Why Team Coaching?

Team

coaching is getting a lot of attention these days with the current WBECS spotlight on the new team coach training being spearheaded by David Clutterbuck and Peter Hawkins.

It's an era where team coaching is coming into its own. As someone who is a team coach practitioner, author on the topic and coach trainer for group and team coaches, I'm often asked, why is team coaching valuable?

I thought I'd reach back and share the value of the team coaching process which I first published in From One to Many: Best Practices for Team and Group Coaching  back in 2013.

Here are the six reasons I highlighted back in 2013 about what was being said about the benefits of team coaching. Consider how relevant these still are for our work today:

#1 - Space for the team to pause and reflect - As I wrote back in 2013, "In today's busy environment, it is very easy to let reflection moments become swept away by immediate issues. A team coaching sometimes provides the only reason why teams will stop". Consider how you are incorporating short and long pauses, along with reflection for the team.

#2 - Prioritizing the need for focus - related to the first point engagement in a team coaching process may create urgency and a priority for the team to focus, particularly as now there is someone coming in to create a pause.

#3 - A non-judgmental sounding board/space for dialogue

#4 - Ability to mirror back to the team what is going on. Observations are foundational to the coaching process, and new awareness gets created by the team as they start to notice their own patterns, behaviors and habits.

#5 - Strong fous on the outcome

#6 - Accountability focus: it holds the entire team responsible for taking the action, and making the changes they have committed to over time, through sustained conversation and check-ins" - pp 147

As I often say, regardless of how much the context changes, the foundational approaches and practices of team coaching are still the same.

What do you hear from coaching clients about the importance of the team coaching process?

Enjoy the conversations,
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

Join us for an upcoming CCE approved program, including the Virtual Facilitation Essentials program (8.5 CCEs), Group Coaching Essentials (8.5 CCES), or the Advanced Group and Team Coaching Practicum (10 CCES) starting April 3rd

Expanding Your Group and Team Coaching Toolkit - Presentations (29)

This week we find ourselves at the topic of Presentations as we look at expanding your group and team coaching toolkit.

Today's blog post is a little different in two respects. Number one, earlier this morning I recorded a short six-minute Facebook Live video with more detail about the five bullet points I want to share here.

Second, this week's post is not about what you can do with your groups and teams around their presentations  (perhaps more on this next week), RATHER it's more about your presentations of a business case, and the set up to group and team coaching. This is an area we cover more in-depth at the Group Coaching Essentials program, and at the Advanced Group and Team Coaching Practicum.

In your lead up to coaching many, there are likely to be multiple conversations with those being coached (the group members), as well as sponsors and any others involved in supporting those going through coaching. You'll want to make sure that roles and responsibilities are super clear, as is confidentiality and the role of the client.

As I discuss in this week's video message, five other areas you may want to cover in lead-up to the conversation are:

#1 - What is coaching (in general)?
#2 - How does group coaching differ from a workshop, and/or team coaching differ from team building?
#3 - What are the benefits of group and team coaching - here's where you might share case studies of your work, or benefits across the board. If you are working with a team, for example, it may be useful to share the focus on both results of the team, and building relationships.
#4 - What is the process people can expect
#5 - What are some of the critical success factors - i.e. team leader involvement and allocation of time to have conversations, and make the changes, and also their openness to receiving feedback

What are the elements you include in pre-coaching conversations? Who do you involve.
As I share in this week's video, the pre-conversations can be an important part of creating clarity for an ongoing coaching conversation.

I'm aiming do these short 5-10 minute Facebook LIves this winter (between now and early March) on Monday mornings around 845 - 9 am ET. I hope that you'll join me and you'll see when I go live at my Effective Group Coaching Facebook page.

Here's a link to this week's video

Enjoy!
Jennifer

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The Value of a Team Coach

As many of you know, my latest book, From One to Many: Best Practices for Team and Group

Coaching (Jossey-Bass, 2013) expands the focus to include team coaching in addition to group coaching. The book explores the similarities as well as differences between these two related fields.

Today's post is an excerpt from the book - pages 146 and pages 147 - which discusses the Value of a Team Coach. This section, like most of the book, was shaped by the more than dozen interviews I held with team coaching practitioners and experts like Phil Sandahl of Team Coaching International, Drs. Jacqueline Peters and Catherine Carr, and Sharon Miller to name a few.

Here are six things a team coach provides for teams ("The Value of a Team Coach") which is expanded upon in From One to Many: Best Practices for Team and Group Coaching:

1. Space for the team to pause and reflect
2. Prioritizing the need for focus
3. A non-judgemental sounding board/space for dialogue
4. Ability to mirror back to the team what is going on
5. Strong focus on the outcome
6. Accountability focus
(Copyright Britton, 2013, pp. 146-147, All Rights Reserved) 

Here is what I write in From One to Many: Best Practices for Team and Group Coaching:

"The Value of a Team Coach

In today’s era of cost-cutting, the conversation around the value add of team coaching  is critical. What do team coaches bring to the table that the team cannot do for themselves?

In today’s busy world of doing more with less, with little space to pause and reflect, the team coaching process can provide teams with:

Space for the team to pause and reflect : In today’s busy environment it is very easy to let reflection moments become swept away by immediate issues. A team coach sometimes provides the only reason why teams will stop - “We know that they are coming in” or “we know that we have scheduled it”.

Prioritizing the need for focus - By bringing in team coaches (whether internal or external), there is now pressure to make this a priority. It is not an issue that can slide as easily as if the leader or team members were tasked with this.

A non-judgemental sounding board/space for dialogue - Coaches provide the non-judgemental sounding board and space. It may be the only safe place for team members to “air their dirty laundry”. The confidential nature of the conversation can help to surface the “elephants that are below the surface”. One team I worked with indicated that they had failed to surface the elephant for two years because they did not feel safe in divulging it, nor have a confidential forum to raise it in. Once the issue was surfaced it enabled the team to make a significant change in terms of the types of difficult issues they were communicating and addressing.

Ability to mirror back to the team what is going on - Coaching provides an opportunity for the team to see itself in the mirror. What do they notice about how communication happens, or persistent patterns that play out day after day. Mirroring provides an opportunity to really “see” what is happening in the team it’s processes and relationships.

Strong focus on the outcome - Team coaching holds the space for the team to create a deep focus on the issues that are important for the team, as well as identify key outcome measures. What is important to us? What will the outcome be? What will success look like?

Accountability focus - One of the greatest benefits I hear from team coaching clients is that it holds the entire team responsible for taking the action, and making the changes they have committed to over time, through sustained conversation and check-ins.  If the team has operated in a culture of creating action plans but not following through, having an external accountability partner like a coach, can have a big impact."

(Copyright 2013, Britton, pp. 146-147, All Rights Reserved)

 

What do you see or hear from your teams about the value you as a team coach are providing them?

For several case studies around what team coaching looks like and the impact it is having, I would invite you to download a digital chapter "Team Coaching In Action" which accompanies my latest book here. 

I would also invite you to check out the other resources - interviews with featured coaches and other links - at the From One to Many: Best Practices website. 

Please feel free to share your insights and comments below.

Have a great week,
Jennifer

Jennifer Britton, MES, PCC, CPCC
Potentials Realized | GroupCoachingEssentials 
(416)996-TEAM (8326)
Check out daily quotes, questions and ideas at the Teams365blog - for teams and team leaders 

Upcoming programs include the Group Coaching Essentials teleseminar starting Tues Jan 28th at 6:30 pm Eastern/New York (1/28, 2/4, 2/11, 2/18, 3/4) and Thursday Feb 6th at 10:15 am ET (running 2/6 to 3/6). 6.75 CCEs. Early, early bird pricing on for the April 5-6 Group Coaching Intensive (being renewed for 15 CCEs) until Jan 30th.

The Benefits of Group Coaching

I recently wrote an article for the CoachingTools site on the Benefits of Group Coaching which grew out
of questions from coaches, prospective clients and organizations around what are the benefits of a group coaching process. I hope that you will read the article here.

As I wrote several years ago in my first book, Effective Group Coaching, benefits for coaches include the ability to work with a larger number of individuals, offering a range of services at different price points. Many coaches may also appreciate how group coaching can leverage their time and impact.

Coaching clients, or participants of the group often comment on how powerful the peer learning process really is, as well as the different pace a group coaching process offers. Many clients may find it more comfortable to have more time to reflect and learn from the insights of their peers. The lower cost of a group coaching process can also be a great attractor.

I have written on the benefits of group coaching for organizations before (see earlier blog posts). The cross-functional fertilization that happens between group members is increasingly important in today's collaborative workspace, where today's business challenges require new approaches. The scalability of a group coaching process, also enables  more individuals to benefit from a coaching process, at a lower cost per capita. One of the more intangible, but important benefits of a group coaching process, is the relationships formed across, and within an organization.

For those interested in reading further about group coaching benefits I hope that you will:
Read the recent article I wrote for Coaching Tools here. 
Refer to Chapter 2 in Effective Group Coaching (Wiley, 2010)
Refer to the Chapters on Group Coaching and Team Coaching in my newest book - From One to Many, Best Practices for Team and Group Coaching, just released by Jossey-Bass. 

Have a great week,
Jennifer

Jennifer Britton, MES, PCC, CPCC
GroupCoachingEssentials | Potentials Realized - Leadership, Teamwork
Join us for the Group Coaching Essentials teleseminar starting August 1st (Thurs 10-11:15 am ET) - 6.75 CCEs
Phone: (416)996-TEAM