Why Should I Get Team Coaching?
The problem
A high-performing team is stronger than the simple sum of each team member. When a team lacks trust, communication, or norms, no matter how strong each individual is, it will be buried in conflict.
Many leaders falsely assume people know how to collaborate effectively. When you throw in hurdles of changing strategy or executive team, low morale from layoffs, multiple timezones or remote work, or conflicting goals, it turns out that many teams are consistently underperforming.
The Goals
Team coaching has two goals — improving communication and building psychological safety. Through working with a team coach, team members learn to empathize with one another and to communicate more effectively, which leads to better collaboration, less stress, and more effective results.
While 1-on-1 coaching focuses on increasing the performance and impact of one individual (and through them the broader performance of the organization or team), team coaching focuses on collective impact and the dynamics between individuals.
When do you need Team Coaching?
Here’s when Team Coaching is most needed:
The team has consistent communication issues among themselves, with peers, or with leadership
The team is locked in debate and unable to resolve conflicts
The team is struggling to meet their goals and objectives despite possessing the right skillsets on paper
The team is dominated by 1 or 2 strong personalities, rather than all team members contributing to discussions and debates.
The team is disengaged — going through the motions but not truly delivering impact to the business
The How
First, the coach will do an assessment of the team and goal setting with leaders. With the leaders, we’ll discuss in depth what we’re trying to accomplish and “what does success look like” with tangible descriptors. From the team, we’ll understand what is working and what is not working according to the team themselves. This includes interviews with leadership, assessments with the team, and individual conversations. I like to take a variety of approaches, including mapping out The Working Genius Team Map, 5 dysfunctions of a team, or program team diagnostic.
Then, we begin the coaching. The coach will work with different individuals on a team in one-on-one and group coaching formats over a few months. The types of conversations will vary based on goals and budget. Commonly, the coach will have 1:1 sessions with each member of the team to assess strengths, understand needs, and build trust. In addition, the coach will conduct group workshops or pair-wise coaching sessions to mediate conflict, develop communication patterns, or build trust.
FAQs
How is team coaching different from group coaching? Group coaching is coaching multiple individuals in groups. They likely do not work together on the same team. In group coaching, each person benefits from feeling seen or heard by others, and multiple perspectives on an issue.
How can I get group coaching for my team? Ask your VP or Executive leader! Often, companies have a budget for leadership development and team coaching can sometimes be sponsored by multiple leaders who pool budgets.
Do you offer team coaching? Yes! With my background at McKinsey and Meta, I am often asked to coach teams that want to operate like a Tier 1 company’s high-performing team. I’ve worked with smaller startups and larger teams alike. Reach out at yuezhao.coach@gmail.com if you’re interested in team coaching for your team!