One of the biggest parts of working effectively in a team is supporting your team members.
‘Alone we can do so little, together we can do so much’. -Helen Keller
What does this quote mean to you, and what does it means to an organisation? When a team of people
work on a common goal, they can achieve much more than individuals. Not supporting one another to
meet team outcomes makes your team less effective or completely ineffective.
Group dynamics need to be understood. How your team members interact will affect the effectiveness of the
team. The loud, overbearing member may stop others from contributing; the painfully shy member may
never share ideas that could be really valuable. Social psychologist and change management expert Kurt
Lewin worked on group dynamics in the 1940s. He is credited with understanding the different way that
people behave in groups. Different combinations of teams and the resulting behaviour can affect members in
both positive and negative ways.
Groupthink is a term which refers to the behaviour of groups who put the idea of agreement ahead of
everything. No one wants to speak against an idea; they just agree regardless of the outcomes or the
possibility of better decision-making. Team members who are reluctant to offer an alternative opinion
may just be afraid to go against the greater consensus.
Positive group dynamics offers the following benefits:
• Trust.
• Ability to achieve consensus – note it is not necessarily important to have everyone agree.
Some people will not agree with the decision what is important is to have contribution to the
outcome from everyone in the team.
• Ability to hold each other answerable for roles and results.
• More creative and innovative than other groups.
Negative group dynamics will hold the team back; the common outcomes of this poor dynamic include
the following:
• lack of consensus, participation, and poor performance of the team as a whole
• dissatisfied and uncooperative members
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• dominant members who control the group in a poor way.
Strong teams have good, sound leaders who work with and encourage members, prevent in-fighting
and arguments, foster agreement, and build groups that put the good of the team ahead of individual
needs. Strategies to improve team dynamics can include the following:
• deal with issues quickly; don’t allow them to escalate; feedback is crucial
• the team leader needs to fully understand the team and their roles, how they behave, and how
to encourage and support them
• team leaders also need to be observant, avoid missing early warning signs which can signal
disruption, and understand the different stages of team development
• define roles and responsibilities so all this information is clear and understood
• make sure the team is comfortable and can rely on each other
• communicate, communicate, and communicate more!
1.3.1 Coaching teams
‘A successful coach is someone who will get you to do something you don’t want to do, that you have to
do, in order to reach your goals’.
Coaching is a useful way of developing employees’ skills and abilities and improving performance.
A coaching session takes place between a coach and the coachee and focuses on helping coachees
discover answers for themselves. People are more likely to engage with the solutions they come up with
themselves rather than those forced upon them.
Most formal professional coaching is carried out by qualified people who work with clients to improve their
effectiveness and performance and help them to reach their full potential.
Foundation for coaching
Coaching is founded on confidentiality and trust. Coachees must be able to speak about all aspects of
an issue or challenge with their coach. Coaching should be something that all managers do with their
teams. It can help to improve work performance and deal with issues before they become larger
problems.
Solution-focused coaching
This approach places primary emphasis on assisting your client to define a desired future state (where
or what they want to be) and constructs a pathway with an emphasis on assisting them to define the
desired future state. This approach looks to identify a way of thinking and acting that will allow the
coachees to reach their goal. The following YouTube video provides a good explanation of solutionfocused
coaching: Solution focused coaching
Team coaching
Team coaching is designed to help people understand how to work better with others. It is a good method to
improve working relationships and reduce conflict. In team coaching, you focus on interpersonal skills and
interactions rather than the development of an individual.
A good place to start with team coaching is to understand the dynamics of the team. Individuals have
different styles of working and communicating, and when we encounter someone different to us, we
may be frustrated and fail to recognise the other person’s strengths.
Personality and behavioural assessments are great tools for improving a team’s understanding of its
own dynamics and why people react the way they do. By understanding others, they can improve how
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they relate to each other because they will be more tolerant and understanding of each other’s needs
and abilities.
The Myers-Briggs assessment is an excellent tool for uncovering individual patterns in things such as
communication and conflict resolution.
As a coach, your role is to bring team members together and to encourage effective teamwork. It is
good practice to establish behaviour expectations, and a team charter is an effective way to do this.
Effective working relationships are built by understanding team members’ needs, preferences, and
styles of work. By helping people understand their own styles and appreciate the different styles of
others, you can work with them to change their behaviours and use everyone’s strengths.
The GROW model
There are many coaching models. GROW is one model that a coach can use.
The model was originally developed in the 1980s by performance coach Sir John Whitmore, although it
has been further developed by others, including Graham Alexander.
A good way to think about GROW is to think about how you would plan a journey. First you decide
where you would like to go (goal); then you look at where you are now (current reality). Then you
explore your options (consider obstacles, such as money, time, etc.). Finally, you commit to your
journey.
This is the process the coach would take the coachee through; the coach acts as the facilitator of the
process. The two most important skills for a coach are as follows:
1.3.2 Mentoring skills
Using your knowledge and experience to help others
By mentoring in the workplace, you can help people increase their effectiveness, advance their careers,
and create a more productive organisation. Being a mentor can be rewarding.
Benefits of mentoring
Mentoring is based on the relationship between two people: the ‘mentor’ and the ‘mentee’. As a mentor, you
pass on valuable skills, knowledge, and experiences to your mentee.
Mentoring is designed to help the mentee feel more confident and supported. Mentees should, through
the mentoring process, develop a clearer sense of what they want to achieve in their careers and
personal lives.
Goal
Current
reality
Options/
Obstacles
Will/ Way
forward
Ask good
questions
Actively
listen
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For an organisation, mentoring is a good way of efficiently transferring valuable competencies from one person
to another. This increases the organisation’s knowledge base, helps to build strong working teams, and can be
utilised in a succession planning strategy.
Developmental mentoring: the mentor helps the mentee develop new skills and abilities. The mentor is
to guide the mentee and help him or her grow.
Sponsorship mentoring: the mentor is more of a career influencer than a guide. The mentor really drives
the mentee’s progress, opening doors for the mentee to gain opportunities and influencing others to
help the mentee to advance.
Skills for mentoring
To be an effective mentor, you need to be willing to do the following.
• Have the desire to mentor – be willing to spend time helping the mentee.
• Be a role model for continual personal and professional growth – you need to demonstrate to
the mentee that learning and development never ceases.
• Be confident – we are not talking about having a big ego but rather being confident in your
abilities to apply critical thinking and challenge your mentee to do the same.
• Ask the right questions – good mentors ask their mentees questions that make them think! Then
they support the mentees as they seek to find the answers. The goal is to guide the mentee to a
path that will allow them to find the answer or reach a conclusion.
• Listen actively – watch your mentee carefully, read body language, and recognise what topics
your mentee finds difficult. Be patient and willing to listen fully without judgement.
• Provide feedback – show the mentees that you have listened and provide them with feedback
that gives them an alternative perspective on their thoughts.
Mentoring is about transferring information, competence, and experience to mentees so that they
build confidence. You need to be:
If a high-performing team achieves the highest performance impact, how do we support, encourage,
and foster groups of individuals to become high-performing teams?
As teams grow and cohere, their members face three demands:
• To come to terms with their individual tasks/roles.
• To come to terms with the team’s tasks/roles.
• To come to terms with one another.
Case study
The team is going well. The have clearly agreed on their roles and the purpose. They have set KPIs, and
everyone knows where they are heading. They are starting to rely on each other. Trust is growing.
As a leader, Paul is keen to keep the team thinking as creatives (individually) but also able to participate and
openly share ideas and suggestions with the others. The designer said that she would provide 10 new drawings
Encouraging Nurturing Supportive
Being able to
relate to the
person being
mentored
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for the group to look at and work with to prompt discussion on the overall design and available options. Her
drawings were really useful for the discussion.
One of the others thought she should have digitised the designs already, not just provided sketches. Debbie, the
designer, thought she had made this clear to the team but perhaps the other person was not listening. Everyone
else thought it worked well.
Paul needs to deal with this immediately to prevent it from causing other issues with communication. He may
need to revisit the KPIs and be sure meetings are held regularly with all team members interacting properly. If
Paul maintains his level of observation, he will be able to notice further issues and step in to keep them from
becoming more of a problem.
The main way Paul can support the team is to communicate with them and encourage them to communicate with
each other often and well. Clarifying expectations and setting up meetings (including Skype sessions with the
procurement expert) for the whole team are essential, especially in the design stages.
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