Team coaching is all about helping a new or existing team to shape the way they work together in order to concentrate on the common goals in the best possible way. The team coach designs and facilitates a process to identify the existing resources in the team and make them usable.
The result of a team coaching process is a sustainable increase in the team's capacity to deal with challenges, solve problems, work together efficiently and innovate. The team is then geared towards long-term success.
As ever when people work together, social and psychological phenomena play major roles. Whenever a change takes place that impinges on a team - e.g. new challenges, new work contexts or new colleagues - it always makes sense to review jointly how the team members cooperate and interact with each other.
Team coaching is targeted and precisely dosed – as a single workshop or workshop series, as a training course, as on-the-job support or in the form of an offsite team event, i.e. a meeting in a different environment, according to requirements. Measures for team coaching and team building can be combined effectively to match the given situation.
When it comes to pursuing a specific goal or delivering a specific service, all the people in a team are interdependent. No one could achieve the goal alone. In the best case, this interdependency can produce a result that is more than the sum of the individual parts. In human evolution, those who were able to cooperate well have always been more successful (or had a better chance of survival). However, today's working world places higher demands on our capacity to cooperate than we were born with. So functioning cooperation is always the result of a common learning and development process. The magic of team coaching lies in designing and facilitating this learning and adaptation process in such a way that in the end a new, better level of cooperation arises.
Perfectly cooperating teams work hand in hand, help each other, further the organization through innovation and energy and maintain a beneficial working atmosphere. Many companies and teams are a long way from this ideal state. Objective assistance from outside can be useful here, for there are many situations in which team coaching can help:
With such a variety of possible reasons, it goes without saying that a team generally needs to consider several aspects together in order to develop further. Our team coaches bring their structured expertise to bear in order to reveal things that would otherwise remain hidden from view.
Our cooperation with teams is characterized by two main features: made-to-measure and exactly according to needs. This is how we implement team coaching in classical contexts, accompany teams in change processes and also assist in the use of agile methods. Even teams that are already practising an agile working style often need support to improve or to overcome specific, current challenges. Our range of expertise covers numerous topics and areas, so our team coaching services can help clients in many different contexts:
When it comes to implementing new methods, we recommend methods that are easy to learn and use, so-called micro methods. Applying these methods causes rapid rethinking within the team. Then it is important to provide room for development and reflection in order to anchor new ways of thinking in a sustainable way.
When we work with teams we see interrelationships that remain hidden from those ‘on the inside’. This is not least because employees and managers are not always aware of their own role in the big picture. This is where it is important to look at people’s interactions, processes and topics in order to work on them from a systemic point of view – including going beyond the boundaries of the team.
Even if things are not running smoothly in the team, our team coaches can provide targeted and respectful support. The aim is to channel tensions in such a way that their energy can be used for the benefit of the team.
How can we meet the challenge of increasingly flexible working hours? How do we integrate colleagues working from home? How can we create a beneficial working environment? How can we address individual wishes and needs? Together we can find the right answers to all these questions.
As team coaches we play the role of process or method experts as required, provide for a useful outside point of view, are prepared to say what otherwise remains unsaid and we are sparring partners. Regardless of how we do it, we always aim to instil skills into the team and make ourselves redundant as quickly as possible.
Team coaching is essentially an interdisciplinary and efficient approach to achieve changes that are considered to be desirable. Our team coaches bring experience from a wide range of industries and projects to bear - and they have many years of teamwork expertise in a wide range of contexts. We are looking forward to putting this expertise at your disposal.
Priska supports her clients in creating effective relationships in a business context.
Encouraging cooperation and coaching individual team members is certainly one of the most important management tasks. It is generally expected of people who have grown into such a role. The reality of the matter is, though: It is not easy to live up to this expectation as a team leader.
Team coaching or even major team development programmes are not an end in themselves or just ‘nice-to-have’. It is essentially about mastering a competitive challenge by working together so well that the best possible results can be achieved. Since things are constantly changing in teams, team development is an ongoing process. The good news is that it is not necessary to set up the best team in the world overnight. All you need to do is keep your eyes on the issue and maintain the effort to improve how the team works.
So is team coaching a part of leadership responsibility? Definitely yes. Does a manager have to implement team coaching 100% by himself or herself? Definitely not. It is often very helpful to let an objective person review the situation and provide assistance. Nevertheless, the skills that are imparted through team coaching remain available to the team afterwards – and of course to the manager. These new skills enable the team to keep going under its own steam. So team coaching benefits everyone: the employees, the manager, the team as a whole, the company and ultimately the company's customers as well.
