Mirror

15/1/2020

Hmm. Team coaching. How to reveal the team to itself. Sounds simple, but often hard to do in practice. Why is that and how can we work through it?

Team: a group with a shared purpose. Yet the notion of group is an abstraction. What we have in the room, or virtually, are actual people, individuals. Team is a dynamic, a way of thinking about what happens between the people: how each conducts him or herself in relation to the others…together. So, if a team is to see itself, it needs to see the interfaces, the what happens in the spaces between.

Think Johari Window: reducing blind spots through reflection and feedback. A self-reflective approach: ‘How are we doing?’ That invites collective reflection on group process and results. ‘How am I influencing our performance?’ That takes humility and courage, curiosity and trust. ‘How is this team influencing others’ performance…and vice versa too?’ That takes a wider picture, a systemic-cultural view.

How do you work with teams? If you do it well, what then becomes possible?

Do you want to enhance the inspiration and effectiveness of your team? Get in touch! [email protected]

29 Comments

Marc Lawson

15/1/2020 10:49:55 pm

13 individual students, each with different motivation and willingness to work hard. Everyone gets the same support. Everyone should do their best. But everyone defines the best differently. And the way there too. So some are often annoyed by the attitudes of others. Self-reflection helps some who want to improve themselves. Others don't care. 13 individual students ... 1 team?

Nick Wright

16/1/2020 11:51:36 am

Hi Marc. What a great illustration of some of the realities and challenges of team coaching! Three questions come to mind: 1. Do the students have a shared purpose (e.g. a team goal), or are they working on separate assignments? 2. If so, what would make the goal compelling and convincing for them - important enough to unite them in pursuit of it? 3. What part do the students have in shaping the methods used to achieve it? Food for thought. Some tips in this short piece may be of interest? http://www.nick-wright.com/building-an-effective-team.html

17/1/2020 01:13:25 pm

Thank you for sharing the resource article! The problem is that each student thinks about their own goal, the presentation and later the exams.They don't have to care whether it reaches the other Students. They only feel as a community when we go on a school trip. And it takes place anyway, regardless of whether the whole class has reached the goal or not. At school everyone is more or less a lone fighter. Because the challenge is missing: If everyone achieves this goal, then we will ... do together.

17/1/2020 01:51:55 pm

Hi Marc. You're welcome. It sounds like part of the question is whether students perceive and buy into a wider vision and shared goals that extend beyond their own personal goals?

Pam Rigden

16/1/2020 11:36:58 am

I have adapted an NLP Master Practitioner technique - Values Elicitation - to use with teams. The group work in pairs to elicit each other’s Values as you would with an individual client and once they have worked both ways we list all of the Values and look for the most popular, common Values. There’ providing all members can buy into them, become the Team Values and the Team write a ‘mission’ statement to reflect these. They may be entirely different from the organisation’s Values which are often picked because they sound good / out of a hat.

16/1/2020 12:15:08 pm

Thanks Pam. I would be interested to hear more about what the pairs do to elicit each others' values, using NLP techniques? I found these short articles interesting on that front:

https://cleanlanguage.co.uk/articles/articles/289/1/The-Value-of-Values-elicitation-with-NLP/Page1.html; https://cleanlanguage.co.uk/articles/articles/289/2/The-Value-of-Values-elicitation-with-NLP/Page2.html

Some of the techniques remind me of Motivational Interviewing in the counselling and therapeutic arenas.

I led a couple of values-eliciting initiatives: one in a global NGO and one in a national UK charity. We used Appreciative Inquiry to surface values: share stories of peak experiences and then explore what made them so positive for those who experienced them.

You can see more, if interested, under 'Culture' in this article: http://www.nick-wright.com/a-journey-towards-od.html. Let me know what you think!

Pamela Enz

16/1/2020 05:33:04 pm

I explain the Johari Window when I work with groups of people. Many haven’t seen their blind spots explained in this way. It’s a non-judgement way of explaining we have blind spots and they have effects on this with whom we work and interact. I have them ask the folks they live with about it too.

It’s good to know yourself and how what you do enters the TEAM and what it does.

It’s cool stuff.

17/1/2020 01:45:51 pm

Hi Pamela. That sounds good. I'm interested. What do you do if it becomes clear that some member(s) of the team are not interested to address blind spots?

17/1/2020 01:53:10 pm

Good question. I use the Wiley DiSC Assessment and the group has already read their profile statement. The Johari Window is a part of a whole day workshop on turning conflict upside down to understand why it’s important and useful. In that context people seem to be open to the Johari because the whole purpose of the workshop is to understand individual and group behaviors.

Does that make sense?

17/1/2020 03:39:31 pm

Thanks Pamela. Yes, that does make sense. If a team has contracted into using something like the DISC profile, they are more likely to be open to the idea of seeing and addressing blind spots. In my experience, contracting is key.

Ian Henderson

16/1/2020 10:27:42 pm

Nice piece Nick, which I agree totally. The Johari Window can be very useful although there are many other ways of building feedback and exploration. That said, I think the first step in this process is to get folks to be open to receiving feedback which, sadly, is not always the case. As a customer service director said to one of my colleagues "Take no notice of that CS survey. It's not our fault that the customers don't know how good we are". And that is genuine by the way!!!!!!

17/1/2020 01:42:42 pm

Thanks Ian. I'm curious. How do you 'get folks to be open to receiving feedback'? Do you have any practical examples from experience you could share here? (I love your customer service director quotation!).

I tend to approach this from a values-perspective, e.g. 'What would receiving feedback enable you to do?' or 'What feedback would you find most useful?' Seeking feedback is very different to having it thrust upon us.

Jeremy Francis

16/1/2020 10:28:40 pm

How to reveal the team to itself If the team is made up of it is a mature,mutually supportive members here is an approach you can use.
1. Hand to each team member a piece of flipchart paper. Include the team leader.
2, Each person writes their name at the top. Underneath they write 3 headings equally spaced apart for other team members to write comments under each heading.
Headings are:
PLEASE CONTINUE

PLEASE STOP

PLEASE START

3. Team members pass their sheet to other team members who fill in their comments and initial them.

4. When all done, the flipchart paper returns to the owning TEAM MEMBER.

5. Starting with the leader each one reads out the comments. They can seek clarification and examples but cannot argue or reject the feedback.

6. Team members commit to responding to the feedback positively.

A safe but very revealing team relationship building exercise!
Try it.

17/1/2020 01:49:06 pm

Hi Jeremy. Thanks for sharing such a practical technique. I imagine it depends on the quality of contracting with the team and the level of trust between team members and the facilitator?

17/1/2020 11:11:52 pm

Yes, absolutely Nick.

17/1/2020 11:12:21 pm

👍

Karen Chambers

26/1/2020 07:27:33 pm

I like this technique. Thanks for sharing, Jeremy.

Beverley John-Gomes

17/1/2020 01:10:29 pm

For a team to work together they first need a shared vision.

17/1/2020 01:35:43 pm

Hi Beverley. How you do enable a team to reach a shared vision, especially if they disagree on what the vision should be..?

20/1/2020 10:09:21 am

I find that getting them to understand one another and to find a shared language helps build the vision. Build trust and a sense of "family" and over time the situation will begin to change. You need a catalyst.

20/1/2020 10:10:23 am

Thanks Beverley. Interesting. Do you have an example from experience you could share here?

Barbara A. Mellor

17/1/2020 01:11:23 pm

The Pawn in Chess is not just a give away; take one across the board and you win a Queen if you want one...and that’s the trick.

17/1/2020 01:37:21 pm

Hi Barbara. I guess that highlights the value of every team member, including those who, on the face of it, may appear less valuable? Can you say more about 'that's the trick'...and how you achieve it?

18/1/2020 08:33:24 am

Hi Nick
The pawn in chess is a forward line of both offense and defense...in business those who are not management do the day-in day-out defensive and offensive calls or paperwork. This creates a way for management to be better & more effective....what say you, Nick?

18/1/2020 08:34:43 am

Thanks Barbara. I love that metaphor! 😀

Chris Lever

14/2/2020 09:36:51 am

Great reflections Nick. I love your sophistication, so skilfully and simply stated.

14/2/2020 09:37:58 am

Hi Chris. Thank you for such encouraging feedback! ☺️

V.S. Kumar MCC (ICF)

19/2/2020 07:21:47 pm

Nice note. To be in the team one has to be truly connected with the one common purpose we all want to achieve and in the process adopting to the situation, Listening, Supporting others to add their contribution, respecting eachothers with their boundaries. What we become by being in the team is invaluable and helping us to grow is the gift to be cherished always.

19/2/2020 07:25:27 pm

Thanks V.S. Nicely put. The key questions I try to bear in mind are: What are we here to do? What should we focus our attention on? How shall we do this? How can we enable one-another to contribute our best?

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