Team coaching involves a team coach partnering with a senior team in a thought-provoking and creative process that inspires them to maximise their collective potential to achieve the team’s objectives.

Using current, real-life issues as the context for this work, it is distinct from other team-related interventions, such as facilitation and team building.

Team coaching for Boards and senior leadership teams can help in many circumstances, but here some common examples:

• you want to get a newly formed team off to a positive start by accelerating the team development process

• you want to improve how your existing team operates so that everyone is pulling in the same direction with a common purpose

• you want to regroup the team following significant change

Developing and leading an effective team require constant effort and skill, as individuals with different priorities, personalities and working styles rub shoulders with one another in pursuit of the team’s objectives.

As every team is unique, team coaching discards a one-size-fits-all approach and allows the team to explore what will work best for them as a team. Team coaches facilitate this process by giving structure and space for the team’s self-discovery and problem-solving to take place, which also allows the team leader to be part of the process as well.

For team coaching to work well, it needs everyone in the team to play an active part in all elements of the programme.

That means the team leader, too!

We offer a team coaching programme to increase the effectiveness of your team based on the fundamentals of the Five Behaviours of a Cohesive Team® model by Patrick Lencioni.

The programme is definitely not “off-the-shelf,” as key elements will be designed to meet your team’s specific needs and we keep it under constant review to ensure the best possible outcomes.

Here is what a typical programme looks like:

• The first element is a team diagnostic, with all team members completing a confidential questionnaire about how the team functions and their personal working preferences, followed by one-to-one discussions with each team member.

• There is then a series of four half-day, in-person workshops with the whole team together to explore the key factors that support effective team working.

• Each workshop is supplemented within a few weeks by group coaching sessions, where the team is broken into several groups of three or four people. These allow further discussion around the topics covered and how to build new ideas and concepts into the team’s regular interactions.

• Throughout, there are regular meetings with the team leader to review progress and to agree any changes needed to address emerging topics or issues.

A typical programme will run for around 12-15 months. However, as the programme is tailored to meet the needs of each team, we can agree a different duration, if required.

Confidentiality between the coach and the team and its individual members is as important as it is for executive coaching with individuals.

Discussions held at any meeting, whether with individuals, smaller groups or the whole team, are kept confidential by our coaches unless the team members involved are happy to share what was discussed.