Team coaching for senior learning and development team with a new leader

The team’s issue

Working with the new leader; increasing their impact on the performance of the business at a time of uncertainty about job security

What we did

• Built trust and the ability to be open with each other about what was working and what was not
• Identified their conflict management styles and how these helped and hindered their effectiveness
• Increased certainty about commitments in meetings
• Created a common sense of purpose and team principles

Their outcomes

The team supported and challenged each other to achieve large-scale global learning transformation for the business.

Reflections – this was just one piece of the team coaching “puzzle”, focusing on the team’s internal processes.  Looking back, we didn’t tackle areas such as looking outwards to what their stakeholders needed of them; or looking at how the future of learning needed to be addressed in their activities today.

Testimonial

“When I started leading a new team, Clare helped me design and implement a team norming process. Many of my team members were very experienced and may have had concerns with a new person coming in to lead them. Clare worked with me on a weekly basis to coach the team and to coach me on how I ran the team. Clare’s approach directly contributed to my ability to get the team focused in the same direction and supporting each other. She helped me uncover some of my blind spots, enabling me to effectively lead the team.” Carolyn Henning, Senior Manager, Accenture (now PWC).

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Team coaching for a team that wanted to change behaviours

The team’s issue

The team had been affected by unethical management behaviour and wanted to move out of the shadow of that into a more productive and fulfilling way of working

There were issues of trust – in the organisation and between the team members; a temptation to blame; paranoia about making mistakes; recording everything in writing; and other behaviours that were adopted as a protection mechanism during the period when the Senior Manager was part of the team.

Indicators of success for this piece of work with this team would be when they could:

• take risks that might lead to mistakes
• support and challenge each other constructively
• have a solutions-focus
• bounce back – acknowledging what they had achieved under difficult   circumstances and feeling equipped to be resilient moving forwards

What we did

• Interviewed the 18 team members about their needs and desires for the team; observed a team meeting and office interactions to see the team dynamics in play
• Designed a team coaching programme, that met the needs of the individuals and the collective

• • Acknowledged strengths and working styles of individuals and the team
  • Captured the lessons learned from the recent events
  • Shared what support team members do
  • Created communication processes
  • Built skills of
    • Giving and receiving feedback
    • Proactively recommending actions, and putting forward counter-arguments to others’ recommendations
    • Making decisions for your level of responsibility; knowing when to report risks
    • Holding transformational meetings that enable team members to join the dots, and solve problems together
• Reconvened after 6 months to build on their progress to create a centre of excellence
• Provided 1-1 coaching for some of the team members, who were high performers and/or searching for their own way forward

Their outcomes

The team has left the past behind them, and made progress around the interpersonal skills, which we needed to start with to get set up for the next stage of team coaching.  They then worked on innovation – one element of the centre of excellence.  The team leads set clearer boundaries for their people and held them accountable for results.  Their increased collaboration led to cost savings of approximately £100,000.

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A team wanting to raise their game

The team’s issue

Envisioning the future for their business growth

What we did

• Articulated the team’s strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats, taking into consideration all their stakeholders
• Created their future vision for the organisation
• Defined their most important priorities to get from where they were today to that future vision

Their outcomes

The business grew; the team members’ engagement levels increased; other business units took their lead and worked on their own vision and plan, creating alignment and growth across the business.