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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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The dangers of relying on an AI to write an article

AIs like Gemini or ChatGPT can be very helpful in speeding up research. I’ve always been careful to check out any references with another source, such as Google Scholar or Research Gate and where possible go beyond the abstract to evaluate the whole paper. Most of the time, I find that the work is genuine and that I can extract what I need from the article text. But not all the time.

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The potential matrix

In order to take up a challenge, we need agency (am I able to do this or make it happen) and will (do I want to do this or make it happen?) 

The potential matrix is a simple way to illustrate any dilemma we may have.

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Psychedelic coaching

Board directors have immense responsibility – the future of the company is in their hands and in the decisions they make. They also have responsibility to multiple stakeholders, including employees, suppliers, customers, investors and the environment. In theory, great responsibility should be accompanied by great accountability. In practice, the consequences when directors do a poor job, are minimal. While there are sanctions for dishonesty (such as disqualification or in extreme cases, such as fraud, prison), the bar for incompetence is set so high in many Western economies that the only sanction is losing their job. 

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Tomorrow’s Board: Why every director needs the skills of coaching and mentoring

Board directors have immense responsibility – the future of the company is in their hands and in the decisions they make. They also have responsibility to multiple stakeholders, including employees, suppliers, customers, investors and the environment. In theory, great responsibility should be accompanied by great accountability. In practice, the consequences when directors do a poor job, are minimal. While there are sanctions for dishonesty (such as disqualification or in extreme cases, such as fraud, prison), the bar for incompetence is set so high in many Western economies that the only sanction is losing their job. 

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How to make new habits stick

“Stacking” is a term that refers to linking a habit you want to create with one that you already have. For example, if brushing your teeth is a well-established routine, then doing a stretch exercise afterwards becomes an extension of that routine. Washing the toothbrush under a tap becomes a reminder or trigger to stretch.

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A simple approach to ethical dilemmas

The Defiance Compass poses three powerful questions, developed by organisational psychologist Dr. Sunita Sah, to help people determine how to act in accordance with their core values and resist pressure from others to conform.

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How teams fall foul of “illusory truths”

Illusory truth theory describes the phenomenon, by which people gradually accept a statement, which we initially reject, as true, if it is repeated often enough. To economise effort, our brains dampen down our reactions to any stimulus that is repeated, be that physical, intellectual or emotional. The downside of doing so is that we get acclimatised to things that may be harmful, including ideas.

What does it mean to be present as a coach or mentor?

Presence is one of those words that gets used and abused for many purposes. One of the most common is as a synonym for charisma, in the sense of attracting admiration or followership. (This is in itself a corruption – the roots of charisma lie in caring for others.)

In the context of a mature and effective coach or mentor, however, presence is a phenomenon that bridges awareness and connection at three levels.

Enter the Otrovert

I once went through a battery of psychometric tests with one of the leading psychology consultancies. I wanted to understand them from the perspective of the client experience. For a lot of the questions, I found myself saying “From this perspective, I’d answer X; but from another perspective, I’d answer Y”. Clearly frustrated, the psychologist told me that my personality was too complicated for diagnosis!

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