The continuous and accelerating rate of change requires teams to be adaptable, collaborative, and resourceful. Competition between organisations requires teams to be the best they can in shortening timescales.
Leadership and management teams need to be able to do the work and take ownership. Team coaching supports this process and enables the team to take responsibility and accountability for themselves over the longer term as well as building skills to repeat this process in newly formed teams.
We know that only 13 – 21 percent of teams are working at the highest level however there is often a great deal of hype around evaluation and often pride gets in the way, rather than questioning what else can we do to move things forward and how can we become a top-performing team?
Team coaching provides tangible benefits in moving teams to their highest levels. The benefits of team coaching include:
Delivering better business results, and
A more effective, collaborative, resilient, and sustainable team.
Additionally, teams and the wider organisation experience:
Whole team accountability: The team focuses on achieving success collectively - as a team - rather than as individuals. The team collaborates in the development of a ‘team charter’ achieving shared clarity of focus and purpose and an acceleration of trust.
Maximising team strengths and navigating risks: The team builds deeper interpersonal connections and deepens its insight on team strengths and areas of risk. More constructive relationships are built across the team.
Collective learning, in context: The team learns from one another as well as the system/s that surround them. Often, they need to create factors for success where they lead themselves. Real examples can be worked through together with the team, enabling them to put into practice the lessons learnt and embedding new skills.
A wider perspective on stakeholders and the system: Rather than linear thinking of cause-and-effect, the team considers the entire system in which it works and the multiple layers of influence. It surfaces awareness and considers how the team can influence and make changes. Enabling conversations that go deeper and wider like the rippling in a pond to have a more lasting effect.
Increased Return on Investment: This wider perspective creates greater understanding of the Return on Investment of team coaching in faster time to higher performing teams and stronger team leadership. Team leaders report that the deep awareness into their team gained through team coaching enables them to lead with more insight and more impact. Alongside this team coaching positively impacts on seemingly unrelated issues such as increased engagement, reduced turnover of skilled employees and decreased disruptive conflict.
We like to ask the question that David Clutterbuck cites –
‘Which is the team in this organisation that you can afford to let fail?’
If you can identify such a team, the organisation might need to reconsider why that team exists. However, if for all teams which should not be allowed to fail, team coaching provides significant benefits and a pathway to sustainable success.
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