The latest in this series explores the value that team coaching offers. Ashley Diaz, Caroline Duffy, Carol Fogarty and Giusy Laurenziello report
We, Georgina Woudstra and Allard de Jong, have been writing this column since 2017. In our desire to hear more voices from team coaching, we’ve become curators of this column. We’re delighted to share this article from a team of four talented team coaches: three external and one internal.
Defining the value of team coaching is as easy as pinning a tail on the donkey blindfolded, yet doing so is absolutely vital to its future and the plethora of teams that could benefit from it. Why? As Georgina Woudstra, author of Mastering the Art of Team Coaching (2021), puts it; “Coaching, by its very nature, is a radically different approach that puts the power firmly in the hands of the team, whereas other team interventions are often more about engaging an expert.”
Putting a value on team coaching is hard, as:
- It’s still so new – the International Coaching Federation is only now producing standards and competencies for it
- There are as many definitions as there are schools of thought on team coaching, and
- The increasing number of unqualified people claiming to offer team coaching are contributing to mass confusion about what it is isn’t.
How then can we answer the question: What is the value of team coaching?
Partnership
Let’s start with the one word most definitions of team coaching agree upon: Partnership.
Team coaching is a partnership between the team coach and the team. The value of team coaching can only be as great as the quality of this partnership with the team as a whole, not the individuals on the team.
The relationship between coach and team is built on trust, belief and chemistry that the team as a unit has the inherent ability to do its given work. As such, the coach must recognise this value comes from raising the team’s level of awareness to enable it to do its own work. The coach’s role is to work the team’s relationship to the issues at play, not the issues themselves.
The Issues
But what are the issues team coaches can help teams overcome or the outcomes team coaches can help teams achieve?
Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs describes a five-tier model of human needs, with physiological and safety / security at the base of the pyramid, belonging and mattering in the middle, and self-actualisation at the top. Based on our experience, teams as a unit experience these same hierarchical needs, and while the teams we meet as team coaches in the workplace largely have their physiological needs met, most are stuck somewhere in the safety, belonging and mattering levels of the pyramid. In other words, the vast majority of teams haven’t reached
self-actualisation or even the level of mattering – what some might call high-performing.
We believe the value of team coaching lies in a team coach’s ability to be with the team where they are and create a container, awareness and dialogue enabling the team as a unit to move to successively higher levels of working, from:
- Safety to belonging
- Belonging to mattering
- Mattering to self-actualisation
We talked to members of the Team Coaching Studio community about the value of team coaching. Themes included helping teams:
- Overcome and manage conflict or difference
- Address workload (time/resource pressures)
- Build trust and psychological safety
- Improve collaboration and performance
- Enhance decision-making
Underpinning it all was the idea that team coaching gives teams the time and space to slow down, reflect on experiences and learning, and create a safe space for the right conversations to happen. Maybe the value of team coaching is as simple as that.
- Ashley Diaz, Caroline Duffy, Carol Fogarty and Giusy Laurenziello are students on Team Coaching Studio’s 2021-2022 Diploma in Team Coaching and members of the Team Coaching Studio’s growing community of more than 800 team coaches around the globe. l
- https://teamcoachingstudio.com