I wrote a blog back in March called, ‘Goal, content, process and relationship’, based on coaching I was doing at the time with leadership teams. I’ve used and adapted this model since with various teams and have noticed some interesting results.
Firstly, some people found the word ‘process’ confusing because, in their cultural framework, it suggested formal business processes rather than creative methods (e.g. within a team meeting) that could work best for the people in the room. I now use the word ‘method’ instead.
Secondly, some teams found it helpful to substitute ‘why’ for goal, ‘what’ for content, ‘how’ for process and ‘who’ for relationship. This enabled them to include e.g. ‘vision’ under why, ‘activities’ under what, ‘processes’ under how and ‘behaviours’ under who.
Thirdly, some teams have found it useful to highlight warning signs against each of the model’s 4 dimensions, indicating what to look out for as red flags. Against ‘goal’ I write ‘dulled’, against content, ‘distracted’, against method, ‘disengaged’ and against people, ‘dismissed’.
The most striking observation for me has been how the model seems to easy in principle and yet so difficult to apply and sustain. This is because teams, like individuals, can struggle to break away from embedded preoccupations, patterns of behaviour and ways of working.
In light of this, I’ve found it useful to encourage teams to pause and notice their own behaviour, reflect honestly on what is influencing their choices, challenge themselves when they are drifting off track and be willing to face and address underlying dynamics.
If you have tried using this, contrasting or similar models in team development and coaching, I would be very interested to hear from you, e.g. what you have done, how you have applied it, what kind of response you got and what happened as a result.
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