Ready to coach a team?
Value of the work that we do as leadership coaches lies in the positive impact that we can help leaders create for themselves and its domino effect on the larger organisation. Leaders are always seen as role models. Once leaders change the way they think, act and behave, it has a defining impact on the broader organisation.
Moving beyond working just with leaders, coaches are now gearing up to engage with teams, as a collective entity, to deliver more direct impact through coaching interventions for the leader and their teams. With ICF (International Coaching Federation) announcing the team coaching competencies, team coaching is becoming better known and more accepted in the corporate world.
Our intention as Team Coaches is to help the team evolve into a high performing entity, which consistently delivers exceptional results. It meets and beats the expectations of not only their stakeholders but even their own expectations of themselves.
Before we start coaching the teams, we need to understand what it would take for a team to become a high performing team. In this respect, I have been very impressed by the work done by Professor Peter Hawkins in laying down the five disciplines of high performing teams. To create an incredible, high-performing and engaged team, we must effectively coach the team on these five disciplines.
So, what are these five disciplines? And, how do I use these in my coaching engagements when I work with teams?
These five disciplines are commissioning, clarifying, co-creating, connecting and core learning. Now, let me explain what each of these entails and how I use these.
Commissioning is the first of the five disciplines. It is essential to have sufficient clarity from commissioners who have created the team, on the purpose with which the team has been brought into existence. I nudge teams to have these conversations and, in the process, define the success criteria on which the team will be assessed. If you don’t know what success looks like in the commissioners’ eyes, how can you deliver the same? It is equally important to draw commissioners’ attention to whether the team’s resourcing is adequate or not, what further support they may require, and what will be the feedback mechanisms and frequency.
Clarifying is for the team to internally discuss and agree among themselves about the team’s collective endeavour. It is important to note that while commissioning happens from outside, clarifying occurs within the team. For this discipline, I work with the team to further explore the team’s purpose, create a charter, KPIs, lay out roles and responsibilities for everyone on the team and agree to the team’s ways of working.
Co-creating is where the team live its purpose. All that is discussed and envisioned in the clarifying discipline needs to be seen in tangible actions and behaviours. A big part of my work is about getting the team to explore and experiment on better ways to interact and connect with each other, both when on the team and when outside.
Connecting is the discipline of regularly engaging with the stakeholders. Teams sometimes forget that commissioners are only one set of stakeholders. As a coach, my task is to get the team to connect with the broader system instead of just working focused inwards. The team needs to keep itself abreast of the changing nature, thinking and needs of various stakeholders. Being blind-sighted about stakeholders can undermine all the great work that you may do as a team. An essential aspect of connecting is not only how the team members interact with each other during the team meetings but if they are still a member of the team when they are outside team meetings and connecting with stakeholders.
Lastly, Core Learning, which may be the most abstract discipline to explain, but it is possibly the most important. This is the team’s ability to occasionally step back and reflect on their own performance and processes and consolidate the learnings from these reflections for the next cycle of interactions. In this discipline, my focus is that the team supports and develops each member individually and also, the team collectively. Every member of the team should be better off than they were before they came on the team.
I like the Five disciplines approach since commissioning and connecting focus outside while clarifying and co-creating focusses inside the team. Also, the framework lays equal emphasis on the outcome and process. On the one hand, the disciplines of commissioning and clarifying focus on the team’s outcome. On the other hand, the dimension of co-creating and connecting concentrate on the process. Core learning is the highest discipline that sits at the heart of all this, compelling teams to learn from reflecting on their experiences.
Whether you are already in charge of a team or proposing to lead one or planning to become a team coach, focussing on all the five disciplines sets you up for success.
Remember TEAMS is an acronym for Together Everyone Achieves More and with five disciplines, you can make it happen!
