Timski coaching

ture or religion and other indicators of diversity cannot mislead us into feeling alienated from them; it’s only the depth of the message that touches us, so we soon realize just how very similar we all are.

Regardless of the geographical distance, culture, religion, skin color and the like, we are all first and foremost people. We’re all in the same boat and the current Corona situation has come as an important lesson we need to learn in reference to that very fact.

We are all human first, with our basic biological needs. Love and acceptance of the fellow man are certainly among them. Before we start labelling people and concealing our seeming diversity with the acquired prejudices, let’s give ourselves a chance. Let’s be human. Let this mentality of love and acceptance of seeming diversity extend from couples to small groups and then on to a larger scale...

Let’s pay it forward, also by using Storytelling in Coaching.

(1)Božič, Saša. (2018). Pripovedovalka zgodb, 365 inspirativnih zgodb državljanov sveta in zgodba o poti do sebe, Ljubljana, Založba SASA

Saša Božič is an internationally acclaimed ICF coach, entrepreneur, marketing consultant, business developer for UAE and India markets, author, wife and a mother of two grown sons. Even with her highly diverse professional career, she finds her true calling in implementing the Employee Wellbeing Programs and coaching authentic leaders. Presenting EWP activities and measures to executives and locally adapting them to engage employees through holistic measures of preventive health activities, she believes the most valuable contribution can be provided with authentic leaders and empowered, happy and healthy employees.

Vpliv coaching miselnosti na kakovost coachinga The Impact of Coaching Mindset on the Quality of Coaching ———————————————————————————————————————————————————————

Coaching miselnost odločilno vpliva na potek in kakovost coachinga. Mednarodna zveza za coaching (ICF) coaching miselnost uvršča med ključne kompetence coacha, saj coach s svojo odprtostjo, radovednostjo in prožnostjo zagotavlja varen in spodbuden prostor, ki je pogoj, da stranka lahko poišče optimalno rešitev za svoje izzive. Coaching miselnost je tudi ena od zahtevnejših kompetenc, ki jo mora coach razviti. Zahtevna je predvsem zato, ker v coachingu ni prostora za ego coacha. Potreba, da sugeriraš rešitev ali potreba, da pripelješ stranko do rešitve na način in v tempu, ki si ga je zamislil coach, nima mesta v coaching pogovoru in deluje ravno nasprotno krovni ideji coachinga. Kako razviti coaching miselnost, preseči coacheve ustaljene vzorce razmišljanja (mentalne filtre), ki bi lahko predstavljali oviro v coaching procesu in kako se mentalno in čustveno pripraviti na coaching ? Tekom predavanja bomo iskali odgovore na vprašanja: Kaj je coaching miselnost in zakaj je pomembna v coachingu (in tudi drugje v življenju). Poglobili bomo razumevanje svoje lastne miselnosti pri sebi in pri drugih in kako ta lahko vpliva na coaching. Spoznali nekaj načinov, kako lahko razvijemo coaching miselnost pri sebi in pri drugih

Ključne besede: Coaching miselnost, kakovost coachinga, kompetence coachinga, mentalni filtri

Coaching mindset has a decisive influence on the course and quality of coaching. The International Coaching Federation (ICF) ranks the coaching mindset among the key competencies of the coach, as the coach with his openness, curiosity and flexibility provides a safe and stimulating environment, which is a necessary condition for the client to find the optimal solution for their challenges. The coaching mindset is also one of the more challenging competencies a coach needs to develop. It is challenging mainly because there is no room for ego in coaching. The need to suggest a solution or the need to lead a client to a solution in the way and at the pace imagined by the coach has no place in the coaching conversation and works just the opposite of the umbrella idea of coaching. How to develop a coaching mindset, to overcome the coach's established patterns of thinking (mental filters) that could be an obstacle in the coaching process, and how to mentally and emotionally prepare for coaching? During the lecture, we will look for answers to the questions: What is the coaching mindset and why it is important in coaching (and elsewhere in life). We will deepen our understanding of mindset in ourselves and in others and how this can affect coaching. Learn some ways we can develop a coaching mindset in ourselves and in others

Keywords: Coaching mindset, quality of coaching, coaching competencies, mental filters

Teja Breznik Alfirev je predsednica ICF Slovenia Chapter in direktorica podjetja Flow svetovanje. S svojimi bogatimi izkušnjami na področju človeških virov in vodenja pomaga posameznikom poiskati želeno prihodnost, usmerjati vodstvene ekipe,okoli vitalnih gonilnih sil podjetja - vizije, poslanstva in vrednot, ustvariti strast in odpornost v organizacijah kot glavno motivacijsko moč ter usposablja ljudi za pristnost, pogum in prilagodljivost.

Timski coaching Team coaching ———————————————————————————————————————————————————————

Izgradnja timov, ko bodo dosegali visoko uspešnost, je prednostna naloga vsakega podjetja z namenom zagotavljanja dolgoročne konkurenčnosti. Vodje si prizadevajo izpolniti pričakovanja posameznih članov tima, se izogniti nepotrebnim konfliktom in ustvarjalno uporabiti napetosti v timu, olajšati sodelovanje in spodbujati time v smeri zadanih ciljev. Timski coaching je tako eden izmed najhitreje rastočih segmentov v coachingu, ki tim opremi s sposobnostjo uporabe coaching miselnosti na sebi. Razvoj coaching miselnosti je potreben za soočanje s hitro spreminjajočim se okoljem in spreminjajočimi se zahtevami, s katerimi se soočajo timi.

Ključne besede: timski coaching, uspešnost, član tima, timsko vedenje

Building teams for high performance is a priority in business to ensure long-term competitiveness. Leaders are struggling to live up to the expectations of the individual team members, to avoid conflicts and use tensions creatively, to facilitate collaboration and to keep the teams on track towards their goals. Team coaching is one of the most rapidly growing segments in the coaching world. It addresses the performance, behaviours, structures, processes and aspirations of the team, ultimately equipping the team with the ability to apply a coaching mindset to itself. This is needed to deal with the rapidly changing environments and changing demands that teams experience.

Keywords: Team coaching, performance, team member, team behaviours

Teams are the cellular structures that make the corporate body work. Without teams, it would be next to impossible to organise large, complex tasks. Yet teams rarely perform as well as they might. This may be because they are too big (the optimum size of no more than eight goes back to our ancient ancestors, who learned that they could only keep seven others in sight and coordination when hunting). It may be because they do not have the resources or skills that they need to do the job. But most of all, it is because a team is a complex, adaptive system, in which a failure of any part of the system has a disproportionate impact on the system as a whole.

Our research over 25 years into how teams function and what it means to be a high performing team identifies six critical areas that affect team performance: · Purpose and motivation – what the team is there for and whether this energises them · External systems – how they relate to stakeholders · Relationships – covering issues such as psychological safety · Internal systems – how they coordinate and make decisions · Learning – how they keep pace with change · Leadership – how the functions of leadership are addressed and/or distributed.

The interdependence between these areas means that everything affects everything else. For example, a lack of clear purpose may make it more difficult to obtain resources from key stakeholders, leading to conflict about what the team does. This in turn leads to sub-optimal processes, confusion about what new knowledge or expertise the team needs and a culture that blames the team leader for everything. Of course, a lack of clear purpose may also be the result of poor leadership – and so the wheel turns! Working with uncertainty and complexity should be the territory of coaching. Yet, the world of coaching has been relatively slow to adapt from a one-to-one perspective to a team coaching perspective. It takes a much greater level of skill to coach teams. Moreover, much of what is sold as team coaching is not coaching at all (more facilitation or team building) and coaching the individuals within a team is not the same as coaching the team as an entity in its own right. Indeed, it is possible to improve the individual performance of team members while reducing the overall performance of the team!

Team coaching has two main aims: · To enable the team to understand its own systems and learn how to manage these more effectively · To help the team develop a coaching culture that supports it in raising performance (what we do now), capability (our ability to perform in future) and capacity (how we do more with less) To date, almost all team coaching is delivered by externally resourced coaches, with varying levels of competence. I know of only a handful of organisations that have developed internal team coaching resources. The result is that this extremely valuable resource is limited to teams at or near the apex of organisations, when it is needed at all levels. New teams and project teams, for example, can hit the ground running, if they have effective team coaching. Average or good teams can become exceptional, if they learn how to leverage what they do well and apply it to areas of relative weakness.

The challenge for organisations in all sectors is that, as the environment in which they operate becomes more uncertain and more complex, teams at all levels need the ability to respond both faster and more effectively. So, a top-focused strategy is like keeping the head warm while the body freezes.

Given that team coaching, when done well, is highly demanding in time (a reasonable average is about six hours of preparation and/or individual coaching for every hour of collective coaching) and therefore an expensive intervention, the advantages of having an internal capability are obvious. But how do you persuade your experienced internal one-to-one coaches to take on this more demanding role? One of the great selling points is the learning that internal team coaches gain from this level of coaching, that they can apply in their own teams. Leaders, who are also team coaches, learn to take a different perspective on their leadership role. With very few exceptions, almost all the functions of leadership can be distributed within the team, leaving the leader free to concentrate on the most value-creating aspects of his or her role.

In selecting your internal coaches, it helps to: • Start with your most experienced coaches • Look for a genuine coaching mindset – people who have outgrown simplistic approaches like GROW. (Applying simplistic approaches to complex situations is asking for disaster!) • Look for people, who exhibit a combination of personal resilience and systems awareness. Or, to put it another way, people who are at a relatively advanced level of socio-emotional and cognitive maturity. • If needed, widen your net to include people with the qualities of maturity, who have not been trained as coaches – they will often be able to acquire a coaching mindset relatively easily • Look for people, who are genuinely keen to invest in their own development. Training in team coaching requires at least nine classroom days, plus reflection and reading, plus supervision – a good 100 hours of personal investment – although you can get started after an initial three-day module.

In choosing how to develop your internal team coaches, consider the following: • How truly systemic is the approach? (Does it relate to simple, linear systems or to complex adaptive systems?) • How applicable is the approach to teams at all levels? (Team coaching for executives may not be the same as for teams at other levels.) • What is the evidence base for this approach? (Some of the most popularised approaches have little or no valid research underpinning.) • Is the approach mainly deficit based i.e. focused on working out what is wrong with the team and trying to fix it? (Approaches that place as much or greater emphasis on strengths are more likely to gain traction with teams in the workplace.)

During the training: • Ensure that they have sufficient teams to practise on. It makes sense to choose teams, which are important to the business (so the coach understands the importance of the team’s success) and which are open to help. Typically, these teams will have a relatively high level of psychological safety already – throwing beginner team coaches into a team in high conflict is likely to dent their confidence badly! • Expect them to work in pairs, to provide support and feedback. This generally has a positive effect on both the quality of the team coaching and on their willingness to experiment. • Have supervision available and make sure the supervisors are qualified for this role. In a recent study[1], Alison Hodge and I found that very few supervisors of team coaches had both training in supervision and extensive experience of working with teams.