Recently, I blogged about how team coaching is different to 1-1 coaching and how it is similar to 1-1 coaching. I’ve also talked about the team experience.
Let’s now look at some examples of the outcomes in these team coaching case studies. Case studies help see the theory working in practice.
Case study 1: 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.
Case study 2: 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 – this programme is still mid-flight. They have left the past behind them, and have made progress around the interpersonal skills, which we needed to start with to get set up for the next stage of team coaching. They are currently working on innovation – one element of the centre of excellence. The next team coaching session will be around managing yourself through change, as the team is about to lose 3 pivotal team members, the loss of whom the team will feel greatly.
Case study 3: 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.
The three blogs to support this post can be found through the following links:
