Team Coaching
Building a cohesive team in a diverse and changing world.
A white paper on answering the need for a new approach to spark teams’ collaboration, creativity, and trust in the workplace.
Setting the Scene
Imagine your team is like a group of hikers attempting to summit a mountain. Without a guide, they may get lost or lose motivation along the way, never reaching their full potential. But with the right guide, they can climb higher, faster, and with greater success. That’s where Team Coaching comes in. Team Coaching can help your team navigate the challenges, foster a culture of collaboration and trust, and reach new heights of innovation and profitability. With a team coach’s guidance, your team can climb to the top of the mountain and beyond.
Introduction
The modern Corporate and public sector landscapes are fast-paced and constantly changing, requiring organizations to adapt quickly to stay ahead. Considering the challenges that the new hybrid reality brings to the workplace, we are witnessing an ever-increasing disengagement, as well as a drop in collaboration amongst teams. As a leader, you understand the importance of building and managing high-performing teams to drive success. That’s where Team Coaching comes in. Team Coaching is a powerful approach to leadership development that focuses on enhancing “power skills” critical to building and managing high-performing teams, such as emotional intelligence, empathy, and communication. By working collaboratively with the entire team, Team Coaching can create a shared understanding of goals, vision, and values, and equip team members with the tools and skills necessary for effective and inclusive leadership. In this white paper, we explore the compelling benefits of Team Coaching and the advantages of transitioning from individual intelligence (IQ) to collective intelligence (WeQ).
“A team is not a problem that needs to be analyzed and solved, but a potential to be unfolded.
David Meier, Team Coaching with the Solution Circle
What is Team Coaching?
In Team Coaching the client is the team itself. The focus of Team Coaching is on the development and learning of the team as an entity to promote cohesion. The goal is to achieve together what team members could not achieve alone working in their silos.
With Team Coaching, you can improve communication, inclusion, foster teamwork, and achieve outstanding results, even amidst chaos and uncertainty.
Team Coaching ROI
Team Coaching is a valuable investment for any organization, as it delivers tangible returns on your bottom line. Research shows that high-performing teams can create up to 48% higher revenue and 39% higher profitability than low-performing teams (Korn Ferry Institute, 2018).
Furthermore, Team Coaching has been found to improve team performance and productivity, with one study reporting a 60% improvement in team productivity following team coaching interventions (Rogers et al., 2021). Another study found that Team Coaching can lead to a 20% increase in team engagement and a 17% increase in team motivation (ICF, 2020).
Moreover, investing in Team Coaching can result in significant cost savings for organizations. A study by PwC found that for every dollar spent on coaching, there was a 7-fold return on investment (ROI) (PwC, 2019). In another study, a manufacturing company was able to save $2 million in costs by implementing Team Coaching interventions (McGovern et al., 2019).
The ROI of Team Coaching extends beyond just financial gains, as it can also improve employee retention and satisfaction. A study by Deloitte found that organizations with strong coaching cultures have a 31% lower voluntary turnover rate than those without (Deloitte, 2019).
In summary, Team Coaching is a powerful tool for unlocking the potential of your teams and driving exceptional results. By investing in Team Coaching, your organization can see significant returns on your investment in terms of increased revenue, profitability, productivity, and employee satisfaction and retention.
References:
Deloitte. (2019). Coaching for the 21st-century workplace. https://www2.deloitte.com/us/en/insights/focus/human-capital-trends/2019/coaching-for-21st-century-workplace.html
International Coaching Federation (ICF). (2020). Building a coaching culture with team coaching. https://coachfederation.org/research/building-a-coaching-culture-with-team-coaching
Korn Ferry Institute. (2018). The impact of high-performing teams. https://www.kornferry.com/content/dam/kornferry/docs/pdfs/ampersand/the-impact-of-high-performing-teams.pdf
McGovern, J., Lindemann, M., & Vergara, M. (2019). ROI in team coaching: Case studies from the real world. International Coaching Psychology Review, 14(1), 47-61.
PwC. (2019). 2019 Global coaching study: Executive summary. https://www.pwc.com/us/en/about-us/corporate-responsibility/assets/coaching-survey-2019-exec-summary.pdf
Rogers, C. A., Rogers, P., & Page, N. (2021). The impact of team coaching on team productivity: A quasi-experimental study. Consulting Psychology Journal: Practice and Research, 73(2), 125-138.
Top 5 Benefits of Team Coaching (TC)
- Improving team performance: TC addresses communication issues, improving collaboration, and enhancing the team’s ability to work together more harmoniously.
- Enhancing leadership skills: TC equips leaders with new skills and knowledge necessary to effectively manage and motivate their teams.
- Increasing productivity: TC helps teams identify and eliminate obstacles that may be hindering their productivity, resulting in higher efficiency and output.
- Promoting team agility: TC shifts the mindset by focusing on the team’s collective intelligence and their ability to work together effectively to achieve their goals, increasing adaptiveness, resilience, and ability to navigate complex challenges.
- Supporting DEI, innovation, and growth: TC creates a space where every team member can fully show up to contribute, without fear of judgement or negative outcomes, leading to more innovative ideas for significant change and sustained growth.
Uniqueness of the Team Coaching Approach
Team Coaching involves “partnering with a team to unleash its collective power, purpose and potential to connect and collaborate.” [3]
Unlike team building or facilitation, Team Coaching creates the unique conditions each team needs to achieve significant and sustained growth, continuous learning and development, and ever greater engagement leading to fulfilment and success. It achieves long lasting change through the idea of “a little, for a long time” vs. “a lot, for a short time” as in team building, for example. The ICF Team Coaching Core Competencies, reproduced in the table below, provide a great comparison of different team interventions.
Team Development Continuum
An experienced team coach is masterful in working on the continuum of team development to meet the team where they are, providing what they need to guide them along their growth journey, like the mountain guide. The team coach, also being a certified individual leadership coach, also works individually and confidentially with the leader and team members to support their leadership journey while keeping in sight the progress of team goals.
[3] Woudstra, Georgina; Mastering the art of team coaching (2021)
Who is Team Coaching for?
- Direction and leadership/ management teams who want to increase performance impact and team effectiveness to deliver the value their customers expect and the world needs.
- High stakes teams who have been working together for a while and want to take performance to the next level or wanting to unleash greater creativity.
- Leadership teams required to influence and drive change.
- Teams struggling to make sense around what it means to build trusting working relationships, accelerate results, feel engaged, included, and valued.
- Teams going through major team transitions, such as adapting to the hybrid workplace, having significant problems, differences in perspective, failing decision making processes.
Conclusion
In today’s chaotic, fragmented, and ever-shifting world, Team Coaching is poised to help organizations build connected and resilient cultures, maximize impact for current and future stakeholders, and leave a positive legacy for future generations.
Whether you’re leading, part of, or privy to a direction or leadership team that wants to improve its performance, experiences challenges or that believes in the power and potential of collaboration but needs help to realize or maximize it, turn to Team coaching.
Don’t wait – Start building a strong and high-value creating team today!
Louise Dufresne, PhD, ACC, EIA, ITCA
Accredited Team Coach and Consultant
Introducing Louise, a dynamic team coach who brings vision and expertise to refine and elevate leadership practices, unlocking the full potential of teams and driving exceptional performance. With accreditation as a coach and as a team coach, coupled with extensive experience as a facilitator and trainer, Louise is dedicated to empowering organizations to achieve their goals by harnessing the power of effective leadership and the collective wisdom of their teams.
Sylvia Larrass, ACC
Executive Coach and Facilitator
With a background in the performing arts, Sylvia brings a unique lens and expertise to her training and coaching.
For over 20 years, she has worked as a coach, trainer, and facilitator with thousands of leaders around the world, helping them elevate their performance and become more effective communicators.
What inspires Sylvia most is to see her clients walk away from her coaching confident, empowered, and ready to take the next steps towards fulfilling their goals.
