Most senior level teams find it almost impossible to work together effectively and achieve the results that the organisation demands of them. We work with senior teams to both develop individuals within the team and to develop the team’s capacity to work effectively in relationship with their peers and others, allowing the team to realise its true potential.
In the same way that executive coaching makes individuals more competent as leaders, so team coaching helps senior teams work more effectively together by increasing their shared sense of leadership. A relevant quotation is “talented teams outperform teams of talent” (David Whitaker). Whereas teams spend most of their time on the tasks they need to complete, team coaching specifically focuses on the process of how they work together to realise their combined potential.
A modern perspective in considering what constitutes leadership is to view leadership, not just as a set of qualities which reside in the leader, but to consider leadership as a process defining the relationship between a leader and all the team members. Looking at leadership this way brings into importance the need to create and then maintain these complex relationships. This is the role of team coaching; to explore and help the team agree the ways which they need to work together to be effective and to uncover and resolve any dysfunctional team behaviours which impeded team effectiveness.
A new commercial director recognised the need to be able to leverage the diversity and experience of their inherited team to make more effective decisions on behalf of their client base. We were brought in to help them clarify their joint purpose, the challenges they would face in achieving this purpose and how they might work together more effectively to increase their chances of success.
“The outcomes from the team coaching were a greater understanding and consensus on the direction we were taking, a recognition of the challenges we would be facing along the way and identifying some ways in which we could better collaborate and challenge each other. This led to a noticeable shift in the team spirit of the directorate in the following weeks and months.
– Operations and Commercial Directorate
