What Would You Ask Your Team Coach to Work on?
If you are in a team or if you’re managing one, take a moment and try to answer this question:
If you could hire a Team Coach, what would you ask them to work on?
Here’s an image to look at while thinking about your answer (C) Anne-Leen De Coninck
Take some more time.
Maybe write it down – writing by hand makes your brain work very differently versus mere typing.
Of course, I’m interested in your answer, so you can definitely get in touch. But the main reflection I wanted to bring you to, is this one:
What if you’re wrong?
As in, what if you’re only listing the symptoms, and haven’t yet gotten the opportunity to dig deeper?
Precisely these questions have been on my mind frequently, ever since I heard the following phrase in my Global Team Coaching Institute Practitioner training a few months ago:
Well, maybe not all the challenges, all the time… Still, how much of this have you been paying attention to? Quote shared by Prof. David Clutterbuck & Prof. Peter Hawkins; image (C) Anne-Leen De Coninck
In a recent talk at the WBECS Full Summit 2021, Prof. P. Hawkins repeated this notion, and put it into more context:
“[…] one other thing that we talk a lot about at the Global Team Coaching Institute, is that more and more clients and senior leaders are telling us, "Look. It's not individuals that need coaching. It's not even parts of the organisation that need consulting. The real challenge is always," one chief executive said, "all our challenges lie in the connections, not in the parts or the people."
How do you take this back to your daily work?
No need to start hiring consultants or coaches just yet. You' might want to, at some stage, but for now, how about you grant yourself seven minutes of uninterrupted time and journal (write it out) about your answer and the thoughts occuring to you. What are the connections that could use some more attention in and around your team?
In other words: When you look at your team or project from this angle, what else do you see?
