Team coaches must coach the team and the individuals within it, while recognising that they are all part of an interconnected system – within a web of systems
by Allard de Jong and Georgina Woudstra
With this competency, Relationship Systems, the team coach demonstrates an ability to serve the team collectively, in a system, while acknowledging the interests, strengths, values and needs of the individual.
Indeed the team is a system and – as a system – is part of one or more larger systems. The word ‘system’ is often described as a set of things working together as parts of a mechanism or an interconnecting network; a certain ‘sum-of-the-things’ complex whole. A little simplistic perhaps when you consider that a ‘thing’ is merely a linguistic element. A noun, to be exact.
Now, as the late philosopher Alan Watts reminded us1, a noun isn’t a part of nature, it’s a part of speech. There are no nouns in the physical world. There are no separate things in the physical world either. The sugar molecule is comprised of 12 atoms of carbon, 22 atoms of hydrogen and 11 atoms of oxygen (C12H22O11). Can you tell me which one of these is sweet?
And from ‘thing’ to ‘think’ is only a small step. And thus the late multifaceted anthropologist Gregory Bateson was fond of pointing out that the major problems in the world today are the result of the difference between how nature works and the way people think2.
Nature works as a system of relationships. Our world is only made of relationships. Everything in the universe only exists because it is in relationship to everything else. Nothing exists in isolation, as management consultant, Margaret Wheatley3says. The table you bang your fist on is only ‘hard’ in relationship to your relatively ‘soft’ hand. The grass needs the grazing horse as much as the horse needs the grass. Right now, we are only ‘writers’ because of you, ‘the reader’, and vice versa. A role is never anything more than one end of a relationship.
Ignoring the interlocked relationships of a system and dividing the world into parts is an illusion. As soon as we consider the teams we work with as a ‘system within a web of systems’, we realise there is absolutely nothing we, or they, can do to negate this interconnectedness but that there’s so much we can do to enhance it.
And it’s precisely this type of corrected thinking (or right view) that the team coach needs when engaged in working with systems.
Such a view will allow us to:
- Notice disconnections in the system and seek reconnection
- Support the team to identify interdependencies and opportunities for collaboration, understanding that change emerges from diverse dialogue
- Recognise the invitation to engage in the team’s dynamics and understand these dynamics through their own here and now experience
- Avoid triangulation and encourage the team to connect with each other
- Leverage individual strengths in service of the team’s effectiveness
- Surface barriers to collaboration and move towards alignment
So, may you coach with ubuntu4: the profound understanding that everyone is inherently connected and interdependent, all already tied to one another: “If I am I because you are you and you are you because I am I, then I am not I and you are not you.” Rabbi Menachem Mendel Morgensztern of Kotzk (1787-1859)
- Allard de Jong and Georgina Woudstra are directors at the Team Coaching Studio. Join them for a team coaching masterclass on 14 May, 2-5pm UK time, online. Book here: http://bit.ly/37NN1uX
- Next issue: 9: Wider context and stakeholders
References
1 www.alanwatts.org/3-4-6-nature-of-consciousness-part-1/
2 www.anecologyofmind.com/thefilm.html
3 www.margaretwheatley.com/articles/relationships.html
4 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ubuntu_theology
- Georgina Woudstra is an executive coach specialising in coaching chief executives and senior leadership teams. She is founder and principal of the Executive Coach Studio (now Team Coaching Studio)
- www.georginawoudstra.com
- https://teamcoachingstudio.com