Organizations face considerable change and uncertainty and will continue to do so. In this context, it is crucial to motivate and manage teams for success. Traditionally teams have turned to team building and team facilitation to support them in the challenges they face. Here the focus is on the individuals within the team and with tasks internal to the team, such as identifying how relationships can be improved so that the team can work better.
To be truly high performing, team members need to work together successfully to coordinate highly interdependent work and focus on the small number of decisions most consequential to the business. Often teams end up being a collection of individuals with individual accountability who meet with a leader to discuss and agree upon the extent to which their contributions are delivering on the organization's goals. Such teams are not really teams at all and are certainly not high-performing ones.
Coaching teams is about helping these achieve superior performance, while also helping team members create more enjoyable lives for themselves and for others.
When will a team benefit from team coaching?
- When a new strategy or work plan is required
- When perpetual team conflicts need to be solved
- When team efficiency must increase
- When team burnout and distress hamper productivity
- When a team is unable to reach its performance goals and deadlines
- When re-stabilization is needed due to organizational change, growth, merger or downsizing
- When a successful team seeks its next level of growth
- When cultural and communication gaps hinder workflow
- When decision making is weak and hindering
- When diversity blocks the team, rather than propelling it forward
There are fundamentally two ways organizations and team leaders address the situation of teams in such situations.
One way is to focus on personnel and identify the problem team member and find a way to replace that person with a better fitting performer. It's a replacement part approach. However, in our experience, unless the team culture changes, more often than not, one new player will have little lasting effect on team performance. In the transition and delays that are often caused by turnover, there will be a clear loss of productivity.
The other way organizations address the situation is to reach for the tried and true options they've experienced in the past - team building or training programs. Coaching provides the structure, support, and empowerment that allows teams to learn, practice, and integrate new behavior over time.
Team coaching helps teams reach their goals, while creating a sustainable environment that cultivates long-term excellence and success. The team coaching process helps teams align around a common purpose, establish inspiring spirit and vision, define clear roles, commit to team accountability, make powerful choices and take affirmative action.
We help team members:
- Develop mutual understanding, trust and pleasure in working together;
- Increase their awareness of current team performance;
- Become conscious of personal strengths, weaknesses, preferences and the implications for teamwork;
- Sharpen their communication and interpersonal skills;
- Foster creativity and leverage diverse viewpoints to effectively address complex business challenges;
- Articulate their contribution to the organization, taking into account the overall vision and strategy, forces in the external environment, internal culture, competencies, structure and systems;
- Develop their commitment around a common purpose and concrete action plans; and,
- Enhance their ability to work together (including cross-culturally and remotely).
The Adan Corporate System is structured to support owners of large companies with senior management teams in place.
Like any new endeavor, working with a coach can be challenging and even a little scary. But if you're brave, committed and curious, you'll find your coaching relationship can be a powerful catalyst to becoming the person you most want to be.
Adan's executive coaches have decades of experience working at the executive level with leading organizations around the world. We have expertise in leadership, productivity, organizational change, team building, marketing, sales and motivation.
Our on-the-job experience coupled with extensive knowledge of the markets and functional areas enables us to deliver a variety of practical, high-impact presentations that engage, enlighten and entertain.
