Introduction
When speaking of Coaching today, with all the whirlwind of information that exists in the various media to which we have access, an infinite number of concepts, schools and currents in this regard come to mind. The objective of this chapter is not to create steamed coaches, much less mention infinity of techniques that could be applied as a "magic wand" so that the performance of the teams improves significantly overnight, it is simply to provide a practical guide so that the leaders of a work team are clear about the process and channel it, thus accompanying the team, to the achievement of their organizational goals and objectives.
Work teams are the main engine of business development. The key to team performance lies in the particular dynamics of relationships between its members. This factor cannot be perceived if we observe how each member behaves individually. What matters is how the team members behave together over time. Team Coaching creates a basis for self-knowledge, clear directions for change and the necessary rules of operation as a team that is sustainable over time.
In the basic coaching process that is proposed, the cornerstone is diagnosis. Just as doctors perform a detailed assessment of the patient when the manifest result is a “symptom” and until then they prescribe a medication; the leader must diagnose the team as a whole, that is, the communication processes in it, the clarity of the goals and the structure of the tasks. Just like this, the leader will be able to discover if the problem is the "symptom" or if there is something else behind the team's performance.
The diagnostic instruments will serve to make the intervention in the team through the leader as accurate as possible, immediately afterwards, the monitoring and measurement of the results will lead us to the achievement of the objectives and goals set.
The team coaching process
Today's world is characterized by constant change and globalization. Therefore, companies face an arduous challenge: how to find a way to remain effective and productive?
Businesses have been created to be profitable and teams are the foundation for making it so. We have seen countless cases in which organizations are born, grow, develop and die in a period of time to call it that; ephemeral. The essential thing would be to find a way in which organizations have a long and constantly renewed life. Therefore, it would be interesting to ask about the "health" of the team as a whole.
Understanding what is done and how it is done is essential. This process goes through a review of key factors and indicators of team productivity such as results, resources, clear objectives, well-defined and communicated strategies, a defined decision-making process and a coordination of actions between team members, among many others. But still there are times when the expected results are not achieved. What are those "intangibles" that we cannot detect? What other aspects influence and we do not take into account?
The mood of the team, whether it is motivating and energetic or fear or lack of commitment, can be felt in the air. The environment and atmosphere are generated through relationships in the team.
The team is a dynamic and active system, with its own personality, temperament, climate and vision. A culture of its own is developed with values and rules of formal and informal functioning. The system itself has a great influence on what is done and how it is done. Team Coaching works with the team as a living entity, beyond the personalities of each individual and their relationships. This is where you can act to transform a team beyond what each individual is.
The proposed Team Coaching process is an intervention that affects the productivity and emotions of the team, based on a diagnosis, as the main key to the configuration of a productive team.
The main difference in a Team Coaching Process is that the team is the client, the system is the unit of work, beyond the sum of each person. It is a global work in which the relationship is the medium in which Coaching takes place.
Team Coaching is a PROCESS, which must be conceived as such and which must be accompanied at all stages.
- The Coaching process has a clearly specified starting point and end goal. Time course, with a duration of the process of 4-8 months. (Alain Cardón, Team Coaching, 2005) The set of phases in which we will land an intervention model, which I pose as a sequential and systemic puzzle, that is, by putting together and matching all the "pieces" we will achieve a planned result and sustained. Fig. # 1: The diagnostic phase (D), Coaching or intervention phase (formation, training and team development with an interactive work methodology) (I), Evaluation phase to measure results (M) and Planned follow-up (S).
DIMS Model (Diagnosis, Intervention, Measurement and Follow-up)
Fig 1. DIMS model (Diagnosis, Intervention, Measurement and Follow-up)
Diagnosis
Diagnosis can be defined as an analytical process which allows us to know the real situation of a team at a given moment, to discover problems and areas of opportunity, in order to correct the former and take advantage of the latter.
For this case, we will use the pentagon (I have yet to investigate the model that Ernesto taught us) for its schematic clarity and simplicity of application. (Fig. 2)
Model for diagnosing organizational interventions at the team level
Fig. 2
For the application of the diagnosis in a specific team, below I enunciate a brief questionnaire that will provide us with the essential information to locate the current performance of the team.
Work Team Diagnostic Questionnaire
Clarity of Goals
- What are the objectives of the process to which I belong? What are your specific metrics? What are the key indicators (KPI) to achieve those goals? By what parameters do I realize if those goals will be achieved?
Team's functioning
- How often does the team meet to measure its progress and if it is necessary to solve problems? Do the agreements established in these meetings lead to concrete action plans? What type of feedback is given in the team when the results are not satisfactory or when Are they successful? How does the leader provide feedback to the team regarding the status of their performance?
Group Rules
- Are decisions only made based on the experience and recommendations of the leader or together with the team? Is there communication in 2 ways (leader - team) and vice versa in an open way? How frequent are the confrontations of ideas in the team? How is it possible for all the members to interact by contributing their points of view?
Group composition
- Do I push the group to abide by the schedules, keep the plans and deadlines established? Can I be counted on to contribute original ideas? Before making decisions, how do I seek to reach a consensus? Do we all know what it is? Are we even talking when we use “technical” language? I don't mind being unpopular if I do my job?
Task Structure
- How can I be clear about my contribution as a team member to achieve the objective? Does the team have roles and functions defined and understood by all members? Do all members come with the information agreed to the meetings? do they take, lead to activities and specific tasks for everyone?
- End of the Questionnaire-
When carrying out the diagnostic stage, we obtain an analysis of the situation in which the team finds itself. It is the "photograph" of your current situation that allows us to identify the objectives that the team wants to achieve. Self-observation allows the team to identify the paradigms that govern their actions and that are acting as barriers or obstacles in achieving their results and the way in which the leader should focus on working together with her team.
At this time it is important for me to quote and clarify the principle of CO-RESPONSIBILITY, that is, that the responsibility for the team to achieve its objectives is common to all the members, who share a commitment, to improve significantly being essential pieces of a whole (team).
When having a result of equipment diagnosis, the points to attack are obvious to us:
Task Structure
Task structure
The result of this report provides a clear direction of what are the fundamental factors that we must touch to initiate change.
The Team Coach
The leader as a team coach must adhere to the principles of a form of coaching that respects the team as the expert in its life and work and believes in it as a creative, initiative and complete entity. His job is to unveil the system himself. Based on this foundation, the responsibilities of the coach are:
- Discover, clarify and define what the team wants to achieve. Stimulate the team's self-discovery. Provoke solutions and strategies generated by the team itself. Maintain a responsible and consistent attitude in the team. Be the team's "mirror", that is, giving feedback to the members of all the identified behaviors (inside and outside the meetings) in an assertive way, leaving aside their limiting beliefs *
* beliefs that have been created from our own experiences, and in turn, influence our experiences, making some possible and others not.
When is a good belief and when is it not? Beliefs are not good or bad, but empowering or limiting. When someone believes they can do something, they do it, whereas if they are convinced that it is not possible, no matter what they are told, they will not be convinced otherwise. (José María Garteiz, my coach.com, Barcelona Spain)
By performing these actions, the coach accompanies the team to define the action plan and establish relationship commitments, so that the team creates a context of trust that allows them to act differently, try new things and experiment the consequences.
How many times in different areas have we heard the leader reject ideas without even analyzing them? How many times does the leader, instead of saying what to do, question the team to discover for themselves the actions to be taken?
Would the same result be if the leader changed his way of attending and testing creative proposals from "I don't think that's the solution" to Why do you think that would be the solution? How did you determine that this idea will work? The result would definitely be diametrically different…
It is really important to work with the team on determining the operating rules and commitments for those times when there are conflicts, differences of opinion or focus. An agreement to deal with the moments where there is “harmful” communication in the equipment and the antidotes necessary to save them.
What are the benefits of this Process?
Facilitates significantly improving joint work processes: communication, problem analysis, decision making and conflict resolution.
- It helps to review and gives importance to the values and functioning of the team. It nurtures and strengthens the common vision of the team. It supports the development and achievement of clear and specific objectives, strategies and action plans. It flexes the team on changes to a better adaptation and performance before them. It encourages creativity and innovation in difficult times or the generation of new strategies.
Process Measurement
How to really know if the Coaching process being carried out by the leader is working according to the detected needs? Has the team's performance as a “living” entity exceeded the sum of its parts?
The answer is relatively simple, in a work team system (SET) which is based on performance and development indicators, you can clearly see their achievement and how these achievements have contributed to fulfilling the organization's strategy..
A tangible tool would be an in-depth evaluation considering the following aspects:
- Has the team consistently met its objectives? Have preventive actions aimed at achieving them been developed at its core? Are the objectives and indicators communicated and understood by all members? Does the team develop an effective supported action plan by an analysis every time the indicator is not fulfilled? Are all the members able to explain what their stretch of control is and where the tasks they perform impact (both positively and unfavorably)?
When a significant improvement is seen when comparing these results with those obtained previously in the team, we can say that the Coaching process has had the expected impact.
Tracing
Having achieved an effective impact on the performance of the team that has been coached, we must ensure that the benefits will be sustained, how to achieve it? How to prevent the team from falling into "torques" ?. The answer lies in designing and developing team "maintenance" meetings.
If weekly and monthly meetings were held during the team coaching process, achieving the improvements and objectives, these maintenance sessions should be scheduled in a suggested period of no more than 2 or 3 meeting periods (which for the purposes of this example would correspond to no more than 2 or 3 months).
In these sessions, the coach must explore the operation of the team through a diagnostic retest identical to the one applied at the beginning of the process (Work Team Diagnostic Questionnaire), in which they must analyze together with the team the results obtained, in order to generate new joint actions that respond to the current need found. Incidentally, collect the feelings of the same team when working in this "new" way.
Conclusions
As the previous schemes demonstrate, a team developed through Coaching is a “network team” of learning, a place of experimentation, modeling and individual development within a constantly evolving group.
Team Coaching is more than an "integration" event. There may be perfectly integrated teams with close ties, but nevertheless, their results are poor. Coaching is a methodology that generates change and maintains it over time, creates a fundamental base of work for self-knowledge, clear directions for change and the necessary rules of operation as a sustainable team.
In the course of my professional growth, I have been convinced that these processes of change may perhaps be slower, but as an ancient proverb says: "the seed you sow today giving careful care, will yield the most beautiful fruit". Being this fruit for me, the organizations that learn and improve day by day through their people.
I have tried to make this chapter as concrete and practical as possible, the idea is that the "turnkey" reader will facilitate the results with this basic method (to emphasize it again), but managing to focus on immediate and long-term problems in the work teams. Provide a very valuable tool that we keep in the backpack of knowledge and skills of the leaders to then take it out and apply it in a conscious and planned way.
Bibliographic references
- "Team Coaching", Cardon Alain, Ed. Gestión 2000.com, 2005. "Teamwork", Katzenbach Jon, Granica, 2000. "Why teams fail", Robbins Harvey, Finley Michael, Granica, 1999. "The five dysfunctions of a team", Lencioni Patrick, Ed. Empresa Activa, 2003. "80 impact questions for your Coaching practice", Franzo Pablo, coach.com blog, Barcelona Spain, 2010. "Aligment", Kaplan Robert, Norton David, Harvard Business School, 2006. "Six hats to think" Edward De Bono, Paidós Ibérica, 2008.Vicens Olivé, Institut Gestalt, Coaching and PNL, AlfaOmega.Toni Piniés, Valors & Persones, Team Coaching and Development Organizational, Barcelona, Spain.www.anse.fr / team coaching.
Next, Luis Carchak, director of the team coaching program and coordinator of the coaching and policy program at the EEC, presents an overview of what team coaching is, showing what its conceptual bases are, what it is for, what it observes, when it becomes necessary and how it intervenes. Good complement to this writing.
