Have you ever been part of a project or team, where it felt like everyone was disconnected?
People stepping on each other's toes, misaligned priorities, collective goals being missed and communication breakdowns making progress painfully slow. Akin to members of an orchestra playing different tunes.
I’d experienced this first-hand several times – from enterprise-wide transformation initiatives, to specific new account deal pursuit teams. Despite executive sponsorship and having the pick of the most talented people from each of the departments involved, lack of collaboration shows up consistently as the Achilles heel.
There are way too many bottlenecks and personal agendas, and meetings can feel like chat rooms rather than working sessions.
So it felt like deja-vu when we were called in to anchor a leadership behavioural change intervention for a rapidly growing technology services provider.
It was clear from the outset that the regional leaders we were working with, were an extremely capable and high-achieving group of individuals with strong track records.
However, they were operating in silos without building-on their individual capabilities, resulting in lack of collective performance and accountability, and missed organizational targets.
It was clear that in addition to building awareness about core teaming behaviours, specifically trust, collaboration and accountability, we needed to take a team coaching approach.
True collaboration isn’t just about understanding theoretical foundations, and doesn't just happen organically. It requires the right guidance and conditions to unlock the full potential of a team. When collaboration flows, teams can accomplish monumental feats that individuals simply cannot. The best leaders understand this. They pan-out to see the bigger picture of how the group is operating as a unit with shared goals and responsibilities, and focus on establishing:
Awareness & agreement on collective purpose
Clarity on roles, responsibilities and accountabilities
Acknowledging & leveraging complementary strengths
Genuine trust and openness
Mechanisms to voice and work through conflicts productively
An environment of psychological safety to voice opinions and ideas freely
Addressing and implementing the building blocks of high-performing teams – the 5Cs - is fundamental to the coaching process: Commissioning, Clarifying, Co-creating and Connecting, tied together by Core learning.
Image Courtesy: (c) Peter Hawkins: 5 Disciplines of Highly Effective Teams
Working with individual and group facilitation and coaching processes, over a 4-month period, the transformation in the group was tangible.
What once felt like a fragmented set of individuals began operating as a cohesive unit.
Silos were broken down, enabling fluid collaboration across individual business, delivery and technology units.
Vision and priorities became more clearly aligned and fresh ideas and solutions began emerging from the collective intelligence.
In our experience team coaching process that takes a systemic view of a group in focus, ensures that the wider needs of the environment and stakeholders within which they operate are addressed.
The result was genuine collaboration, going beyond traditional teamwork, elevating individuals’ performance to new heights:
Accelerated innovation from diverse perspectives
More agility and higher quality solutions
Increased engagement, morale and ownership
Seamless execution and impact.
At Effilor, we believe that true collaboration isn't easy, but it's a skill that separates good teams from great ones.
With the right team coaching in place, all groups can tap into the multiplying power of collaboration to achieve extraordinary results together.