Journey’s end|Coaching at Work

In the last of a two-part series on team coaching, Jill Fairbairns shares her tips for rolling out team coaching, by applying Peter Hawkins’ Five Disciplines model to a high performing team undergoing transformation

A team coaching programme is rather like going on a journey. You start off clear about where you’re going and who’s coming along. Then people leave, storms blow up, you get lost or circumstances change and you want to go somewhere else instead. So you have to begin with an end in mind that will survive the change.
The destination can be defined using a generic model of high performing teams, and specifically for performance outcomes. While the outcomes may need to be adjusted, the aspiration to become a high performing team will remain relevant so long as the team exists.
I use Peter Hawkins’ model: Five Disciplines of High Performing Teams1. From the outset, its
purposes include:

The story emerged from interviews during the Inquiry phase.

Case study:
Transformation project team
A huge company was transforming its functions prior to delivering them as common services to all its varied businesses. Historically, each business had had its own way of providing finance, IT, human resources, legal and other services. Now, all functions were to be run according to the same rules and procedures. All were making this big change at the same time and were driving to the same tight deadlines. The transformation teams were offered team coaching.
My colleague and I were called in three months after this particular team had been formed. We interviewed the team leader, all team members, their senior human resources boss and a couple of senior stakeholders. The leader’s boss was unavailable.
The team had been assembled from all the businesses. The members were senior line managers within the function, and working on the transformation alongside their ‘day jobs’. Their leader, though much admired, was largely absent, having been appointed to lead another significant chunk of the change from the top, again alongside his day job.
The team’s purpose was to provide end-to-end processes by a specific date (only six months away).
They had met as a whole team once since they had started work together. On the whole, they were working independently, with strained or non-existent relationships between them. They appreciated the hands-off style of their leader, and yet they wanted the leader to resolve their simmering disputes. Morale was rather low and tension was high.
An organisation survey showed service users to be very critical of communications and poor responsiveness. Nonetheless, this team’s leader was full of praise for the progress they had made. He thought they were very effective as a self-managing team.

Reflections
I thought they were ready for coaching. The team leader wanted to proceed. The common task for the team was clear, although defined at a high level. The motivation for delivering it was very high: their organisation sounded extremely turbulent.
I thought team coaching would help them untangle their own tensions from the parallel process that seemed to have them in its grip. They were working separately on a task that required their collaboration. They knew this, but were at a loss as to how they could perform at their normal levels of effectiveness.
Team members were acting as if they were resistant to the changes. Maybe it was because the businesses from which they were drawn were resistant to the transformation?
It was my view that spending more time on structuring the task and clarifying their roles would defuse some of the emotion and free them up to move forward as a collaborative team.

Suggestions to the team
Figure 1 shows the Five Disciplines model in use for feeding back recommendations to the team. The summary gave ideas for team coaching. These were spelled out in the roadmap in Table 1.

Troubles along the way
Delays, meetings cancelled, priorities questioned
Three weeks into the coaching, the team members were asked by senior management to provide workshops for customers, to start very soon. The team leader pushed back the coaching by a month.
lWhen there are delays or cancellations, are they due to operational difficulties, avoidance of coaching or lack of engagement?
This was a genuine interruption.

Core learning: We invited team members to revisit Covey’s Habit 1 ‘Be Proactive’2 and reflect on what fell in the team’s circle of concern, and what in the circle of control. Also, how might they use the customer training to progress their goals for Connecting?

Phone calls prior to their one-day ‘joint review of progress’ revealed doubts about whether they had time for the coaching. In spite of this, the team leader was confident about carrying on. He agreed to make space in the meeting for concerns.
Feedback about individual coaching sessions had rated it as either useful or very useful. Two had not taken up the offer. Customer workshops had been well-received.
Signs of the team’s doubts had to be addressed and yet balanced with positive outcomes of coaching.
The next one-day meeting had to re-engage everyone. We kept the focus on Clarifying the mission, ie, planning and role sorting.
Any team coaching interventions during the day would be around listening to opposing views before talking [Core learning].
The last session was to be a review of what was helping and hindering the team. This would be followed by problem-solving [Co-creating].

Dealing with the unexpected: the team leader moves on
Some 12 weeks into our work, the team leader told me he’d been promoted and was moving the next week. The team was to carry on, overseen by the team leader’s boss.
The current leader had been the driving force so we could not assume team coaching would continue. We would need to contract again with the new leader.
Phone calls with team members before the leader’s last meeting revealed disappointment, but not surprise. Two suggested, jokingly, that I take over as team leader.
The team’s sense of leading themselves needed strengthening. Jokes about putting me in the leadership role were seductive and also a sign of dependency.
lAs team coaches we must take care to stay in the role of coach only.

The team leader worked with us to design a meeting for his farewells.
I later had a phone call with his boss who was clear that: a) he was confident the team could manage themselves for the remainder of the project, b) their progress had been exemplary, and c) he saw no further need for the team coaching. He was willing to attend the team’s next meeting to tell them this, and to
answer any questions.
The meeting had to deal with a number of pressing issues around the task, together with the gap being left by the leader [Clarifying] and the relationship with the senior manager who would attend the meeting [Commissioning]. In addition, there needed to be a review of team learning before the coaching ended [Core learning].
Questions for the team included:
– What has the team leader been doing that has made a positive difference to our performance?
– What have we been doing?
– What can we do to maintain our performance and continue to improve it? Who will do what? When? How?
– What do we want others to do?

Postscript
We were disappointed to leave early, but we knew better than to persuade them to keep us there. Such is the nature of the work.
Looking back, I can see that we did a pretty good job of enabling the team. They went from shared disgruntlement to showing signs of collective high performance. n
Jill Fairbairns is an accredited executive coach and supervisor, chartered psychologist and organisation development consultant. www.jillfairbairns.com

References
1 P Hawkins, Leadership Team Coaching: Developing Collective Transformational Leadership, London: Kogan Page, 2011; P Lencioni, The Five Dysfunctions of a Team, San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 2002
2 S Covey, The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, New York: Simon & Schuster, 1989

Table 1: Team coaching roadmap for the transformation team
TEAM COACHING ROAD MAP FOR TRANSFORMATION TEAM
WHEN WHAT HOW
Today Explore data from Inquiry. Agree priorities for development. Shared YES/NO decision re proceeding with team coaching.
Set team development goals: ‘from→ to’ plus measures of progress
Input from team leader. Collective purpose and objectives of team. Expectations of team members. Response from team: reactions and expectations of leader. Negotiation between leader and team.
Set ground rules for team working. One day – whole team
Input on disciplines of high performing teams.
Present Inquiry and draft team coaching programme
Listening and talking: input and practice
2-4 weeks Project planning in great detail, factoring in education and coaching of subordinates, communications with users at all levels, and keeping in touch with other stakeholders.
Team leader and coach design next meeting Coach supports sub-team(s) to coordinate production of detailed plan for whole team.
One-to-one team leader and coach
4/5 weeks on Joint review of progress against the detailed project plan.
Identify key blocks and map against Five Disciplines model Whole day, whole team
Individuals input on different activities
Team coach aids reflection on how the team’s working
5-7 weeks Individual coaching – contributions to team effectiveness – how do I help and hinder the team – self-assessment One-to-ones with team coach. Preparing for ‘working together’ whole team session.
8 weeks on Working together – effectiveness?
Giving and receiving feedback.
Four hours, whole team
Input and exercises around Lencioni’s Five Dysfunctions of a Team
From here on….
4-6 week intervals Coaching the team, together or apart, to address team issues, evaluate progress, learn new skills – to match emerging needs Mix of whole team activities with one-to-one meetings.
Attend teleconferences as process consultant. Help to improve effectiveness of these meetings.

Learning points

Coaching at Work, Volume 7, issue 5

Journey’s end

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