Pat had a tough time working with one member of his team. One of the other members of the team was negative, loud, arrived late, left early and even sloughed off work to everyone else who would take it. This was causing a lot of frustration for Pat who felt a lot of the negative jabs were directed towards him.
This kind of environment can make it hard for anyone to be at their best and more importantly in the workplace, to put out their best performance!
Pat’s executive team worked with a coach – a team coach who was able to help them see themselves and each member of the team as an integral part of the team and the need to become a cohesive unit. Not necessarily one and the same – that’s not reasonable. Rather, each individual maintaining his or her personality and yet helping to bring out the best in themselves and in others.
These days, this is even more difficult when we are dealing with teams working away from the workplace. Yes, Zoom, Microsoft Teams and Google Hangouts … there are so many ways to connect and they are all great – the difference is you do miss some of the nuances that you pick up when speaking face-to-face.
So, let’s look at what team coaching is. According to Andrea Cardillo PhD – Managing Partner at TPC Leadership, Italy team coaching is the art of facilitating and challenging a real team to maximize its performance and enjoyment in service of meaningful organizational goals.
Hopefully, your team is small (7 people or less is the optimum for performance) and you are able to connect regularly for the common goal of benefiting the department and the organization. That means each person’s strengths and skills are interdependent on the others for the success of the whole organization.
Like everything else in an organization, ultimately it comes down to being accountable – for oneself and for the team as a whole. Some of the biggest challenges to this are:
- A lack of knowledge about the direction the organization is headed
- Unclear goals from the top down
- Poor communication between team members
- No common way for team members to have difficult conversations
A team coach supports everyone within the team to be accountable to themselves and others and by challenging them to use their strengths and resources to enhance relationships and ultimately performance.
Team coaching is there to increase performance so here are a few things this type of coaching can support:
- Building a culture of a trusting environment
- Guiding conflicts to productive outcomes
- Focusing on the interdependence of each team member towards clear action plans
Everyone has coaches … sports, speaking, dance, acting – you name it and almost everyone has a coach. Do you have a personal coach? If the answer is yes, that’s great; if not, a more comfortable way to ease into a coach is to have a team coach. Think about it!
Sherry’s CORNER
The sun is shining on a beautiful September afternoon and through the window wafts the melodious sound of someone whistling – it takes my mind back to my grandfather who could whistle beautifully.
Times are such now that I find the simpler things in life are creating more comfort and even joy for me. It doesn’t have to be big, exciting or grand – just simple.
What about you? Are you finding that more and more, you are enjoying the quiet, the peace and the thoughtfulness of others? I would love to hear more about what this time is meaning for you.
Please email me at sherry@dimension11.com.
