TPC Leadership develops leaders with a heart for leaders AND their organisations. They are engaged and passionate in what they do. They focus on the individual, but will always keep the vision and objectives of the organisation into account.
Janna Kramer, Learning & Talent Development Leader
EY – NETHERLANDS
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How to untap the potential of virtual teams across a major organisation
Recently TPCL completed an intervention with an iconic international company in the automotive and OEM (original equipment manufacturing) industries with the aim of improving their virtual team leadership, as well as creating a high trust and team performance culture through working virtually. The intervention involves training over 300 managers with fortnightly interactive workshops. It is the first leadership programme deployed worldwide by the company and involves participants with plenty of different nationalities and backgrounds.
Participants reported using the content of the programme to activate conversations with their teams and have put their new skills into practice quickly. The programme highlighted which managers were adopting more innovative approaches. The programme made these managers feel acknowledged and they became role models for colleagues. The organisation feels much more equipped to work virtually and are now planning to adopt a long term 50/50 approach to office and remote working. TPCL has also created the programmes for the mentors at the company, who will keep on supporting contributors and teams in the company which will help develop their behaviours to align with the new philosophy of the organisation.
A senior representative from the company shared the following feedback:
“The programme has been very successful, and we have asked TPCL to develop a further programme targeting contributors and focussing virtual team working skills. My experience working with TPC Leadership has been interesting and insightful because they are very aware of the programme content and how it can work in our context. I have appreciated their capacity to link flexibility, structure, and design. Their consultants have a high level of knowledge in the founding methodologies of both training and coaching, with an innovative unique design skill. They are very sensitive to the feedback and the relationship dynamics in the group and with the clients. I believe TPC Leadership is a strong partner in the transformation of the organisation and would recommend them as trusted partners of complex organisations wanting to start the change process in cultures and behaviours.”
To learn more about new ways of working and how TPCL can help you and your organization suceed working with hybrid and virtual teams don’t hesitate to get in touch.
TPCL recently completed a project with a market leader in the tech and engineering industry.
The client had a very strong engineering organization with many first-line managers having been promoted into position. They wanted to ensure the right programmes were in place to support leaders along their growth path and equip them to lead and get results in ways that aligned with the values of the organization. They previously developed a programme with another vendor and another programme with TPC Leadership. During the design of the such programme, additional training needs were identified as new managers felt under equipped to lead their teams effectively which led to the development of the grow teams programme. TPCL were subsequently asked to design and deliver the leadership program as well.
Objectives
3 key learning objectives were identified
Effectively transitioning into leadership for the first time
Effectively managing and supporting direct reports with personal and career development
Effectively building and supporting high performing teams throughout the team lifecycle.
The main objective, instilling confidence in the first-line managers, was clearly achieved, as noted in feedback received from participants. The participants completed the training well equipped with a clear awareness of their capabilities. Positive changes were also seen in the company engagement survey. A concrete outcome is a pipeline of leadership development programmes covering a range of personal leadership and team leadership skills to proactively & sustainably support managers to effective lead and coach their teams.
We received the following feedback from the client:
“TPCL’s ability to deliver their expertise with a warm human touch makes them a great group of individuals to work with. I look forward to our continued partnership in equipping our leaders with the knowledge and skills they need to lead more effectively.”
To learn more about TPC Leadership don’t hesitate to get in touch.
TEAM COACHING – A CASE STUDY
TPC Leadership delivered a 1:1 and Team coaching programme over a 12 month period supporting the client in forming a new team structure with a high profile Formula One racing team and constructors.
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Business context & drivers for the organisation
The aim of the programme is to support the need for a clear vision and ethos within the department amongst senior members of the team.
Objectives/required outcomes for the client
Shift in mindset and developing self-confidence
Enhanced capability in leading others
Embed the learning and best practises across the organisation
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Interventions
Regular 1:1 coaching sessions, followed by quarterly coaching pair team days.
Challenges
We lost momentum for 6 months after the first sessions due to Covid-19. An earlier shift to remote coaching could have helped maintain momentum and provide support to the coachees during a difficult period of transition.
Team coaching requires that those involved see the need/want to be a team. This was stronger in some instances than others. We worked well to develop and build the trust for the team foundations to be created.
Outcomes
There was strong evidence of increased cross team collaboration, cross fertilisation of ideas and support for the newer Team Leaders. Many congruent and parallel experiences were shared and this created the potential for healthy dialogue and empathy across these roles.
Feedback from the client indicates that participants:
The coachees became more coachable through the journey as we together found better ways to understand wants and needs. The team benefited from an emphasis on creating individual awareness/responsibility as well as learning from other organisations. They were supported with some training in theories and models to develop their own leadership skills.
There was much commonality emerging between the experiences of the top and middle levels of the organisation and how they might develop in tandem:
Shared direction and alignment across the organisation, starting with the top team
Clearer articulation of responsibility and accountability, with more effective feedback and performance management loops
More time/space for and reinforcement of innovation, experimentation and learning.
If you would like to talk to us about a team coaching programme, get in touch.
“What is the difference between Team Coaching and Group Coaching?”
HR Directors and professionals, like many students of our courses, get often confused by this subtle difference. This confusion may imply the loss of a significant opportunity to chose the right approach for the right people.
I want to briefly highlight this difference, and why this difference matters, hoping to shed some light about how to chose the most effective methodology.
Team Coaching defined
In general, we define Team Coaching as the art of facilitating and challenging a real team to maximize its performance and enjoyment in service of meaningful organizational goals.
Team Coaching is the art of facilitating and challenging a real team to maximize its performance and enjoyment in service of meaningful organizational goals.
According to John Katzenbach and Douglas Smith, a real team is “a small group of people with complementary skills who are committed to a common purpose, performance goals and approach for which they are mutually accountable” (1993, The Wisdom of Teams: Creating the High-performance Organisation, Harvard Business School, Boston).
In Team Coaching, the client is a real team, including the team leader and each one of their direct reports. They work together for common goals against which the whole team’s performance is evaluated. Individuals in a team are therefore interdependent.
In Team Coaching, the client is a real team.
Often real teams stumble at operating as high performing teams because of problems such as:
are unclear goals, or targets which are not compelling or not well-aligned with the wider organizational strategy and culture
team decision processes are unclear or obsolete
the team lacks effective communication guidelines and team facilitation routines
the team is missing a coordinated stakeholders management strategy
there is insufficient trust among the team members, resulting in a poor capacity of handling difficult conversations – as well as an increased level of unnecessary anxiety, stress and discomfort of the working environment.
Stumbling blocks like these can create a dramatic impact on business performance, especially when they involve boards or directive teams managing entire businesses, functions or divisions.
Team Coaches work overtime with teams by supporting them to increase awareness of the current patterns, and by challenging its members to leverage on their resources, strengths and life-giving forces to enhance team processes, relationships and performance.
Group Coaching Defined
Group Coaching is a facilitative process that leverages the experience of a group of individuals which may or not work together.
Group Coaching is a facilitative process that leverages the resources and knowledge of a group of individuals working on a common theme but having different individual performance goals.
Unlike in Team Coaching, in Group Coaching, individuals do not need to achieve common objectives for which they are interdependent, but have in common just a theme or competency all of them want to develop.
HRs often use Group Coaching as a cost-effective alternative to one to one coaching when organizations want to develop a larger number of middle managers or professional while using a reflective, empowering and bespoke approach.
Unlike traditional training, a Group Coach does not ‘teach’ or ‘lecture’ about models or theories or tools, but partners with the group in building the process and in creating an effective thinking environment. In order to achieve this, Group Coaches use different methodologies such as plenary coaching, structured questions sets, activities of buddy work, peer-consultation sets, learning diaries, discussion of critical cases etc.
Choosing the right approach
We use Team Coaching and Group Coaching not only with different targets but also in different situations and with different aims.
We implement Team Coaching when we want individuals of the same team to collaborate in order to boost team performance. It is therefore often useful when a team needs to:
Establish a compelling vision and strategy
Articulate its values and mission, translating them into coherent team practices
Enhance climate and trust during a turbulent moment
Re-establish an effective working contract when new team members enter the team
Enable hidden conflicts to emerge and manage them more safely and productively
Drive forward challenging change initiatives through clear action plans involving inter-dependent actions and the management of a complex stakeholders system.
We need Group Coaching when we want individuals from different teams or departments to share challenges and best practices in service of transversal developmental goals. Typical examples are:
supporting cultural change while enabling middle managers to own a new competency model or to develop a specific competency
developing talents by giving them a chance to integrate knowledge in behaviors after a more traditional training or management programmes
engaging groups of managers facing similar challenges to share solutions and best practices and to embed new behaviors.
As a final note: not all Team Coaches are also good Group Coaches, and the other way around. I usually advise HR professionals to verify upfront the approach of the coach they are about to engage, for example by asking how they would articulate the difference between Group and Team Coaching or what have been their previous experiences in these fields.
The key for successful coaching interventions lies in striking the ideal mix between right target, aims, approach and coach.
The key for successful coaching interventions lies in striking the ideal mix between right target, right aims, right approach and naturally right coach
Original article by Andrea Cardillo PhD, PCC – Managing Partner at TPC Leadership, Italy
For more information on team coaching please contact us.
