimes the opposite may actually be the case.

In recent decades, team coaching has emerged as an effective and practical way to apply the principles of coaching to the team as a whole. David Clutterbuck, a researcher, and authority on team coaching suggests that team coaching enables the team to do the following:

• “Develop a climate of psychological safety, conducive to collective learning. Team members learn to have open dialogue, to share concerns and fears and to work with constructive, empathetic challenge. As a result they build deeper levels of trust and higher quality of collaboration.

• Gain greater clarity, coherence and consistency around priorities – what’s most important for the team to achieve collectively. One of the signs that a team is successful in this is that individuals routinely put the team priorities ahead of their own personal task priorities.

• Better understand the processes that underlie how the team works, and identify ways to improve these. Team coaching helps the team question and validate its own assumptions, with the result that radically new ways of working frequently emerge

• Manage all three types of conflict (task, process and relationship) constructively – so that conflict becomes a driver of performance, rather than a barrier.

• Understand and value the contribution each member can make at their best, and how to support each other in creating circumstances, where they can play to their strengths

• Explore the team culture and help it evolve in line with changing environment, while still enabling everyone to retain their personal authenticity

• Increase the level of creativity and innovation

• Manage its reputation within and outside the organization

• Improve the effectiveness of communication, both between team members and with external stakeholders

• Have a stronger sense of shared purpose

• Become more resilient to setbacks

• Adjust its temporal orientation (achieving a better balance between attention to the past, present, near future and long-term future)”

Through team coaching everyone in the team learns and reflects together. Teams that embrace team coaching tend to demonstrate more focused, collective energy. As team members learn together, and support each other’s learning, they can use real work issues to practice the learning, thereby embedding new skills.