Working in teams is being considered a normal thing to many people. However, it also means that we often do not give enough attention to teamwork. We take it for granted. There are some questions about our teams that are rarely answered, like: “How do we get the most out of our team?” and “When is our team a good team?” These questions might seem like asking for an obvious answer, but is it? Have you ever measured your team’s performance? I don’t mean the performance in achieving your sales target or achieving your alliance goals. I mean performance in the light of effectiveness of working together as a group of people, as a team.
Team effectiveness
How would you measure team effectiveness and how would you measure the improvement of it? Measurable team improvement is essential if you want to get better as a team. Better teams work more seamless together, are more effective and require less time. That does not mean that better teams won’t argue. On the contrary, a good discussion about different viewpoints sometimes is essential to come to the right decisions.
However good you feel your team is performing, there is always room for improvement. Team improvement is about improving as an individual team member and at the same time improving as a team collectively. Team coaching can help improve both yourself and your team.
Team improvement
Team coaching is based on insider expertise. In team coaching, team members become the de facto coaches to each other. Team members are in a position to provide expert advice to each other. They can provide an insider view as it relates to their business and their people. Team coaching is very resource efficient. One executive coach works with all team members, while the team members support each other in the ongoing team coaching process.
In team coaching, leaders and teams change at the same time. The team as a whole defines one leadership growth area for the team. Additionally each team member defines his/her own leadership growth area that relates to the team focus. As such there is a combined team effort with the aim to achieve personal results and team results at the same time.
Team coaching is not about attending a team development workshop, it is an ongoing process. A process that will lead to measurable team improvement.
In the Marshall Goldsmith team stakeholder coaching methodology, we begin with a base level measurement: “How effectively are we working together as a team?” And we set a goal: “How effectively do we need to be working together as a team?” To ensure we stay on track we’ll continue the measurement of the team’s effectiveness on an ongoing basis during the coaching process.
The ROI of team improvement
Measurable improvement is part of the return on investment (ROI) of team coaching. Furthermore, the ROI can be infinite and lies in areas like time saved, and the results you can achieve as an effective team.
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