Team Coaching That Works

Organizational development research indicates that only one in five teams is high-performing. As such, it’s not surprising that as coaches, we often get called in to support teams to be more effective.

Knowing how to coach teams to high performance is challenging because the field of team coaching is relatively new and unstandardized, and the quality and impact of team-coaching approaches can vary greatly. What feels great for the team and the coach in a session won’t necessarily translate into ongoing results, so coaches might be wasting their time and impairing their credibility. Additionally, several researchers have found that poorly timed or uninformed team coaching can do more harm than good. It is no wonder that many coaching thought leaders and professional organizations are calling for evidence-based approaches to team coaching practice that are grounded in research and have a track record of results.

The High Performance Team Coaching (HPTC) system that we developed draws on a decade of team-coaching practice and years of research in organizational development, as well as more recent work by team-coaching researchers and practitioners. HPTC is a comprehensive, systemic approach designed to support a team to maximize its collective talents and resources to accomplish and exceed the goals required by the organization. It has a results-oriented focus achieved by aligning the key actions a coach or leader takes to the beginning, midpoint and ending stages of a team’s natural business cycle.

What makes the HPTC system unique is that it is a comprehensive, modularized approach that allows coaches to identify, understand and explain the rationale behind their coaching approach. It’s based on research that coaches can refer to when they talk to leaders about why they are doing the things they are doing, and it provides a sense of confidence and credibility in the coach and his or her approach. This is particularly important when providing coaching for individuals or organizations skeptical of the process. Additionally, many leaders who purchase team coaching have not used this service before and need to understand what it is and what it can do for them.

The HPTC system builds on coaching skills and the ICF Core Competencies by providing an overarching framework for coaches to apply to team coaching. We frequently draw upon the work of longtime team effectiveness researcher Richard Hackman, who found that a striking 60 percent of team effectiveness comes from creating a strong initial team structure and design, 30 percent from an effective team launch, and 10 percent from ongoing team coaching. The HPTC system takes all of these factors into account.

Psychological Safety
Psychological safety is at the center of the HPTC system because without it, no team shift is possible. We use the term psychological safety instead of trust because psychological safety can actually be measured via physiological signs, such as blood pressure and heart rate. We believe that trust is the outcome of an ongoing experience of feeling safe with others. Safety impacts every phase of team development, as well as team engagement, morale and performance. Team coaches create safety by modeling and fostering genuineness and openness. This helps the team do the same, leading to greater honesty and risk-taking.

Define and Initiate
Because 60 percent of effectiveness derives from the beginning of a task or business cycle, the HPTC system emphasizes this stage. This “define and initiate” stage includes three phases: assessment, coaching for team design and the team launch.

Assessment
It’s difficult to know whether team coaching is the right intervention until the assessment phase is complete. A team-coaching readiness assessment can be used to make this determination. If the team is ready for coaching, the focus can shift to assessing team performance, with an eye toward what the team must do for maximum success and efficiency. There are many team assessments on the market, so when making your selection think about which assessment will target what your client is most concerned about and foster productive dialogue.

Team Structure and Design
If the team is not ready for coaching it is usually because there are significant team structure and design issues that need to be addressed first. Hackman and fellow team effectiveness researcher Ruth Wageman outlined six conditions critical to team structure and design:

1. A real team with clear membership and boundaries.
2. A compelling direction or purpose to guide the team’s work.
3. The right people with the knowledge, skill and experience to perform the team’s requisite work.
4. A solid team structure of fewer than ten members who have a clear set of norms and agreements to guide how they get their work done.
5. A supportive organizational context that provides the information, time and resources to do their work.
6. Competent team coaching to help the team grow individually and as a unit, either provided internally from a team member or provided by an external coach or consultant.

If any of these conditions are misaligned, it can result in interpersonal conflict. Some team structure and design needs are best addressed during initial sessions between the coach and team leader; other issues can be worked on by the whole team.

Team Launch
A well-designed team launch can boost the group’s effectiveness by 30 percent or more.
Once a team is formed—often in response to a key event, such as the implementation of a new project or goal-setting activity—the coach can help the team draft a charter outlining its vision, mission, values, goals, success measures and working agreements.

Review and Realign
The midpoint of a team’s project or business cycle is an ideal time to pause and review progress, gather feedback from outside stakeholders, and plan next steps. At this point, individual coaching is indicated for the team leader at a minimum. Coaches can also use powerful questioning and coaching skills to help the whole team explore and learn during ongoing coaching sessions.

Coaches can provide just-in-time, live coaching by noticing team dynamics at play and by stopping the action in team meetings. The coach can then help team members notice and name their own patterns and switch to newer and more effective ways of working together. This stop-and-switch technique is powerful and once mastered, it’s something teams can use on their own.

Reassess and Integrate
When a project or business cycle reaches its endpoint, it’s time for the coach to help team members consolidate and integrate their individual and team learning, identify and build upon success factors, learn from challenges, and assess progress toward their goals.

Incorporating an endpoint is useful even for ongoing teams, such as senior leadership groups, whose work together has no formal ending. Having set time periods can help channel the team’s energy and focus. Without timeframes and milestones, teams can wander aimlessly and display a lack of cohesion, interdependence and focus.

One or two coaching sessions, along with a redo of the initial team assessments, can help a team review its learning and successes at this point. The key is to help team members identify how well they have achieved three key measures of team effectiveness: individual engagement, team capabilities and relationships, and quality outputs. Finally, the coach helps the team members to celebrate accomplishments and apply learning toward what’s next for them as individuals and as a team.

Team coaching can be a powerful service for teams seeking higher performance and engagement. The HPTC system provides a comprehensive, modularized approach that can be customized by coaches to effectively deliver on these goals. It also provides a framework and standard for the field that can be tested and validated, ensuring more effective teams.