Why is Systemic Team coaching more valuable to change programmes than regular team coaching? I believe it’s because the system and its key players are invited to the process to input and respond to the team coaching. The stakeholders of the team and the layers of the systems that they team operate in are not just given a voice but are asked to be part of the work.

Team coaching is a one-to-many session facilitated learning by a coach. A team is in the room together collectively being coached on their objectives. Systemic Team Coaching is defined as different because there is always a diagnostic (a 360 and/or interviews) that involves as many in the team’s system as can be handled. These players in the system includes all the team members and their current and future stakeholders both cheerleaders and derailers for the team are invited. All are asked to rate the team on all the team needs to be to add optimum value back to the system/organization and beyond. The questions they are asked are based around a team coaching model of Value Creating Team Dynamics. The data collated both quantitative and qualitative is then shared with the team so that they can respond through this truth telling exercise and no assumptions are left unexplored. Typically, the broken connections and hard truth telling players are then invited into the room to support change and learning activities. Then all parties truly feel seen and heard.

Coaches not trained in Systemic Team Coaching often ask what the systemic nature of Systemic Team Coaching is as we may already work with the system. I would argue that referencing the system the team operates in is not the same as using the system to accelerate change. For example, in team coaching the team can often share their disconnect with a stakeholder and try to work on fixing it without hearing the true perspective of what the stakeholder is thinking and feeling around the disconnect.

Think about what percentage of time is wasted in teams complaining about stakeholders, other teams and partnerships. Wouldn’t it be more useful that the team spends time on reconnecting the disconnects between parties. Now imagine that no time is wasted in just planning to do this but to have the team working with the other side of the connection, so both sides of the story are heard and addressed for the greater good.

Systemic team coaching ensures that the team listen to how to create value outside of the team by connecting the thinking to the wider organization. It goes further to bring in more lenses to the future thinking to ensure that not only business as usual improves but that they team look at future horizons to shore up their longer-term plans, activities and ways of working so that the team can be ahead of exponential growth and the value they can offer as a high performing, future focused part of the organization.

The magic is in the team really owing what they can achieve for the organization, themselves and future generations of team members beyond themselves.

Kate Freedman is a qualified Supervisor and PCC level Leadership, Team and Executive ICF coach. Kate has been coaching for over 10 years firstly as an internal coach for Unilever Plc as part of her Learning and Development role and has been running her own business for the last 5 years. She has a track record of successful commercial outcomes and credentials from corporate and private clients in a wide variety of industries and with clients at manager, director, and C suite levels. She is currently engaged as Supervisor for internal coaches with corporate clients in Banking and in FMCG and offer Supervision groups and 1-1 services through her website.

Read more blogs from Kate

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A professional coach will interrupt your story, but not your thinking.

That’s because coaching is a partnership between the coach and you, the thinker, with the aim being to explore new thinking.

New thinking is necessary to get somewhere new. It prompts new actions and new results.

If your thinking stays the same then so will your actions, and your results.

Change the story

As a professional coach, I can tell when your thinking is old thinking.

You’re telling me your old story, going over familiar history and detail.

You’ve mastered the topic. You know it inside out.

You can sum it up in two or three sentences, or unpack it in a three-hour lecture.

Your story might be accurate but it’s still a story, a narrative you wove to make sense of your situation.

We all do this, and it’s necessary and fine, but there’s a problem.

Your story sets limits to what is possible based on an interpretation of the facts – an interpretation that is, by the nature of things, outdated.

Outdated because the world moves on, and the world includes you.

I don’t mean to be rude

To facilitate your new thinking, with your agreement, I will interrupt your story.

I’ll never interrupt your new thinking, though.

I can tell when your thinking is new, because you start questioning your old story and putting together a new one.

I will support you in that and challenge you to sustain it.

How best to bring about the natural way to change?

Change happens naturally when we become more of who we are, rather than when we try to behave differently.

Those who focus on your behaviour may be trying to get you to be different and both of us know you’re going to resist that!

How do you become “more of who you are”?

A good place to start is to become aware of what is happening in you, in the moment.

I believe most people come to work to do a great job, and that they have huge potential.

But stuff gets in their way. It might be systems that disadvantage them, office politics, or personal circumstances.

Managers tend to see this as a “performance” issue, and conclude that Bill can’t do his job.

They reach for a “performance management” response, which I feel is the wrong place to start.

Gaining a sense of control is a big motivator

A coach starts with Bill’s potential and helps him to be aware of that potential, and aware of the barriers to fulfilling it.

Once aware, the next step is to take responsibility for doing something about it.

When people become aware and take responsibility, they gain a greater sense of control.

That is a powerful motivator to change the story – to think differently, act differently, and move forward.

“You are all looking down” was all that was needed

Here is a little example of what happens when self-awareness kicks in.

In an early Zoom session with a leadership team, I noticed the team members were all looking down or looking away as the discussion proceeded.

The energy was low, and draining away.

My coaching was simple: “I notice you’re all looking down,” I said.

Each immediately looked up to their webcam. Real eye contact on Zoom is a challenge, but at least now they were presenting themselves as listening and engaged. The dynamic changed.

That team is now operating permanently at a higher level and the members are changing the dynamic in other Zoom meetings.

They have become more of who they are: engaged and connected with their fellow team members and inspiring agents of change for others. It’s the natural way to change.

The natural way to change – become more of who you are – written by Leadership Team Coach Dave Stitt

Dave works with construction industry executives and project teams enabling them to deliver remarkable results in a remarkable way.

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