9 MIN READ

Coaching for Team Performance

Improving Productivity by Improving Relationships

Coaching could unlock your team's potential.

Teams are the force that drives most organizations.

Whether it's a functional team, a team of managers, or a project team, people get most done when they work together effectively. So when members of a team don't work well together, performance and productivity can suffer. That's not good for anyone.

Have you seen hostility, conflicting goals, and unclear expectations within your teams? These are symptoms of an unhealthy team. To avoid these harmful effects, you need be proactive about improving team performance. And even when a team is meeting its objectives, there's often room for improvement.

So how can you help your team improve? With good team coaching (as distinct from individual coaching) you can take your team to the next level. It's a valuable activity, and it's an essential management and leadership tool.

Team Coaching

Team coaching helps people understand how to work better with others. It's an effective method for showing teams how to reduce conflict and improve their working relationships. The team can then focus on its real work, and achieve its objectives.

To coach your team, focus on interpersonal skills and interactions instead of on individual development (as you tend to do with individually-focused coaching). The way people act with their teammates, and the way they communicate with one another – these are important drivers of effective team performance. After all, you can put a lot of high-performing individuals on a team and still have performance problems.

People must learn to work together and understand how to relate to one another – otherwise the team's output will be less than it could be.

Note:

We're assuming here that your team has a well-defined direction as well as the resources and support needed to achieve its goals. If these needs are not met, then you should build a solid team foundation before you start coaching for improved performance.