Leadership Team Coaching

Developing Collective Transformational Leadership

Peter Hawkins
Kogan Page © 2011
248 pages

Focus Take-Aways
Leadership & Management • Team coaching combines the two elements of individual coaching and consulting with
Strategy inspiration from sports training.
Sales & Marketing • Strong leadership teams are critical to organizational success.
Finance • Team coaches help teams come together, set goals and assess their results.
Human Resources • Team coaching targets senior leadership, but it is also useful for management teams,
IT, Production & Logistics project teams, account teams, and virtual or international teams.
Career & Self-Development • Team coaching can help boards of directors handle their substantial responsibilities.
Small Business • To develop successful teams, use the “five disciplines”: “commissioning, clarifying, co-
Economics & Politics creating, connecting and core learning.”
Industries • Selecting a team coach requires defining needs and measuring results.
Global Business • The coach and the team must create a contract describing the team’s goals for the
Concepts & Trends coaching process.
• A coach must be a partner to the team while maintaining humility and a sense of humor.
• Coaching a corporate transformation is like steering a “ship through stormy seas while
rebuilding the ship at the same time.”

Rating (10 is best)

Overall Applicability Innovation Style
7 7 6 6

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 Relevance
What You Will Learn
In this summary, you will learn:r1) Why organizations need better leadership
teams, 2) How a team coach creates a high-performing team and 3) What skills a team
coach needs.
Review
Sports coaching skills transfer well to coaching organizational leadership teams. Peter
Hawkins – a coach with experience in industry, education and government – deftly
explains who leadership team coaches are, what they do, and what tools and techniques
they use. getAbstract recommends this hearty introduction to those who aspire to become
or to work with a team coach; Hawkins can help your teams reach their goals on the field
or in the boardroom.

Summary
 
 
  Better Leadership Teams
  In an increasingly complex business world, leadership teams must work together across
 
“If you could get
departmental divides, professional disciplines and geographic borders. Managers who
all the people in want to develop high-performing leadership teams must meet seven challenges:
an organization
rowing in the same 1. Balance the needs of various constituents – Leaders may feel that they have less
direction, you could
dominate any
control because they must answer the demands of more stakeholders.
industry, in any 2. Handle tactical jobs and strategy – Leaders must work on business transformations
market, against any
competition at any
while they manage day-to-day operations.
time.” 3. Cope with channel conflict – Disagreement between two upper-level leaders can
  paralyze an organization, but a lack of productive conflict can be just as damaging.
 
  4. Wear multiple hats – All workers maintain membership in many groups, ranging
  from local to global. Leaders must take all these roles into account when managing
 
  a team.
  5. Develop perspective – Leaders must maintain a clear perspective despite the
 
 
complexities of a highly connected business world.
  6. Manage virtual employees – The nature of work is changing from on-site
 
 
employment during set hours to any time and any place work that goes on around
  the clock.
  7. Prioritize the connections rather than the parts – Leaders must manage the
 
  conversations, conflicts, and relationships among groups and individuals.
“Like a good These factors demonstrate the need for leadership team coaching, which focuses on the
sports coach, the
leadership team behavior of the team more than on the work of its individual members. Finding the right
coach has to care coach for a specific team is an important challenge. Envision what your company hopes
more about the
team than any of
to get from team coaching; solicit and select candidates; conduct a “contracting” phase to
the individuals develop mutual expectations; and allow for regular reviews and a final evaluation.
 
within it.” Creating a leadership team capable of transforming an organization requires time and
  passion. A team is “a small number of people with complementary skills...committed to a
  common purpose, a set of performance goals and a shared approach for which they hold
 
  themselves mutually accountable.” Team members must commit to change, believe in
  the organization, hold strong values, learn continuously, handle uncertainty, and possess
 
  vision and courage.
 
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   Introduction to Team Coaching
 
“The dynamics Team coaching combines individual coaching and consulting with inspiration from sports
of organizational training. High-functioning sports teams respond to stressful moments instantly because
and business teams
parallel those of they practiced their responses and execute as a team. In leadership team coaching, a coach
sports teams [in must exercise eight skills:
that] the right
people need to be in 1. “Storming”– The coach supports the team as its members learn to work together.
the right jobs at the
right time.” 2. “Team building” or “forming” – Coach and team focus on its mission and goals.
  3. “Team facilitation” – One member takes ownership of the process so other members
 
 
can focus on the job.
  4. “Team process consultancy” – The coach observes how the team works together.
 
 
5. “Team coaching” – The coach helps the team learn.
  6. “Leadership team coaching” – The coach assists the team in understanding its
  impact on the organization’s constituents and stakeholders.
 
  7. “Transformational leadership team coaching” – The coach helps the team change
  the firm into its next incarnation. “One CEO described this as having to navigate the
“The myth of the
perfect CEO or ship through stormy seas while rebuilding the ship at the same time.”
perfect leader 8. “Systemic team coaching” – The coach focuses on factors that improve or detract
is prevalent in
many companies,
from a team’s performance.
organizations, sports Understanding the Coaching Process
teams and indeed
even in the politics
Coaches should use the “CID-CLEAR” model. Each letter stands for a step in this process:
of nations.”
 
• “Contracting 1” – The coach holds an initial discussion about the team’s
  understanding of coaching, and everyone works toward an agreement about what the
 
 
coach’s job entails.
  • “Inquiry” – In this data-gathering phase, the coach learns about how the team works.
  • “Diagnosis and design” – The coach analyzes the data from the first two steps.
 
  • “Contracting 2” – The coach and the team create a contract describing the team’s
  goals for the coaching process.
 
  • “Listening” – The coach examines the issues identified in the previous step, while
“Begin by being remaining alert to verbal and nonverbal feedback.
clear whether you
want and need...a
• “Explore and experiment” – The coach and the team construct new ways of
team and are behaving that address the issues they’ve identified.
prepared to commit
the investment it will
• “Action” – The team takes the knowledge it’s gained and puts it into practice,
require.” sometimes using “SMART (specific, measurable, actionable, realistic and timely)”
  action steps.
 
  • “Review” – In this final step, the coach and team examine how the process unfolded
  and make plans for the next stages.
 
  Coaching “the Five Disciplines of Successful Team Practice”
  A leadership team must consider the company’s tasks and processes and the intersection
 
 
of internal and external concerns. This requires practicing five cyclical disciplines. The
  CID-CLEAR model reveals the role a coach plays in leading a team in each discipline.
 
“Sports people, 1. “Commissioning” – Team members delineate the group’s purpose and establish how
especially in
team sports, are
it will measure success. To coach a team in the commissioning stage, the coach gathers
empowered to make data about the goals of the company’s transformation plan, how the team enacted the
decisions in an
instant – who to
plan and what the members thought of the results.
pass to, what move 2. “Clarifying” – The team develops and defines its mission, goals, values and
to make.” processes. In this stage, the coach helps the team examine why it operates, where
 
  the company focuses, what values mold the business and what the team hopes to
  become. This discussion helps team members own their goals and prepare to execute
 
the resulting plan.
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   3. “Co-creating” – The team monitors how it functions as a whole, celebrates its
 
“Often a team achievements and corrects any malfunctions. To achieve co-creation, the coach looks
coach will feel at the team’s objectives and the measures it uses to assess success. The team coach
overwhelmed by
the amount of data can observe meetings or help the team members process the results of their work to
presented.” help them stay on track.
 
 
4. “Connecting” – The team focuses on how each member connects with external
  stakeholders. In the connecting phase, the coach helps team members look outward
 
 
to see how the constituents of the organization perceive the team’s goals and results.
  5. “Core learning” – Team members assess their performance and draw lessons from
  their experience. The coach gives the team members feedback on their performance
 
  and what they can change in the future.
  One common problem is that leaders set goals inside their leadership teams, but have
“Instead of feeding
the results back trouble conveying those objectives or supporting them when another group objects. To
in...a beautifully assure core learning, the coach helps the team learn as a group while avoiding several
crafted report that
is so polished that
pitfalls, including working by trial and error, focusing excessively on the past, dwelling
you can’t grasp hold on theory or analysis without action, or expecting the company to execute the team’s plans
of it, it is better to
do so in a way that
without change or comment.
is full of hooks and Working with Different Teams
intriguing entry Coaches work with many different types of teams, and each one offers its own challenges.
points.”
  Management teams differ from senior leadership teams; managers tend to be in the
  middle of an organization, with constituents above and below in the hierarchy. The coach
 
  helps management teams focus on their “horizontal role” since they deal with internal
  stakeholders more than with supervisors, employees or customers. The coach also helps
 
 
middle management trim any duplication of its effort across departments.
  Project teams are often temporary; the company pulls them together for specific
 
 
assignments, and they disband when they accomplish their charge. The coach helps
“Managers can these temporary teams work their way through the “six Es”: “engaging, exploration,
foster creativity by exploitation, emergence, exportation and ending.”
pushing decisions
as ‘far down the Account teams focus on the work each member does for a particular customer. The coach
line’ as possible, helps this type of team define its mission and find ways to provide better service as a unit
so front line people
can respond quickly than any individual member could alone.
within the game Virtual teams use technology to include members at different locations. Because the
plan.”
 
members do not meet in person, these teams may have trouble building a working
  relationship. The coach can help them form a coherent unit. International teams are
 
 
often also virtual, but involving multiple countries brings in even more stakeholders,
  different problems to solve and a wide geographic impact. The coach manages the cultural
  differences among team members and enables members to function effectively as a group.
 
  Coaching Boards of Directors
  Boards of directors and other advisory panels are becoming increasingly responsible
 
“As a coach, I had for guiding multinational organizations and assuring regulatory and legal compliance.
to decide how to Sadly, these boards seldom take advantage of coaching to help them become more highly
feed...back to the
team, knowing from
functioning teams. A coach can assist a board in these ways:
experience that to
deliver the feedback • Clarifying (Disciplines 1 and 2) – The coach helps the board better understand its
cold would create role in the organization, looking at the skills, strategy and impact the directors bring
both resistance and
defensiveness.”
to the company and its brand.
  • “Dynamics” (Discipline 3) – On a board, even small personal conflicts can have
 
 
dramatic effects on the company. The coach helps board members understand
  one another’s background and experiences, and enables them to use their unique
  backgrounds and qualifications to improve the team.
 
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   • Coaching (Discipline 4) – The board must make use of the lessons it learns in
 
  building or forming a team to communicate with external stakeholders while gathering
“The board needs information from each constituent group to inform the organization. For example,
to set aside the
time for thinking one bank’s board members created a video that interspersed clips of board members
strategically and for talking about their goals for the organization with clips of customers talking about
the stewardship of
the enterprise.”
their perceptions of it.
  • Learning (Discipline 5) – Coaches help boards determine the resources available to
 
 
help directors and define their expectations for new directors’ work.
  Becoming a Team Coach
  Adapting to coaching a team rather than separate individuals requires attending more to
 
  the team than to any one member, which is also the mind-set of a sports team’s coach.
  The team coach must understand his or her team members and the company’s processes.
 
  Team coaches must develop nine capacities:
 
  1. “Self-awareness” – Understand the team’s verbal and non-verbal cues.
  2. “Self-ease” – Don’t worry about proving yourself.
 
  3. “Staying in the partnership zone” – Serve as the team’s partner, not its boss or
  subordinate. Do not “fall into deference or...arrogance.”
 
 
4. “Appropriate authority, presence and impact” – Lead firmly to help the team
“There are times accomplish its work.
when organizations
should treat their
5. “Relationship engagement” – Try to relate to the other members on your team as
memories as much as possible.
enemies.” 6. “Encourage” – Help inspire the team members and instill “appropriate enthusiasm.”
 
  7. “Working across differences” – Help others manage their varied cultural
  expectations, whether from working in another department or in another country.
 
  8. “Ethical maturity” – Develop a strong ethical and moral base, and exercise it when
  the team needs guidance.
 
 
9. “A sense of humor and humility” – Laugh at yourself and recognize your fallibility.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
“The ability to
laugh at oneself
is...a prerequisite for
thriving in the role
of team coach.”

About the Author

Peter Hawkins, a professor of leadership at the Henley Business School of the University
of Reading in the UK, is also the author of Creating a Coaching Culture.

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