In our coaching work with teams, an important part of our early inquiry is into TEAM PRACTICE. It’s rare to hear a team have a strong answer to this.

Team members are always developing skills and expertise for their role. But that’s not at all the same thing as working on the skills (as individuals and a collective) necessary for effective teaming.

The team has team meetings, milestone reviews, project postmortems and the like. But again, that’s not at all the same thing as practising effective teaming. (Imagine the actor only using their time on stage – opening night! – to “practice” their lines.)

EFFECTIVE TEAMING is a collective skillset that needs to be practised like any other skill we want to improve.

Working on skills at the team level is not especially straightforward – a strong argument in favour of having a team coach! – but it is doable. And just asking the question can lead to rich conversation, learning and change.

🔴 What teaming skills would you love your team to excel in?
🔴 What core competencies are needed to underpin those skills?
🔴 What difference could these developments make? …

Not just to team performance and results, but to the sense of belonging (camaraderie), safety (we can take risks, here) and purpose (we’re here for a reason) felt by every single team member.

I hope this has got you thinking about how you might evolve your approach to team development. And if you’re interested to think more about this, you might like to read my publication (link below):

📄 USHERING IN A NEW AGE OF TEAM DEVELOPMENT – How Team Coaching provides the high-impact, long-term performance shift organisations are looking for from their mission-critical teams.