Learming Hub

Team coaching and the fall of the silos…

Executive coaching is gradually becoming a popular staple of today’s organisations. The never ending search for self improvement, growth and achievement is finally catching on.

exec coaching

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To succeed in an information packed, fast paced world, the support of executive coaching helps individuals to uncover and focus on what is truly important.

But what about teams?

A constantly interconnected organisational world rely heavily on the power of internal and external networks to grow effectively. Yet engaging with any network means also engaging with multiple individual agendas, at times conflicting with each other, frequently leading to less than optimal and counter productive compromises.

What if we could use the same principles, tools and techniques we use in executive coaching with organisational teams?

Holding the coaching space allows individuals to dig deeper into their true purpose and motivation and in doing so, find powerful inner resources to achieve a fulfilling life. What if a coach could hold the same space not for one but for many people at the same time?

After all a team is no different than the multiple roles every individual is invested in. Resolving personal conflict and internal ambiguities is fundamentally what teams must do to be effective. Team coaching is a wonderful blend of the traditional practice of team facilitation and the the art of creating and holding a coaching space where individuals trust each other with their own vulnerabilities.

The job of the team coach is to provide a space and a framework for the group to have a meaningful conversation and to also observe the group dynamics at play and balance the leading with the being led.

Team coaching is about letting each team member recognise their own role in the team

It is also about letting them become aware of the role everyone else must play for the team to succeed. Team coaching is also about helping each team member to notice how their attitudes and behaviours impact others and choose those attitudes and behaviours that most contribute to the team successful outcome.

Team coaching is about creating the space for a team to recognise how each individual is connected to each other and how they all rely on each other to succeed in the achievement of a common purpose. Team coaching is not about compromises. It is fundamentally about finding the place we fit in the community we work with.

Individuals in a team also deeply affect energy levels.

When a team is engaged and connected, the flow of work is smooth and dynamic. When even a single individual is uncertain and disconnected, the flow of the team is tentative and disempowered. The role of the team coach is to help individuals learn and recognise these team moods and to become proficient at regulating them even after the coaching session is over.

Collectively facing any tough situation before it becomes unsustainable is a team priority and team coaching can help a team to become attuned and courageous to such events. Inability to recognise such complex team dynamics almost certainly leads to separation, individualism and ultimately causing individuals to form single minded agendas and silos.

 

Today’s world needs good team coaching to help teams in all organisations face the critical social and organizational challenges individuals alone cannot.

 

Fabio Grassi is the Programme Director for the IMI Diploma in Executive Coaching which is starting on 20th April 2016.

Fabio is a specialist in the development of team performance, collaboration and motivation. 

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