What’s Inside:
“Team Advantage”
Note from the Coach
“Expansion: Scaling the Benefits of Coaching for Groups and Teams”

Fair Warning: “Team Advantage” Is Not Your Father’s Team-Building Program

In the previous issue of The Coaching Link (May 5, 2010) we introduced a cutting-edge coaching program that focuses on “action learning” called “Team Advantage.” It's a transformational process presented as an organizational “game,” but one in which the objective is an actual business goal. Two unique advantages to this team-building component are that 1.) the team itself designates a stretch goal and 2.) a skilled and experienced coach, who really knows how to make it work, supports both the team and the leader throughout the program.

This isn't your typical team-building one or two-day training event. If your organization has ever failed to meet its objectives and fallen short of goals, you may have felt almost as if you had wasted precious time and resources. Often, the problem is not inherent in the goal or even the methodology; but rather can be caused by ineffective, dysfunctional teams and their lack of follow through and focused accountability.

The “Team Advantage” program essentially transforms the way the team functions while it makes clear progress toward delivering a real business result via a game designed to span sixteen weeks. This coaching process effects a behavioral change that results in improved performance and sustainable momentum of the individuals, the team as a whole and the business overall.

What Are the Key Objectives of the Team Advantage?*

1. Convey core and advanced coaching skills to the team leader
2. Provide a forum for real conversations, truth telling, and surfacing conflict as a natural part of team development and essential to the creative process
3. Have each team member take responsibility for the team win—“everyone wins, or no one wins”
4. Leave the team with a replicable process for continuing to grow together as they accomplish their potential

Key pieces of the process that are also integral to the development of any high-performing team in an action learning setting include:

1.) The creation of a team charter that serves as the team's operating system or rules of engagement. It outlines articles of team governance such as clarifying roles, commitments to one another, the team and the process, how conflicts are handled, what communication techniques are utilized, and how team members agree to hold each other accountable.

2.) A shared understanding of the team's purpose as an overarching or thematic goal that resonates with all team members in such a way that they can always be reminded of what it is that connects them and what they are all striving to accomplish. This can also take the form of a team vision and mission, but at the very least, is an articulation of a single thematic goal that everyone has the ability to impact.

The Team Advantage coaching program supports and expands upon Bruce Tuckman's developmental sequence of groups, which includes four phases: Forming, Storming, “Norming” and Performing. Tuckman's model of team development maintains that these phases are all necessary and inevitable in order for the team to grow, face up to challenges, tackle problems and deliver results.

In the forming stage, team members have the tendency to behave independently until they gain a clear understanding of the issues and objectives of the team. This phase presents an opportunity to assess how each individual member of the team works and how they respond to pressure.

The storming stage serves to establish process and structure. Tolerance of individuals and their differences is emphasized in order to build highly functional relationships between team members. Without tolerance, this phase can be divisive to the team and lead to lower motivation.

The “norming” stage includes agreement on values, professional behavior, rules, methods and working tools. As team members get to know one another better, their views of each other begin to change and they develop trust. This results in increased motivation and members taking responsibility for progress.

In the performing stage, high-performing teams become interdependent and function as a unit, discovering ways to get the job done smoothly and effectively without drama and autonomously. Any disagreements are handled within the team—without the need for leadership intervention.

What is unique about how the Team Advantage works through these characteristic phases?

Extraordinary goal: The process incorporates a real strategic stretch goal where progress is made in a way that makes an immediate positive impact on the organization's performance.

Acceleration: The team works through all phases of team development in just four months' time.

Coach: The team and leader have the constant support of the coach as partner who holds the process in place and challenges the team to grow.

Transparency: The coach fosters more effective collaboration and communication by bringing any challenges to the surface.

Scoring: Played as a game, progress is recognized frequently to keep the game on track and fuel team momentum.

A coach brings the ability to assess any inevitable issues lurking within the team beneath the surface and can skillfully facilitate handling those dynamics in a productive way that allows the team to move through the stages, rather than getting stuck and impeding progress. Working with a coach certified in the “Team Advantage” program is important to ensure that the team works optimally through these characteristic developmental phases in order to achieve real its goal, without being blindsided by any curve balls they may come up against.

*Team Advantage: Complete Coaching Guide for Team Transformation by Darelyn “DJ” Mitsch and Barry Mitsch, of Pyramid Resource Group, The Coaching Company, 2010.

In the next issue of The Coaching Link, we will discuss more details about how “Team Advantage” works and why it is so effective in any organization. And unlike typical team-building events, in this process, the leader also benefits from one-on-one coaching to help them develop their management skills.

If you would like to learn more about this game-changing process before the next edition of this newsletter arrives, just give me a call and I'll be happy to discuss the program with you and answer any questions.

If you missed part 1 of this series introducing the innovative “Team Advantage” concept, published on May 5, 2010, you can check it out here.

Note from the Coach

I am honored to be one of a team of coaches that helped develop the “Team Advantage.” This “Complete Coaching Guide for Team Transformation” is based on Pyramid Resource Group's “The Extraordinary Game,” which has been delivered to high-performing teams around the country for the past ten years. I was invited to contribute to the development as a coach of leaders and their teams and because of my specific previous experience in delivering The Extraordinary Game coaching program to teams.

If you're familiar with Patrick Lencioni's groundbreaking book “The Five Dysfunctions of a Team,” you will see this as the natural next step in developing teams. The program has evolved over the last eighteen months and is being published in June by Lencioni's publishing house Pfeifer-Wiley.

Warm Regards,

Tim Link, MA, MCC

Worth Reading

Companies and organizations worldwide are adopting more expansive and inclusive team coaching methodologies and achieving the same high impact of one-on-one coaching in a more scalable and affordable way. These active learning strategies are proven to effectively achieve organizational goals while enhancing the professional development of its team members.

This edition's article: “Expansion: Scaling the Benefits of Coaching for Groups and Teams” co-written by DJ Mitsch, President of the Pyramid Resource Group and past President of The International Coach Federation, examines key distinctions between group and team coaching and the factors that enable participating organizations to leverage both approaches to develop more effective employees and ultimately transform more lives through coaching.