What do executives think are the benefits of team coaching?

Manfred Kets de Vries, at INSEAD, the French business school, is a veteran of team coaching and an authority on the psychology of both coaching and group dynamics. His latest book, The Path to Individual and Organizational Transformation (Palgrave, 2025) contains many nuggets, but I was particularly struck by a list of 25 key benefits that executive teams perceive from team coaching. These range from identifying hidden conflict to clarifying roles and deeper understanding of team challenges, to aligning team norms with an accountability structure. It’s a valuable checklist to apply when engaging with a team, to answer the question: “What would you like team coaching to do for you as a team?”

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What is your system as a coach?

Systemic awareness is a basic requirement of an effective coach in a modern environment. Linear thinking often leads to temporary fixes that may be unsustainable and do more harm in the longer term. Some competency frameworks make things worse, by failing to give sufficient emphasis to the systems dimensions of coaching practice. One of the...

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Where does happiness sit on the coaching client’s agenda?

The remarkable thing about coaching clients putting happiness as a goal is that it is remarkable. The absence of happiness is hard to admit to ourselves or to others. It’s common to feel guilty about not being happy. So, the topic may not arise in coaching unless the coach’s intuition takes them there. There are...

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What does it take to make the transition from 1-2-1 coach to team coach?

Team coaching is the fastest growing area of coaching. There are around 5,000 accredited team coaches globally and an estimated need for 150,000 in the next few years. The two main professional bodies in coaching, the ICF and the EMCC, have both created accreditation routes to certify coaches, who work with teams. So what’s behind (more…)

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What does a great developmental conversation look like between line manager and direct report?

The weight of evidence in recent years with regard to traditional performance appraisal and developmental conversation between line managers and direct reports presents a clear picture – not only do they not motivate higher performance, but they often reduce motivation and performance. To reshape these conversations to make them positive and useful, we can go...

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Why do smart people do stupid things?

It’s a question that has occupied philosophers for centuries and one that coaches and mentors often encounter in their conversations with clients. Sometimes, it’s people in the client’s environment, who make stupid decisions; sometimes it’s the client him/herself. But a high proportion of the issues coaches and mentors help people deal with involve smart people...

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Why do we need to train mentees?

One of the most common reasons for mentoring programmes failing is that they forget to train mentees sufficiently. Programmes that train only mentors deliver less than half the benefits, on average, than those that train both participants. The reasons include: Mentees’ often have little experience of mentoring and come with unrealistic expectations – for example, (more…)

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The pivotal role of mentoring and coaching in health services

The health sector has a long history of involvement with mentoring. The first supported mentoring programmes in Europe took place in the UK’s National Health Service (NHS), aimed at supporting the integration and retention of young graduate recruits. The NHS and the Health sector continue to pioneer good practice. For example: The international medical charity...

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