Team Coaching ROI: Cohesion, Resilience and Clarity (part 2 of 2)
Resilience
A successful green energy organization enlisted my aid to address a variety of issues: new staff members felt like outsiders, seasoned team members were disengaging and information and authority wasn’t being shared across hierarchical lines.
Together we worked to create an organizational culture that acknowledges and appreciates all contributions, from the insights and lessons that the founders and first generation hires housed, to the unfiltered and unbiased perspectives of the “newbies.” The team members feel the increased resiliency and are excited rather than demoralized by new challenges.
Working with this group was an important reminder that a high functioning team (i.e. the Third Entity™) outlives the “lifespan” of individual team members. People come and go, but a resilient team retains its power in the face of change.
Clarity
We’ve probably all been part of a work team that is lacking clarity: discussions go round-and-round, and a general malaise sweeps the office. People don’t believe that problems can be resolved—nor do people even agree about the nature of the problems. Meetings are fruitless endeavors and morale plummets.
One of my clients found themselves in a similar spot. After several mergers with other organizations, which forced rapid growth on an already strained system, formerly high-performing people were becoming inefficient, burned out, and frustrated. Problems “shape-shifted” from one week to the next, and the team was at risk of losing key contributors.
Through the application of this and other team coaching tools, we were able to identify that the mergers were conducted without establishing clear roles and accountability first. Further, they did not have a clear process for decision making. The team gained clarity around the new organizational structure and decision making protocols that would support the workload without compromising quality.
I’ve worked with teams for 30 years, and I continue to be surprised and delighted by the immediate and long-term impact this work has on the professional lives of my clients. Even the most ROI-focused manager would have to concede that this work is worth doing.
Coming together is a beginning.
Keeping together is progress.
Working together is success.
– Henry Ford
Contributor’s Bio
Grace Flannery, MS, PCC, CPCC, ORSCC is an executive coach and leadership trainer with 30 years in coaching, consulting, staff, and board capacities in social services, social change, health, industry, and philanthropy. In addition to being a Faculty Member of CRR Global for their ICF accredited ORSC™ training (Organization and Relationship Systems Coaching™), she is also the founder and president of Leading Spirit, Inc, specializing in leadership and organizational development, change management, and building clients’ capacity for skillful execution of their leadership agenda.