Managers using coaching/mentoring skills with their teams
After several years absence from Hong Kong in the aftermath of Covid, it was a delight to be able to revisit and also engage with coaches in mainland China. Last time I was in Shenzhen, it was just a village. Now, it’s a thriving modern city of 18 million people. The level of technology in (more…)
Read More How coaching and mentoring are evolving in China and India
Once trust is broken in a team, it is hard to recover. Yet the requirement to collaborate remains as strongly as ever. Mistrust between two individuals affects all the team, with other members either taking sides or suffering the discomfort of trying hard to stay neutral. Mediation or conflict resolution can hammer out a compromise (more…)
Personal development plans are a great idea in theory, but in practice simply become another file at the bottom of the desk drawer. There are many reasons for this, but one of the main ones is that all the responsibility lies with the individual to put the plan into practice. Here’s a simple, but...
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Read More How to take collective responsibility for individual development
This fascinating question arose during a supervision group a few days ago. The stimulus was a cluster of cases, where, for one reason or another, the pause button had been pressed on the team coaching assignment. The coach(es) felt a variety of negative emotions about this, but particularly disappointment and frustration that the “good work”...
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Read More Are we being too rigid in how we structure team coaching?
Just as focusing on individual performance doesn’t necessarily lead to improved collective (team) performance, high performing teams don’t necessarily work together to deliver a high performing organization. In his book Team of Teams, retired US general Stanley McChrystal offers a number of examples of how functional silos within organisations or even within departments can undermine (more…)
There is a severe lack of both empirical research and theoretical models relating to the concept of teams of teams. Google Scholar lists just one publication – an autobiographical account of the concept at work in the theatre of war (McChrystal et al, 2015). So, it is hardly surprising that coaches struggle to know where...
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Teams are a special form of group, where shared purpose and interdependencies replace common purpose and individual activity. The distinction between a group and a team is often blurred. A group may exhibit some of the behaviours associated with teaming, but not all. Groups in the workplace often describe themselves as teams, because they feel...
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I’m hearing the word “coachability” a lot more recently in my supervision groups. For example, “I should have gone with my instinct and turned the client down – he’s not coachable.” There are two schools of thought around this. One is that no-one is uncoachable. The issue is whether this coach is the right coach...
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Human beings initiate change when they feel discomfort or dissatisfaction. So, in principle, a coaching or mentoring conversation that doesn’t involve some level of discomfort is likely to lead to less significant change than one that does. However, we also tend to avoid discomfort, especially if it is elevated to become pain. We also tend...
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One of the signs of a coaching culture in a team is when everyone is comfortable with being coached by everyone else. A tipping point in achieving a coaching culture is when the team leader is happy to be coached by direct reports. A five-stage approach can be helpful here: The team leader is coached...
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