Research Paper: Coaching Teams: Outlining Preparation To A Team Coaching Engagement

Research Paper By Oleksandr Zeleniuk
(Executive and Leadership Coach, UKRAINE)

Introduction

One of the key business principles is to achieve greater results with as few resources as possible. The role of teamwork in the process of improving business performance is constantly growing. A number of the latest researches confirms that the effectiveness of teamwork determines the success of the company to a greater extent than the individual effectiveness of employees. Thirty-one percent of survey_[1]respondents confirm that they now operate mostly or almost wholly in teams, with another 65 percent saying they are mostly hierarchical but with some cross-functional team-based work. Nevertheless, a lot of leaders are not well in operating in teams.

As an executive coach, I often hear requests from my clients concerning intentions to coach them either with subjects related to their teams or the effectiveness of the teams themselves. Such requests cover a spectrum of issues related to team functioning essentials.

Because the interest in the coaching of teams has grown continuously, both within the industries and professional coaching bodies, I am interested in the ways to put a foot into this domain of coaching. In particular, in this research, I would like to outline possible approaches to team coaching in terms of what a coach should consider before team coaching intervention and what might be in helping to secure engagement in a team coaching project.

I have an intention to focus on considerations as of entering in team coaching engagement via creating team coaching agreement outside the team coaching session, keeping in mind the differences between team and individual coaching interaction as well as possible outcomes. It is worth to note too, that the majority of literature dedicated to teams examine the factors of teams’ effectiveness and productivity (definitions of an effective team, the factors necessary to take into account while forming a team, routine team procedures to deliver results, communication rules, team leadership, etc.) rather than team coaching. On the other hand, even those dedicated to coaching of teams are diverse enough to narrow it down to a coaching standard similar to that in ICF.

To begin with, the distinctions between individual and team coaching are worth mentioning. One of the approaches offered by Phillip Sandahl defines five areas where the differences between individual and team coaching are especially remarkable (please, See Table 1)._[2]

Table 1. Five differences between individual and team coaching

Coaching aspect to compare	Differences
Coaching aspect to compare	Coaching individuals	Coaching teams
Commitment level at the beginning of a coaching intervention	High	A spectrum of attitudes and reactions: from eagerness to skepticism and resistance
Focus	Achieving personal goals; implementing vision energy	On the present; team collaboration; business-driven
Relationship	Individual, simple and clear	Multilateral and multilayered: coach and team; coach and team leader; agreements the team makes with one another; an indirect relationship with the organization
Environment	A private, one-on-one confidential dialogue.	Public and vulnerable. The most important conversations are between team members, not the one they have with the coach.
Coach’s attention	Focused on the only client in front	Pulled in many different directions simultaneously: leader and team members, priorities, session agenda

Summary based onSandahl P. (2019) More, better, faster! The business case for team coaching.Choice magazine, Vol. 16, #4, p. 25.

In comparison to coaching individuals, team coaching demonstrates grown complexity due to the enlarged number of individuals, their agendas, and connections both inside and outside the team. Not only team members’ relations influence team performance but expectations of outer stakeholders do as well. Despite the widespread and unchallenged view that a team should be considered and treated as a single whole, such an approach is far from reality. Team integrity is not a given fact; it is achieved in the process of evolution of an initial group into a team, often jointly and together with a coach.

Another factor that has an impact on team coaching is business orientation. A team, in most cases, is a part of a larger organization with its own goals and strategies, requiring proper alignment between team and organization purposes. Therefore, the effectiveness of a team is assessed by the outcomes it produces relevant to the organization’s objectives.

The well-known definition of a team, coined by John Katzenbach and Douglas Smith_[3]: “a small group of people with complementary skills who are committed to a common purpose, performance goals and approach for which they are mutually accountable”, reflects adequately the key attributes of a team, which might be a part of the whole subject of team coaching:

“a group of people” may imply a team leader, any or all team players and the team as a whole;
“complementary skills” mean a set of skills necessary for completing a task or project;
“commitment” is signifying a level of engagement, a promise to support team strategy, or to behave towards agreed goals. Without a commitment to team agenda individual priorities may prevail;
“common purpose” (where) concerns a vision created and shared by the team and all team players aligned with the one of the entire organization;
“performance goals” (what) imply expected results of teamwork;
A common approach (how) shared measures of team effectiveness, letting the team operate smoothly and manage the tasks;
“mutual accountability” of team players and leaders as interdependent responsibility for their decisions or actions and readiness to explain and justify them when necessary. It is also avoiding situations with no responsibility taken.

As practice shows, most often, a team coach is invited when:

The team setting is on its initial stage (when starting a business) and the team defines its main goals.
The team is working on creating a vision and mission, defining values.
An overall strategy needs to be developed.
The team is faced with a task that it has not encountered before (for example, implementation of changes, crisis management).
There is a need for the development of leadership competencies and the formation of teamwork skills.

To keep relationships inside the team and the expected outcomes interwoven, team coaching interventions should be directed to the relationship between the team’s goal and the team’s capacity to carry it out. Some of the practitioners outline the following three possible areas of focus of team coaching interventions:_[4]

1.The team’s goal. Working on a team’s goal is an external focus and is well applied when a team is considered as a whole. It may include working on the goal itself (where and what) – defining or redefining it, breaking it into smaller steps – as well as on the strategy (how): elaborating it and its implementation activities; updating it when required; communicating the strategy with other structures within the organization.

2.The team’s capacity to collaborate to achieve the goal. This area has an inner focus. As Richard Hackman (2011) points out_[5] the internal conditions of a team constitute 60% of the team’s success. This statement is especially relevant at the initial phase of the team life cycle.

The competencies of collaboration inside the team may concern: “listening to others’ views carefully, sharing opinions frankly, inquiry and dialogue skills, asking the questions behind the questions, ability to tolerate uncertainty and not knowing the answer, learning to reflect together, ability to reorder priorities and work flexibly, ability to disagree constructively, building mutual trust, managing interdependent tasks, influencing skills, mutual accountability, giving and receiving feedback, overcoming barriers to communication, understanding each other, respect for others’ viewpoints, ability to reach timely decisions together, commitment to and cooperation on decisions once made”.

3.The team members’ skills in doing its work. Skills that are necessary for individuals’ work tasks. For example, using anew conferencing software, exchanging project data and details via collaborative application; understanding colleagues from different company departments; performance management.

To find an appropriate focus of coaching intervention is not a momentous decision. It is rather being elaborated in the process of communication and negotiation, which, by the way, another distinction from individual coaching. Entering a team coaching agreement may be presented as a process with the following stages.

The possible stages of team coaching assignment in the organization, including contracting.

Initial meeting with a sponsor(-s), team leader and team and other stakeholders (optional) to discuss and agree on broad goals within key domains – the organization, the team, and the leader as well as focus internal – collaboration inside the team – and/or external: team’s expected outcomes.
Individual interviews with team players (especially in case of coaching executive teams) to clarify upcoming assignments in depth.
Presenting the findings to the sponsor, team leader, and team, and discussing to refine goals and outcomes.
Signing a team coaching contract specifying among other, coach’s responsibilities, the issues of a confidentiality clause, accountability, time and frequency of team coach sessions, the cost of services, and a schedule of meetings. The signed agreement reflects the coach’s and client’s best and latest understanding of desired team outcomes.
The commencement of team coaching sessions. In the course of team coaching assignments, individual sessions with team leaders and team players may be held to increase team coaching effectiveness.
The coaching process evaluation.

If the collaboration aspect of the team’s capacity was chosen as a subject of the coaching assignment, at the end of it the following outcomes may be expected:

the team can maintain independently a productive internal team dialogue to address business issues;
the time cycle of finding solutions has shortened, the quality of the latter has increased;
individual and team level of awareness, responsibility, and discipline concerning goals and values have increased;
every team player is conscious of her/his contribution to the achievement of goals, aware of her/his connection and interdependence with other team members;
the potential of all team players has been revealed, as everyone has been able to be creative, has been heard and supported;
intra-team communication improved; a common language has been formed;
skills of joint work, constructive conflict resolution have developed and strengthened;
the synergy of interaction has been achieved and the team is enjoying its results.

Stating the expected outcomes is important to negotiate the team coaching agreement with the sponsor and other key stakeholders.

Conclusions:

Every team coaching intervention is unique. This is due to the much larger number of factors that determine the composition of a team coaching contract. Above all, there are a few stakeholders (sponsor, team leader, and team players) whose views are needed to reconcile. Secondly, the necessity to keep and shuttlecocks between inner relations of a team and its outer mission. Both focuses are interdependent: there will not be any success for a team without inner cohesion; the ability to work as an integral inseparable unit as well as team integrity depends on shared vision and goals. This will mean that every team coaching contract will be an authentic composition of “where”, “what-s” and “how-s” defining its level of complexity. And therefore, initial preparation for team coaching assignments, including team context diagnosis and contracting, i.e. design stage of it, is an indispensable and important part of coaching assignments impacting its outcomes.

The preparatory stage of a team coaching intervention is a foundation for the subsequent coach-team interaction and should be considered as a team coach competence.

As can be seen from the above, unlike the creation of an individual coaching agreement, while designing team coaching intervention a team coach emphasized different aspects to create foundations for a successful coaching assignment.