Team Coaching - Five areas to consider

Team coaching is getting a lot of attention these days - from within the coaching community, and also organizations and teams themselves.  In the last few weeks I've shared a number of posts which included articles on some of the differences between group and team coaching, and you are invited to take a look at what's been written here since 2005. Some of this, of course, appeared in my 2013 book - From One to Many: Best Practices for Group and Team Coaching.

Today's post is focusing in on five areas you'll want to pay attention to in your design and support of the team coaching series of conversations.

Five areas you will want to consider taking more time to focus on, and be in dialogue around, include:

The Contracting Phase - Contracting is always an important part of Designing the Coaching Agreement. As it relates to team coaching, be sure to focus in on who is involved, what's the focus, what assessments (if any are going to be used), how the conversations by the team will get the necessary support, time and resourcing so that they can make the changes, as well as other items around confidentiality, logistics, etc.
What are you wanting to explore around contracting?

The Context in which the team operates  - Most team coaching approaches will take a systems view of the conversations, even in a remote team environment. The context in which our team members operate is heavily influential within the team coaching engagement. What are the elements which are important to take into consideration around the context?

The team itself - Team composition is not always static, or similar. Over the last decade there's been a lot written to support members in terms of teaming (See the work of Amy Edmondson), as well as Is the team, really a team in its purest sense, or is it more like a work group, given the location and focus of different tam members? Are there a number of smaller micro-teams in the larger team you are being asked to coach? How do these smaller groups operate and communicate with the larger body?

Involvement of the team leader - The team leader is one of the many voices of the team, and their involvement, and buy in is critical in ensuring that time and resources are allocated for the ongoing focus of the team in the conversations they need to have between the official team coaching touchpoints. If the team does not have time to implement their new learning, or the pause to continue to glean insights, the best intended team coaching is destined to fail.
What are you doing in terms of pre-conversations with the team leader to help them create the space and focus needed for the work?

Team Effectiveness Elements - What are you doing to provide the team with time to explore the elements which underpin how they operate - their vision and mandate, to their goals and roles (to name a few). Returning back tot he basics around core team effectiveness elements can be of importance. Many coaches are also eager to learn more about this area. For an introductory primer of the components of team effectiveness, you may want to take a look at this short on-demand course on Team Effectiveness I created as part of the Teams365 series a few years ago. It's a great way to get up to speed on some of the foundations of teamwork. Learn more about this on-demand program and sign up here.

These are five areas of a much larger series of items which need to be explored as you go to set up a team coaching engagement. For further ideas check out this supplementary Digital chapter - Team Coaching in Action which you can find at my From12Many.com website (use code 4411 when prompted). These chapters are a supplement to From One to Many: Best Practices for Team and Group Coaching.

Enjoy your week,
Jennifer
Jennifer Britton - Group Coaching Essentials | Teams365 | Potentials Realized
Instagram @Remote Pathways (for remote workers) and @CoachingBizBuilder (for coaches)
Author of Effective Group Coaching (2010), Coaching Business Builder (2018), Effective Virtual Conversations (2017) and From One to Many: Best Practices for Team and Group Coaching (2013). Check out my author page on Amazon for all publications.
Email: info@potentialsrealized.com

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