Systemic team coaching, Leary-joyce, John Lines, Hilary

Systemic Team Coaching STC is a complex and powerful intervention in organisations. We define it as:

A process of coaching the whole team together and apart, over a designated period of time to enable it to

• Align on common purpose
• Collaborate and learn through diversity
• Develop collective leadership
• Achieve performance objectives
• Effectively engage with their key stakeholders
• Jointly transform the wider business

To achieve this STC draws on a range of adult and organisational learning theories and practices that include

• Individual Coaching
• Group Coaching of managers/leaders who share an interest in a project but have no collective responsibility
• Team Building activities to develop a new team or one in a transitional stage to value and utilise diversity and difference
• Team Facilitation of a meeting process to help the team be more effective eg. in decision making
• Inter-Team Coaching - facilitation of teams in the wider system to collaborate
• Organisational Development - attending to how the team impacts and is impacted by organisation

The systemic team coach views the team through 6 Lenses

1. Individual team members
2. Interpersonal relationships
3. Team Dynamics
4. Team Tasks - strategy, objectives, systems
5. Stakeholder interfaces
6. Wider Systemic Forces

The 5 Disciplines Framework is the key structure that addressed the internal and external elements and guides the systemic team coach in attending to where the team needs to work to be most effective. These are:

1. Stakeholder Expectations - what the team needs to deliver to external parties
2. Team Tasks - what the team does internally to meet those expectations
3. Team Relationships - interpersonal and leadership dynamics internally to the team
4. Stakeholder Relationships - how the team connects to those it serves
5. Team Learning - how the team develops to meet future challenges

A diagnostic tool Team Connect 360 that generates valuable data on the performance of the team now and after the STC intervention is explained and available for use.

The 5 Phase SIDER STC Process is a robust and practical method for engaging with a team. It involves

1. Scoping the initial work with the Sponsor and Team Leader
2. Inquiry - generating data into the how the team is performing against the 5 Disciplines (use of TC360)
3. Developing an agenda for the work with the Sponsor and Team
4. Execution of that agenda through coaching with the team
5. Review and evaluation of results

Case studies and examples are given throughout to illustrate how the theory is applied in practice

The book addresses other important elements

• How to develop the personal and skills capability do deliver STC
• The courses to attend to take forward the material presented
• Practical guidance on how to build and STC practice