By Pheona Croom-Johnson
I often find it interesting to see which concepts become trending topics that warrant attention. While Relational Team Coaching isn’t a new concept, it is gaining recognition as a method that supports teams to foster collaboration and embrace open communication styles. This approach focuses on the interpersonal dynamics within teams, with the goal of enhancing both individual and collective performance. In this article, I will delve into the essential stages, steps, processes and tools involved in Relational Team Coaching, from the initial contracting phase to the final conclusion. By exploring the practical application of relational principles, we hope to give you some guidance on how to build a more cohesive and productive team.
Stages of Relational Team Coaching
Relational team coaching is typically structured around four key stages: contracting, diagnosing, intervening and reflecting. Each stage builds upon the previous one, enabling teams to develop new insights and behaviours in a structured and supportive environment.
- Contracting: Setting the Foundation
This first stage is contracting, a vital phase where the Team Coach and the Client Team establish the framework for their collaboration. Contracting includes setting clear goals, defining roles, establishing healthy boundaries and discussing the ways of ‘being’ with one another. During this stage, the Client Team and the Team Coach agree on expectations, desired outcomes and the rules of connection.
Key Considerations:
1. Define the scope and length of the team coaching engagement.
2. Establish outcomes/goals that are both team-wide and individual.
3. Clarify confidentiality to ensure psychological safety can emerge within the group.
4. Discuss ways of measuring success. Start with the end in mind!
The success of this stage depends on mutual trust and clarity. David Clutterbuck, working as a Team Coach, says: “Effective contracting is the cornerstone of successful coaching. Without clear agreements, misunderstandings can arise and the coaching process can falter.”
- Diagnosing: Understanding Team Dynamics
Once the contract is in place, the next step is diagnosing. Here, the Team Coach works closely with the Client Team to assess the current relational dynamics, identifying strengths and areas for development. The purpose of this stage is to paint a clear picture of how team members interact with each other and where relational tensions may lie.
There are many different techniques and tools you can use at this stage. It is important to ensure you are purposeful when using ANY tool/technique/process. What would best serve your Client Team is the first question – and that will inform your choice of which diagnostic tool to use. If you are a leader of a team reading this – the same thoughts and questions apply – you are just using a different lens/role as your starting point.
Here are two techniques that are often used within the diagnostic stage:
Relational Mapping: This tool is used to visualise the connections between team members, highlighting patterns of communication, power dynamics and relational gaps.
Surveys and Interviews: Structured tools like team assessments, one-on-one interviews and 360-degree feedback can provide valuable insights into the team’s current relational state.
This diagnostic phase is crucial for crafting a customised intervention strategy. A 2019 study by the International Coach Federation (ICF) found that: ”87% of organisations that engaged in team coaching reported improved communication and relational clarity”. This statistic alludes to the Team Coaching approach as determined by the ICF, who believe this stage is an important part of the process. Take the time to get the right direction in place.
What role do you think AI will play in future diagnostic tools? How are you integrating AI into your Team Coaching practice?
- Intervening: Being the Conduit for Change
The third stage is where the core work of relational coaching happens – intervening. The Team Coach will use different approaches to bring awareness to relational dynamics and encourage shifts in behaviour. This stage focuses on supporting the Client Team to develop new ways of interacting, listening, hearing, communicating, solving problems and collaborating.
There are a number of different ways the Team Coach can do this – and this is an interesting area for discussion. What are the differences between the traditional view of team coaching and the new emergent view, spearheaded by the ICF?
In the new International Coaching Federation (ICF) framework for Team Coaching, they would measure this stage against their Team Coaching Competencies. In particular those focused on creating awareness, facilitating client growth and building trust and safety within teams. The ICF emphasises the Team Coach’s role in fostering a collaborative environment where teams can explore their dynamics and initiate meaningful change. Team Coaches must co-develop exercises and conversations that enable teams to gain insight into their relational behaviours and cultivate new ways of working together.
This is different to the traditional view which, (in an inadequate nutshell) is that the Team Coach ‘facilitates’ the conversation, directs the Client Team towards an output (often determined by the Team Coach (sometimes unconsciously), but hopefully in discussion with the Client Team) in service of their goals.
In the ICF Team Coaching framework, the coach’s role extends beyond facilitating dialogue; they act as a partner to the team, co-creating a space for shared reflection, collaboration and growth. A Team Coach not only guides the team through processes but also ensures that the Client Team becomes more self-sufficient and capable of managing its dynamics in the long term.
Here are some useful techniques and/or approaches which we hope will bring to life the differences in the traditional view -v- the emergent Team Coaching view:
Traditional View: “Team Coach Facilitates Change”
Reflective Dialogue: Team Coaches facilitate spaces for team members to reflect on their interactions and emotions. This helps team members become more self-aware and better able to understand how their behaviours impact others.
Feedback Exercises: Structured feedback exercises, where team members give and receive feedback in a safe and supportive environment, can be transformative.
Relational Experiments: These are pre-designed activities where team members can try out new ways of relating to each other in real-time. For instance, if a team struggles with listening, the Team Coach will design an exercise where team members practice active listening during discussions.
Role of the Coach
Throughout the entire coaching process, the Team Coach plays a central role in facilitating dialogue, providing feedback and helping the team uncover relational patterns that may not be immediately visible. A Relational Team Coach is both the guide and observer, constantly tuning into the team’s emotional and relational needs and letting the team hear their observations.
Facilitating Dialogue: The Team Coach encourages open communication by asking thought- provoking questions and facilitates a space where every voice is heard. They help the team surface underlying tensions and guide them through difficult conversations.
Providing Feedback: Team Coaches offer feedback on relational patterns, pointing out dynamics that may be hindering the Client Team’s effectiveness. This feedback is always delivered in a way that encourages reflection and growth.
Navigating Challenges: Resistance and conflict are natural parts of the relational Team Coaching process. Team Coaches must remain calm and patient, using techniques like conflict resolution frameworks and other business models to help Client Teams navigate challenge.
Stop for a moment and pause. Which of these approaches align with your Team Coaching practice? Is this your view of Team Coaching? What do you think will be different in the new and emergent way of working as a Team Coach with a Team Client? Stop and check in – what is your practice?
Here are similar techniques that a Team Coach would use – but with an emergent view. Starting with the title: “Team Coach Co-Creates Change with the Client Team”.
Reflective Dialogue: One of the Team Coach’s key responsibilities is to foster a space for reflection, where the Client Team can collectively explore their relationships and emotional responses. By co-creating these reflective spaces, Team Coaches enhance competency in fostering team self-awareness. This process encourages individual and collective growth, enabling team members to better understand their own behaviours and impact on the team. Reflective sessions are useful to align with the ICF’s emphasis on developing relational awareness and emotional intelligence within the group.
Feedback Exercises: We know how important effective communication and feedback loops are within teams. They are integral to creating a transparent and open environment. Team Coaches are encouraged to co-design structured feedback experiences that encourage the Client Team to give and receive feedback in a safe, non-judgmental space. This fosters growth in both individual and team competency, supporting the team’s development. (Here at SBS we would also add Feedforward – but that is a topic for another time!)
Relational Experiments: Team Coaches co-design experiential learning by introducing relational experiments. These activities support teams to apply their learning in real-time, aligning with ICF’s competency on facilitating client growth. For example, if a Client Team is struggling with global listening, the Team Coach may bring this to the Client Team’s attention and co-create ways to explore how to improve their skills. The ICF encourages Team Coaches to support teams in co-creating solutions that fit their unique contexts rather than offering prescriptive advice.
Role of the Coach
Throughout the entire coaching process, the Team Coach plays a central role supporting the Client Team in their dialogue, uncovering relational patterns that may not be immediately visible and/or how the Client Team are ‘being’ with one another. A Relational Team Coach constantly tunes into the Client Team’s emotional and relational needs and brings this to the Client Team’s attention.
Facilitating Dialogue: The Team Coach encourages open communication by asking thought- provoking questions and creating a space where every voice is heard. They support the Client Team to surface underlying tensions and with curiosity co-explore with the Team Client how they will move through the tensions – into healthy tension.
Providing Feedback/Feedforward: Team Coaches offer feedback/feedforward on relational patterns, pointing out dynamics that may be hindering the team’s effectiveness, if this is invited and contracted for from the outset. This feedback/feedforward is always delivered in a way that encourages reflection and growth.
Navigating Challenges: Resistance and conflict are natural parts of the relational coaching process. Team Coaches must know how to self-regulate. How to unhook from any systemic or personal triggers. As they demonstrate how to do this – they will be role models for the Client Team members in how to self-regulate, who will then, more easily, move into co-regulating – as a Team. This is a key concept for any team to embrace as it supports the cornerstones for their relational approach.
Pause again. What is different with the emergent practices? How does the ICF competencies support Team Coaching? What could you add into your Team Coaching to ensure you are Team Coaching as opposed to Team Facilitation, Team Training, Team Consultancy, Team Mentoring or any other form of Team Development. Remember Team Coaching is distinct and unique – do you really understand what it is?
In summary, by integrating the ICF Team Coaching Competencies into the intervening stage, Team Coaches can ensure that their interventions foster deeper relational awareness, encourage sustainable behavioural changes and enable Client Teams to achieve lasting transformation. In this way, the coach serves as a catalyst for change rather than a director, encouraging team members to embrace their own relational evolution and continuously improve their ways of collaborating.
4. Reflecting: Consolidating Learning
This final stage is all about consolidation and looking ahead. Here, the Team Coach supports the Client Team to review the progress made during the team coaching process, evaluate the effectiveness of interventions and identify areas for future growth. This is in service of the Client Team being self-sustaining after the Team Coach has left them. It is important the Client Team is able to continue as a sustainable, effective, empowered Team.
Key Reflection Techniques:
After-Action Reviews: These debriefs enable the Client Team to analyse what has worked and what hasn’t. It also builds the reflective muscle for the Client Team to know how to internalise key lessons and utilise these lessons, learning from them. This builds a learning culture within the Client Team that will future-proof their work together.
Progress Mapping: Team Coaches and Client Teams map out the relational progress they have made, identifying key shifts in behaviour and communication. This is an important part of the process. The Team Coach is not aiming for the Client Team to be ‘all roses and harmonised’. It is what it is! Bringing that ability to recognise what is present and what needs further work – brings a reality and authenticity to the Client Team which will empower them in the future to realistically look at their relationships and their psychological safety.
Ongoing Development Plans: As the Team Coaching engagement concludes, it’s important to ensure that the Client Team has a roadmap for sustaining and building upon their new relational skills.
Some final thoughts on this stage – reflecting is a critical phase because it cements the learning that has occurred. As research from the Center for Creative Leadership (CCL) shows, teams that engage in structured reflection are 30% more likely to sustain behaviour changes over time compared to teams that do not engage in this practice.
Healthy endings enable Client Teams to take ownership of their progress, ensuring sustainability and strength for their future. Reflection, self-regulation and co- regulation build their capacity, creating resilience and ultimately enhancing their ability to thrive independently. Reflection, self-regulation and co- regulation build their capacity, creating resilience and ultimately enhancing their ability to thrive independently.
The Challenges of Relational Team Coaching
While relational team coaching is a powerful tool, it does come with its challenges. Managing resistance, navigating conflict and maintaining engagement are some of the common hurdles coaches face.
Managing Resistance: Client Teams can resist relational coaching at first because it requires vulnerability and openness. Overcoming this resistance requires building trust early on and supporting the Client Team to see the value in the process.
Navigating Healthy Tension: Conflict is inevitable when working with teams, but relational coaching views conflict as a learning opportunity and even reframes this into ‘healthy tension’ or ‘healthy friction’. By supporting teams to navigate healthy tension/friction within their communications and relationship – Team Coaches can support the Client Team to transform moments of conflict into breakthroughs in communication.
Sustaining Commitment: Relational Team Coaching is not a one-time fix. Maintaining the Client Team’s commitment to ongoing relational work is essential for long-term success. Team Coaches can use regular check-ins and follow-up sessions to sustain the momentum created during the team coaching process. But all of this has to be completed with the aim of ensuring the Client Team take their sustainability seriously and know they now have the tools, capabilities and understanding to work together as a highly-performing relational team today and into the future.
Healthy friction promotes constructive dialogue, where differing ideas lead to creative tension. This tension is easier to resolve because the focus remains on open communication and collaboration, unlike conflict, which escalates emotions and entrenches opposing positions.
In conclusion
Relational Team Coaching offers a structured and dynamic approach to improving team performance through enhanced interpersonal relationships. From contracting and diagnosing to intervening and reflecting, the process enables teams to explore their relational dynamics, address challenges and develop new, more effective ways of interacting. With the right tools, techniques and guidance, relational team coaching can foster lasting transformation, leading to stronger, more resilient teams.
As the evidence suggests, teams that engage in relational coaching experience improved communication, higher productivity and greater overall satisfaction. I would like to leave you with these thoughts: “Relational coaching goes beyond improving teamwork; it cultivates deeper connections that build trust, ignite creativity and drive mutual respect.”
Pheona Croom-Johnson is the Co-Founder and Academic Director of Sandown Business School, with over 35 years of experience in Organisational Development. She has partnered with coaches, C-suite executives and senior leaders throughout her career. Pheona is one of the few triple-credentialed Master Coaches, holding PCC (ICF), Senior Practitioner (EMCC),and Master Executive Coach (AC) credentials. She is also a qualified Master NLP Trainer, an ACTC (ICF) Team Coach Supervisor, and a credentialed Supervisor (ESIA, EMCC). Additionally, she is an IFS-trained Therapist (Level 1) and holds two MSc degrees in Psychology of Change and Psychological Coaching (BPS).
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