Team or group coaching – the subtle difference you need to know

There is no doubt that businesses need high performing teams, but how do you develop a high performing team? And just how clear are you on whether you need a team or a group?

What’s a team?

Joanne Richardson (2010:86) defines a real team as: “A group of people working together in an organisation who are committed to achieving clear team-level objectives upon which they agree; who have to work closely and interdependently in order to achieve these objectives; whose members are clear about their specific roles within the team and have the necessary autonomy to decide how to carry out team tasks; and who communicate regularly as a team in order to regulate team processes.”

Wow, I know that’s a bit of a mouthful but in essence it’s about having a unifying team objective, high interdependency levels, and being comfortable holding one another to account.

What’s a group?

When we talk about groups, we are talking about people who come together with a common interest but do not always have the same goal in mind. For example, a group of people may come together to be coached on effective leadership, but each individual has their own final goals to which they would apply their new skills to.

Both team and group coaching involve the gathering of people to learn new skills relating to professional development, workplace communication and leadership. So what really is the difference?

The renowned Professor Peter Hawkins in his book ‘Leadership Team Coaching: Developing Collective Transformational Leadership’ developed some great questions to help identify the difference.

Ask yourself:

Does your team have clear objectives?

Do you work closely together to achieve those objectives?

Do you meet regularly to review performance and how it can be improved?

If you answered “no” to these questions then you are more likely a group rather than a team.

If you apply this definition to your sales people, for example, do you really have a ‘sales team’ or are they a group of individuals? What would best serve your business?

Group coaching

Group coaching involves a session in which recipients discover new skills and enhance their professional performance together. Unlike team coaching, individuals who undergo the same group coaching session needn’t work together in any capacity nor have any common goals. However they should share a common interest in learning new skills and reaching their own workplace goals.

What’s the purpose of group coaching?

Group coaching helps individuals build the skill set needed to lead more effectively and develop their performance. Group coaching is often used as a way to follow up on training activities, as it can help individuals retain knowledge and encourages implementation.

Team coaching

In his book ‘The Complete Handbook of Coaching’, David Clutterbuck defines team coaching as “a learning intervention designed to increase collective capability and performance of a group or team, through application of the coaching principles of assisted reflection, analysis and motivation for change.”  

Like group coaching, team coaching helps individuals develop into better leaders. But it also gives teams the tools to work more effectively together so that individuals can reach their own goals and help the team reach its collective goals. While group coaching helps individuals, team coaching provides teams with the tools and communication mechanisms to reach success.

What’s the purpose of team coaching?

Team coaching helps to accelerate team performance. It is a tool for helping individuals work more efficiently together to reach common workplace goals. It is particularly useful for teams that are newly formed, ones that have experienced a change in leadership or those that would like to improve their performance.

Why is team coaching so important?

Team success relies entirely on how individuals work together. That’s why we call it teamwork. Team coaching enables individuals to work together to improve team outcomes.

Team coaching stresses the importance of each individual within a team in driving overall success. Team success isn’t achieved by having one outstanding team lead. It’s attributed to each individual within the team. Take sport for example. The star player on a sports team can’t be given full credit for a major team success as without the team, they would not be able to succeed.

Team coaching makes each individual within the team accountable for their team’s results, whether they are failures or successes. When individuals feel ownership over the results of their team, they are more likely to be engaged, to reach their own goals independently and develop their overall performance. Because of this, team coaching is a great way to not only boost team performance, but to improve employee engagement, build team morale and retain your best talent.

How does team coaching work?

Teams can hire an external executive coach to come into the office and help with team development. Or a coach can work one-on-one with a team leader to transfer coaching skills, giving them the ability to coach and lead their own team more effectively.

When a team leader knows how to lead, but also knows how to coach their team, it creates the foundation needed for effective lines of communication to thrive. A team coaching mindset is extremely beneficial for all leaders because it gives them the ability to communicate in the right way to help drive their team to reach important business goals.

Our approach

At Directions Unlimited, our team coaching programs consist of a 6-12 month process, that develops a team’s capacity to deliver sustainable high performance.

Guided by an experienced facilitator, our team coaching:

• Focuses on agreed business outcomes
• Provides tools for the team to continue enhancing its performance beyond the team coaching program
• Develops teams that trust one another and hold one another accountable for taking action
• Builds trust in the capacity of both relationship and task aspects of teaming
• Relies on the coach to facilitate a learning and action process, not to give advice
• Recognises the team as a living breathing “system” with attributes and identity that go beyond any of the individual team members
• Does not involve any private and confidential interactions between the coach and individual team members outside of the team setting
• Is not a “team building event”

If you would like to learn more about how Directions Unlimited can conduct team coaching sessions with your teams to improve morale, lift engagement levels and to help your company achieve better results, contact us: info@directionsunlimited.com.au