Team Coaching

Some quotes regarding Team Coaching:

Team Coaching:  “The art of facilitating the performance, learning and development of a team”.  Downey

Team Coaching:  “The purpose of team coaching is to enable the team to succeed at a particular objective.  The focus of team coaching is to enable the team, and also the individuals within it, to ‘develop’.”  Hardingham

Aim of team coaching:  “There is a strong argument for defining the aim of team coaching in terms of bringing the team to the point where it is largely self-sufficient in coaching itself.”  Clutterbuck

What is Team Coaching?

You may be wondering what exactly team coaching is and whether it’s really just a rebranding of ‘team building’ or ‘team development’.  In our experience there can be a number of similarities and activities that could equally feature in ‘team building’, ‘team development’ or ‘team coaching’.  However the key distinguishing characteristic  of team coaching is that the coach or facilitator is working with an intact team, one which is looking to raise its performance, often seeking to move from an ‘average’ or ‘good’ team to a true ‘high performing’ team.  By ‘high performing’ we mean a team that others look up to because team members work well together, build on each other’s strengths and complement weaknesses and, crucially, consistently deliver and meet their goals.  Each team coaching programme is bespoke and tailored to the clients needs. Team coaching is applicable at all levels and is especially valuable for senior management teams.

A skilled team coach will work with a team in a diverse range of ways – observing, questioning, listening, providing challenge, using an appropriate tool or framework to facilitate learning and imparting knowledge via skill-building sessions.

Specific areas of focus for team coaching are likely to include:

• Agreeing or revisiting the team’s mission, purpose, vision and goals
• Meeting or exceeding performance standards
• Behaviour that maintains team cohesiveness whilst recognising and respecting differences in team members’ ways of working
• Creating clearly defined roles and motivating tasks
• Developing collective and individual self-awareness, self-belief , shared values and agreed norms
• Supporting a no-blame culture
• Agreeing processes for problem solving, decision making, conflict management and boundary management
• Responding effectively to changes in team membership, structure, performance criteria and processes

Contact Colin Graves now to discuss team coaching on 07881 636538 or via the web.