Team Coaching

Great individuals do not make great teams. Well, not always. Teams with great potential can often be very ineffective.

There are many reasons for this anomaly – interpersonal problems between team members, lack of communication or even egoism. This usually results in low retention rates or significant workload imbalances, which in turn leads to frustration and inefficiency.

The most effective way to resolve these issues is team coaching.

Team coaching involves treating the team as an entity – a set unit with a vision, goal and focus. Team coaching improves team morale by allowing open and frank conversations, creating an agreed vision and setting the rules of engagement. This creates a sense of “I’m valued” / “Part of the team”, and we all know that “valued” team members will always outperform frustrated, neglected and de-motivated individuals.

In our previous article (Putting the TEAM into teamwork) several principles were suggested that will change the quality of a team’s performance. The central theme in this article was that teams should be empowered to take responsibility for the life of the specific team. This means that all the team members should have mutual accountability for addressing issues within the team. For team coaching to be effective, it should thus really be done by the team. Team members need to be empowered so that they are able to coach themselves towards greater unity, satisfaction and increased performance. In order to empower teams to do this a practical system is needed that will enable teams to:

• Assess and evaluate their current situation
• Address relationships within the team
• Ensure clear and effective communication and strategies
• Set appropriate goals for the team
• Ensure that the team remains true to their vision, mission and strategy, and
• Review their progress regularly

That is exactly what the Gears of Life™ team coaching system does. All these aspects can be implemented into any team quickly and effectively if you follow a clear system. This unique system empowers team members to become mutually accountable for the successful functioning of the team, by actively participating in the discovery and creation of solutions to potential problems within the team.

All team members are in effect turned into owners of the team entity and thus empowered to ensure best possible performance.

This innovative system for team coaching is designed to address the team’s needs and help the team to perform at a higher level and thus has the following benefits:

• Saving money. Increasing team productivity and effectiveness will eliminate the need for resource ramp-ups and can even drive out current excesses which can be reduced.
• Saving time. Reducing bureaucracy and team politics allows for quicker decision making, less red tape and much less team spent on conflict resolution.
• Being pro-active instead of reactive. Teams are assisted to address potential issues before they even become problems.
• Increased staff morale. “Valued” and enthusiastic team members make for a more pleasant working environment for all.
• Reduced staff turn-over. When a team’s morale is good, staff are less likely to resign, which will save the organisation money in recruitment and training new members of staff.
• Increased team performance. This is self-explanatory – effective happy teams perform better. Period.
• Immediate implementation. This system can be implemented immediately. No massive roll-outs of theoretical multiple-day training programmes. It is designed to be very practical and straight-forward.
• Regular review. This system enables teams to measure their progress on a regular basis, by using a visual model of their teamwork during team meetings. This will ensure that the team remains true to their corporate vision, mission, strategy, values and rules while regularly designing and implementing appropriate action plans.

The unique Gears of Life™ team coaching system will ensure that a team will continue to develop as an entity and ultimately unlock their true synergistic potential.

“There is no “I” in the word “team”. More often than not, teams are on the two ends of the performance scale: synergistically exceptional vs. complete disarrayed failure. Working in a team can often be challenging: Different people with various backgrounds, diverse personalities and divergent ideas. But the even bigger challenge is to create teams that consistently perform, irrespective of team member changes.

Most organisations struggle to keep their teams performing during staff changes. These churns usually creates temporary increases in workload, pressure and stress, which in turn fuels a decrease in productivity and performance – creating a downward spiral until the team basically needs to be completely re-engineered and restructured to become effective again.

In ineffective teams, they might be rescued from this trend if there are one or two superstars in the group, picking up all the issues and actually doing most of the work. But this is not a long-term solution, as those individuals will soon become frustrated and de-motivated if the issue is not resolved quickly. So simply allocating one or two strong individuals to a team is no solution either.

The only realistic way to ensure the longevity of a successful team is to ensure that the team as an entity (in it’s culture, processes and perception) is stronger than any of the individuals concerned.

The first step to do this is to empower each team as a unit. This is best explained with four basic principles that can be summarised with the acronym TEAM:

T: TALK to each other. Good communication is vital. Unfortunately this is often the hurdle where many teams unravel. Frequently managers or team leaders will make decisions without communicating outcomes clearly, or new information relating to interdependencies is not shared to members of their team. This can cause a lot of frustration within teams. It is therefore important to ensure that decisions and expectations are communicated to all team members and that there is a measure of transparency in what management is planning. Negative communication is just as bad or even worse for team moral. A lack of respect for and understanding of each other’s personalities may also cause a breakdown in communication or misunderstandings. As a result many companies use personality profiling as a team building exercise, to help individual team members understand each other better.

To improve teamwork, the first step is to ensure that the communication within the team is clear and appropriate.

E: EMPOWER members to take ownership. Team members must be responsible for resolving internal disputes themselves and to do so quickly and effectively. This has to be included in the team mandate or charter. It needs to be interwoven into the team culture. If the expectation is that managers or outside consultants need to resolve issues and challenges, team members are disempowered. This creates a situation where issues remain unresolved for weeks or even months while everyone plays “hot potato”.

The best way to address such challenges is to be proactive. Dig the well before you need the water! Agree responsibilities and roles upfront and have open and frank discussions to agree on team rules. The first rule should be that the team will resolve all issues and challenges quickly and internally.

In the next article, Coaching teams towards greatness, a system for empowering team members in this way, will be revealed.

A: ALLIANCE creates synergy. Western culture is inherently individualistic – each person is first and foremost focussed on their own interests. This worldview often surfaces in teams. Although a group of individuals may be working together or on the same project, they are not necessarily a team. Unless a group of people produce more than the sum of their own inputs, they may just as well be working separately and simply combine their final results.

The key to exceptional teams and organisations is to ensure that the team synergy is unlocked. This starts with the individual’s perception and mindset of “teams”. To extract maximum performance and benefit the team need to be treated as an entity that has a life of its own. The entity’s success should be the common goal to which all of the team members are working towards.

M: MEASURE the team’s progress regularly. Successful people and organisations regularly measure their progress and make adjustments until they succeed. This is not always the case in teams. Team deliverables may be discussed at regular team meetings, but whether the team itself is operating or functioning well is often disregarded. Reviewing the development and performance progress the team (entity) is making is crucial to ensure exceptional and consistent performance.

These four basic guidelines will increase and influence the performance of teams immediately when implemented. Therefore, put the TEAM back into teamwork!

How to inspire others

Have you ever had the desire to inspire? That feeling that you wanted other people to look to you and feel their hearts getting warmer and their decisions to make the most of their lives clearer?

We have probably all heard of people or met others who seem to elevate us by the way they approach life. They may have overcome the greatest odds to reach the top of their field or they may have managed to do only “normal” things like running a marathon or learning to read or write, but they did it with significantly less resources than we have. These people are inspirational and we can learn a lot from them.

Well known inspirational people like Nelson Mandela, Mahatma Ghandi and Helen Keller all seem to be driven as well as centered at the same time. The combination of these two characteristics seems to play a role in making them extraordinary. This ability to be driven while they are centered appears to help them through difficult times and make them inspirational. Therefore, if we want to learn from them and also inspire others, we also need to cultivate these two characteristics.

• Being centered. These inspirational people’s actions stem from a deep conviction about life. They know what they believe and value and they are not uncertain about their purpose in life. Their centeredness thus spring from the fact that they know what they stand for. They have a clear vision of what they would like life to look like and therefore they believe in what they are doing. They follow their heart, no matter what the odds are or what their circumstances are and this has inspired others to also carry on in the face of adversity.

•  Being driven. Because inspirational people really believe in what they are doing, they are focussed on what they want to achieve. They have set their eyes on the prize, the ideal they want to achieve and they will not allow anything else to distract them from this mission. Their clear and almost single-minded focus thus enables them to put all their energy into making their dream a reality and thereby inspire other people.

These two characteristics set inspirational people apart from others. However, these are also qualities that each one of us can develop in our lives. You can become centered by thinking about what you believe.

Take some time to think about what you want to do with your life by answering the following questions:

§  What are you convicted about?

§ What are your dreams for the world and other people?

§ What is your purpose in life?

Once you have your purpose, put your energy into making your dream a reality by focussing on it and setting appropriate goals to achieve it.

When you do this, you will become driven – not by your dreams, but by your purpose. When you transfer these qualities of being driven and centered by your purpose to every aspect of your life, you will not only live a purposeful and focussed life, but will indeed be inspiring to others as well.

Seven small words are so powerful, it can and will change your life!

There are not many words that have the power to unlock possibilities and help people fulfil their potential. But these seven words are crucial to any coach or ambitious person’s toolkit. If you know how to use them effectively, they can be a brush in your hand in front of an open canvas. However, if you use them incorrectly they will create a barrier between you and the person you work with…

Coaching requires many questions to be asked to the person you work with, and this is an art! Before discussing particular effective words, I want to share a few thoughts on questioning itself. This is to ensure that the environment in which the questions are asked is optimised…

1. Know why you are asking specific questions. Your aim is to help clients think through their circumstances and generate possibilities that will help them to reach their goals. This means that you do not need to know everything and should not ask questions to merely satisfy your own curiosity, but rather to help them come up with what will help them move forward. 

2. Make sure that you establish good rapport with your clients before you start with in-depth questioning. If in-depth questions are asked before a suitable level of rapport has been established, your questions may actually cause the client to close off instead of open up.

3. Always ask open questions, questions that cannot be answered with only a “yes” or “no”.

4. Really listen to the speaker, do not use the time to think of what you’ll say next. Let them determine the direction of the conversation.

Once you have created rapport and the right context, the following seven questioning words can be particularly powerful: what, why, how, when, where, who and if. Let’s look at each in turn:

What

This is probably the word that any good coach will use most frequently. It could be used to elicit information, help clients to think through the possible consequences of their actions and assist them in defining their goal. A very strong addition to what is the little word ‘else’. By asking what else continuously, clients are helped to generate countless possibilities from which they could then choose the most appropriate action.

Why

This word should be approached with caution. If it is used wrongly, someone might react defensively, e.g. why did you do that? These questions will then form a barrier between the coach and the client. It is therefore much better to change into a “what” question, e.g. what were the consequences of this action? Or what made you decide to take this action? However, when used to test or increase motivation, why-questions can be very effective. For instance when someone talks about their goal and you want to help them to make it into a strong and compelling reason to follow their dream, ask: why do you want this so much?

How

This word could help people to take action, by thinking through the steps they will need to take to turn their dreams into reality. Asking a question like: how will you go about achieving your goal? will help clients to think through the actions they need to take next. Another powerful how-question would be to ask: how will you know when you’ve reached your goal? This question will help clients to become very clear on what needs to happen and what specific elements are required. This will make it easier for them to recognise when they have achieved their goal.

Who

This word can be used to achieve two major outcomes. Firstly it can help people to find out who they can ask to support them or who could help them reach their goals. Secondly a who-question could help clients to realise their own responsibility for achieving their goals. This question, whose responsibility is this? Can help clients to really take ownership of what needs to be done. This could be a powerful experience for clients when they really take ownership of the goals for their life.

If

This word is used to help clients see possibilities and unlock their creativity, e.g. if you were to do this, what would happen? If you knew the answer, what would you say? If a miracle happened and everything was how you would like it to be, what would your life look like?

When

After someone has decided on their action plan, this word is probably the most effective word that could be used. This word transforms dreams into goals. The word “when” can change an idea into a specific action. When someone has made plans and seem excited about doing it, just ask: when will you do this?

Where

Although this question is not often used, it could be a real gem, especially when it is asked not to determine a specific place, but rather a direction or consequence. For instance asking someone: where will this lead? could help them to realise the consequences or possibilities of their actions and could motivate them to take action as soon as possible. So, if you asked this question after someone said they would clean their garden, they could respond with the following answers: I will not be embarrassed to have friends over anymore, I may even invite my neighbours over… I think we could actually become good friends… This question could thus generate a lot of possibilities and subsequent excitement about the future.

These seven words are powerful, they could change your practise and they could help to change people’s lives. So use them with precision and care and see how they will help people to unlock their amazing potential.

We all want to grow in life. We want to develop our potential and become the best that we can be. Sport stars all have personal coaches and trainers to help them with this. Over the last 5 years people realised that we need the same for our personal-, career- and business development. In this article we’ll focus on a model to help you:

• Assess your current situation
• Set goals, and
• Draft an action plan to achieve those goals.

Graham Alexander developed a coaching model that not only reminds us of our overall goal, but also give us four practical steps toward tackling any immediate stumbling blocks that may be blocking our growth. To help with this he created the GROW model.

It is used by coaches all over the world to help people take control of their personal development and goals. Obviously this model, like other coaching models was specifically designed to be used within a coaching relationship.

However, after you’ve read this article, you can use and apply the GROW model. You can also use online tools such as Habit Tool.com to easily record and track your goals and progress.

The G-R-O-W model explained:

G – Goal: What do you really want? If you are not 100% sure, begin by writing down everything that is bothering you at the moment or use the “Gears of Life” self assessment. Then decide on one goal to work with first. The clearer you are about what your specific goal is the bigger the chances that you will achieve it. A coach is invaluable in this first step. He / she will guide you by asking questions that will help you to become really clear about what you truly want.

R – Reality: What is happening in your life right now? It is really important to establish exactly what is going on – on the surface as well as deep down. Ask yourself what your reality is and what makes you think about it in that way. Do you make assumptions or quick judgements in situations? Is it really the reality or just your perception of it? Keep on asking yourself these questions until you are very clear about what the specific stumbling block is that is preventing you from having what you really want.

O – Options: What options do you have available that will help you reach your goal? List as many options as you can think of, in and outside of the box. Don’t judge your options, yet! At this stage you don’t have to decide what to do, you just need to generate many possibilities on how to overcome the obstacles that are standing in the way of your goal.

W – Wrap-up: This is the ACTION phase. It is now time to look at all your options and ask yourself what the implications of each action step would be. Would it create any other possible barriers? What could you do to overcome these? Which option do you consider the best? Once you’ve decided on this, you need to decide on your action plan. What are the specific actions that you will take? When will you take them? How will you take them? Who will support you in this? When will you review what happened? And how will you measure if you’ve achieved your goal?

As you can see, the GROW model assists you in setting goals, thinking through your current situation and coming up with an action plan.

In turn, this will help you move forward towards fulfilling your potential. Although you can use this model on yourself or even with friends, you will receive the most benefit from it if you have a personal coach to guide you through it.

Which ever way you decide to use this method, may it help you to continually grow and fulfil your amazing potential!

Have you ever felt that you could be so much more, achieve so much more? That if you really commit to your dreams and gave it your all, it could actually become reality? Maybe you feel this deep down, but with all the pressures and daily demands, you seem unable to find time to work on yourself and the things you really want in life. And that leaves you with the distinct feeling that you are not fulfilling your potential – not progressing or developing yourself.

Webster’s dictionary defines growth as progressive development – and that sometimes seem like the missing link in our lives. We know we could be so much more, but we no longer experience “progressive development” or growth in our personal lives. Fortunately life coaching can help in our endeavour to develop and become the best we can be. Coaching aims to help you build on your inherent potential and strive towards making your goals reality.

When we think about growth we often assume that it is a natural process that will occur instinctively. We look at nature and see that everything seem to “just grow” or we see how babies appear to develop overnight – and we falsely conclude that growth, including personal growth, will happen automatically. Unfortunately this is not true. Although growth is a natural process, it will not happen naturally, unless two factors are present. These two factors are just as important for mental, emotional and spiritual development and growth as they are for physical growth.

Firstly, the right type of nutrition is essential. Nutrition is a crucial ingredient to any formula for growth. When it comes to physical development, it is easy to know what is important and good for growth: we know a tree needs soil, sunlight and water. However, when it comes to the development of our inherent potential, we are not always so sure about the right nutrition – and unless we get it, we will not reach our full potential. Fortunately life coaching can help a great deal, since a personal coach can assist us in determining what is really important to us, help us to develop our potential in those areas and thus grow towards greater fulfilment.

Secondly, growth can only take place if the nutrition is acquired in the right quantities. For instance, an oak tree that was planted in very shallow soil and got great amounts of sunlight, but almost no water would look a lot different from the oak that was planted in fertile ground and got just the right amount of water and sunlight. Although both acorns had the potential to grow into big oak trees and although they both received nutrition, both did not grow to their full capability. Unless nutrition is given in the right amounts and the right order, it could actually prevent growth from taking place. The same is true when it comes to our own personal development – although we may have inherent potential and although we may have discovered what is important to us and how to develop this through coaching, we will not grow to our full potential, unless we also prioritise and take action steps to get there.

In summary, what can we learn from nature that can help us to take control of our lives and grow again? What could we do to fulfil our enormous potential?

1) Although growth is a natural process, it will not happen naturally, unless you invest in it. Therefore get yourself a personal development book, get a coach or subscribe to habittool.com’s continuing education program.

2) Even if we know what is important for us to grow, we still need to consciously prioritise our growth requirements – it will make it easier to reach our goals. Start by writing a list of what you really value in life and then put them in order of importance. You will find that it does not only simplify decision-making, but will indeed help you to be more fulfilled in life when you live according to these principles. For a technique to help you discover what to focus on, read the article: “GROWth Coaching”, at http://leapinlife-coaching.com/blog/

So what will you do to reach your full potential and make your dreams reality?

Author: Jaco Beukes – Personal Performance and Life Coach – LEAP in Life Coaching and a HabitTool.com associate