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Month: July 2021

Elevating your Coaching: Team Coaching

Posted on by Guillermo Mendoza

Imagine elevating the capabilities and results of the traditional coaching one on one to a whole team. If an individual gets outstanding results from self-exploration on setting clear and well-defined goals, establishing good plans and then executing, what would be the results from applying this same methodology to teams? From my perspective, I think it would be amazing.

That is why it surprises me how Team Coaching has not grown as fast as individual coaching, probably the reason is that some great facilitators are doing it? or that organizations are not hearing about it? or maybe it is because professional coaches were not trained specifically on how to handle Team Coaching to work with more than one person at the same time?

Team Coaching presents different challenges from individual coaching and requires coaches with additional tools and skills that will help a team, work towards the same goal. I thought it was important to differentiate that group coaching and team coaching are not the same. In group coaching you might work with several individuals, but they all have their personal goal. In Team Coaching you work with a group of people working towards the same goal.

Part of Team Coaching is similar to individual coaching since it involves helping the team to define the goal that will be adopted by all team members, also exploring the value behind that goal and using many of your coaching skills and standards like rapport, observation and listening, confidentiality, rhythm of the process, commitment and measurement.

What is fascinating is all of the new things that come into play when you have the dynamics of several individuals participating at once. As a Team Coach you need to manage a new concept of Psycogeography involving how each person manages physical location and personal space. You also need facilitation techniques to manage the group and the individuals, since some of them might be masking emotions or ideas, exercising different levels of assertiveness, different levels of personal disclosure and bring a lot of diversity in roles, generations, emotional skills and cultural backgrounds. Today teams work virtually all over the world making these differences more profound.

You also need to understand and manage the stages of a team model to be able to coach the team as they go through forming, storming, norming, performing and adjourning. This involves dealing with conflict, manage conflict I should say, and perspectives.

Finally, what will elevate your coaching as with individual coaching is that you practice and master not only being a coach but also being a team member and a team leader to understand all the different teamwork dynamics.

More learning and more practice are required yes, and also more rewards because helping teams reach their goals is one of the best ways to elevate your coaching and create a higher impact in the world with high-performing teams getting as your individual clients, outstanding results.

Board Room to Dining Room

Posted on by Maria Bruederlin

From the board room table to the dining room table, it’s what I tell most of my clients, the behaviors they are working hard to demonstrate as leaders carry over to their team at home. The team’s faces, activities and expectations are different, but we need to show up in even more important ways, we need to prioritize how we spend our time with the team at home the way we do with the team at work. How are you prioritizing your time? Are you making sure you are being mindful with how you are spending your time?

My cousin told me, treasure every moment, don’t pass up any time for things that can wait; the laundry, the groceries, the errands, all of those things can wait; but life will not wait for you, and if you aren’t careful, you’ll miss it. She wasn’t wrong and her words have been present in my mind since.

At work we are focused, making sure we are meeting expectations, developing relationships with our teams, making ourselves available, asking to be put on projects; we are deliberate and intentional in how we spend our time, because the consequences of not achieving and delivering results can cost our jobs, our income. What would happen if we were intentional and deliberate in how we spent our time with our team at home? Really prioritizing and focusing on the most important things. We get so caught up with completing our to-do list, being productive, that we often leave the other moments for later, when we have more time, when it’s more convenient, when I get everything else done. Life doesn’t wait, our time is the most precious thing we have. We cannot deposit our time in an account for later use, we cannot borrow someone else’s time when we are short, we only have our present time. It is my cousin’s words that allowed me to enjoy the last few months with my father; intentionally spending moments with him, listening to his stories, playing cards, visits to the doctor, short walks around the block, sitting outdoors watching the cardinals. I will never get those moments back, and thankfully I have the memories of having spent them with him. The laundry waited, the dishes were left for later, the most important tasks were completed, spending time with my dad while he was with us. Be intentional with your time and the moments you spend with your team at home. Go to the game, take a walk, listen to the stories and their favorite song, ask questions. Ask yourself, how can you be your “leader best self” with this team?

Being productive with the moments that matter, being intentional with the time you spend, meeting the expectations of your team, it matters at the boardroom table, but is even more critical at the dining room table.