Category: Team Effectiveness

Categories
Healthcare Team Coaching Team Effectiveness

Executive Team Coaching: 4 Ways to Build Alignment

Building alignment on a team is essential for helping improve leadership team effectiveness. As a result of my work doing executive team coaching in a variety of sectors including healthcare, I have observed how teams that lack alignment can suffer in many ways:

  • Missed goals due to the lack of alignment on critical outcomes and accountability for team outcomes.
  • Reduced productivity and inefficiency since team members are not on the same page and may duplicate efforts.
  • Unnecessary conflict and confusion about who is doing what.
  • Decreased morale with team members feeling uncertain about their roles, encountering unproductive conflict, and feeling frustrated with the inability to meet goals.

Here are four executive team coaching strategies to help you improve the effectiveness of your leadership teams.

1: Clearly Defined Goals

Goals should be clearly defined so that team members understand specific outcomes, including actionable tasks and milestones. Just because you as the team leader are clear on goals does not mean your team shares this perspective. A powerful way to test for this is by asking all team members to anonymously write down their understanding of the team goal or vision on a slip of paper. Invite them to pass the goal statement to the person they sit next to multiple times, giving each team member a chance to read everyone’s definition of the goal or vision. Finally, as the team leader, ask the members if there is alignment on the team goal.

2: Two-Way Communication

Two-way communication among team members and the team leader should employ several channels such as emails, regular meetings, and project management tools such as project plans that are easily accessible. Two-way communication allows team members to ask questions and clarify misunderstandings before they fester and damage trust. One great way to ensure alignment in a team meeting is to ask a team member to act as a scribe and record the minutes of the session while they project their computer screen for others to see. As the recorder captures key ideas and accountabilities, team members can validate the commitments before the meeting is over and make course corrections as needed.

3: Establish Roles, Responsibilities and Team Processes

Established roles, responsibilities, and critical team processes so team members understand their focus as well as the focus of their colleagues. Decision-making processes need to be clearly defined so team members understand who owns a decision and who is providing input to a decision. For example, Steve, the team leader, communicates to his team that he is the final decision-maker but invites feedback to help him make the final decision.

4: Ensure Meetings are Effective

Finally, as a team leader you should consider strategies for improving meeting effectiveness by defining agendas in advance, appointing roles, and managing time effectively. Define agendas in advance and distribute them before the meeting to help participants prepare. The agenda should include the desired outcomes, accountabilities for meeting topics, and an estimate of the time allocation. Grant the meeting facilitator the power to interrupt tangent discussions if they occur. Hang some flipchart paper on the wall to capture tangent topics to stay focused. Finally, plan on ending the meeting five minutes early to review the outcomes and accountabilities.

Building alignment on a team is an ongoing process that requires consistent effort and attention. It’s essential to create an environment where team members feel heard, valued, and motivated to work together towards shared objectives. As a leader, your commitment to these strategies can help ensure an effective leadership team.

# # # # #

Dr. Kevin Nourse is an executive team coach helping teams create amazing results. He founded Nourse Leadership Strategies, an executive and team coaching firm based in Palm Springs, CA. Kevin works with leaders and teams throughout California including Riverside, San Bernardino, Los Angeles, Irvine, Orange County, San Diego, Ventura, Santa Barbara, San Francisco, and Sacramento.  Contact him at 442.420.5578 (call or text) or kevin@nourseleadership.com

 

Categories
Healthcare Leadership Teams Team Coaching Team Effectiveness

Team Coaching in Healthcare: Floundering Clinical Team

Leadership team alignment is critical to achieve results

Some newly hired leaders need help navigating challenges that make it tough to be effective in their roles. One issue that some new leaders need help with is creating and sustaining a high-performing leadership team. Team coaching in healthcare plays a critical role in helping clinical teams thrive.

In this case, a newly hired director assumed the leadership of a for-profit healthcare organization comprised of five managers. His facilitative, extroverted approach clashed with the style of the former director, an introverted, traditional top-down manager. This director contacted me to help him address resistance from his management team toward his efforts to enhance team functioning.

What is team coaching?

Team coaching is helpful because it promotes effective communication, resolves conflicts, aligns teams with organizational goals, enhances collaboration, and improves team performance and success. It provides a structured and supportive framework for teams to grow, adapt, and excel in a dynamic environment. There are specific skills needed by team coaches to ensure success. While the primary focus of team coaching is the group, an essential factor to consider is the leader’s teaming skills. We have found that many team coaching in healthcare engagements need to start with assessing the skills of the team leader.

Presenting Team Issues

The newly hired director needed help to help his team become high-performing. Team meetings with his managers were often quiet despite his attempts to facilitate dialogue. Managers on the team came to him with issues about their colleagues instead of engaging the peer with whom there was conflict. Collaboration and communication among the managers were limited, leading to unproductive strife and a lack of alignment on essential priorities.

Team Coaching Engagement Approach

The engagement I introduced to this manager and his team consisted of three phases: Initial executive coaching for the director, team coaching with the director and his five managers, and follow-up executive coaching for the director.

Phase 1: Executive Coaching

In a team coaching engagement, it is essential to begin with one-on-one work with the team leader to build a trusting partnership and help the leader understand how their behavior may impact the team. In this phase, I administered the Hogan Personality Assessment to the director to help him understand his strengths and weaknesses that may impact team dynamics. Key findings included:

  • He was perceptive about others’ needs and skilled at managing relationships but was reluctant to confront poor performers.
  • Lack of confidence in leading.
  • Tendency to doubt his abilities, become overly self-critical and take criticism personally.

We explored ways to help the director feel more legitimate and confident in his role, including building greater alignment with his boss and developing supportive relationships with peers. Since the former director in his role embraced a more directive style, his attempts to be facilitative and engaging came across to his managers as tentative. With this awareness, he began experimenting with balancing facilitative and directive styles, becoming more mindful of how he was overusing a strength.

Phase 2: Team Coaching

In Phase 2, I began the team coaching in healthcare project by administering a team assessment instrument for the whole team, including the director, to help identify strengths and weaknesses in the team dynamic. The assessment helped pinpoint critical challenges:

  • A sense of exhaustion and overwhelm among the team.
  • Fuzzy decision-making and other essential processes.
  • Lack of alignment in the team on critical priorities.
  • Inability of the team to be forthright and honest with each other.

Once we formulated a vision for the team and specific team development goals, we conducted a series of team coaching sessions with the director and his five managers. Each session included a participant-led icebreaker, a team issue or challenge raised by the director, facilitated discussion of an article by a participant, and a final reflection of the session identifying essential discoveries. 

Phase 2 concluded with a post-assessment to measure any changes in team functioning and a wrap-up session to consolidate and integrate participants’ learning. Based on the post-assessment, the team achieved several improvements:

  • Enhanced team renewal through recognition and celebration of achievements.
  • Clearer processes, including decision-making authority.
  • Greater alignment on key team processes and direction.
  • Reduced tension and more spontaneous and fluid interactions
  • Enhanced communication, including a greater willingness to surface and resolve conflict.

Beyond the post-assessment results, participants exchanged genuine validations of team member’s talents and contributions.

Phase 3: Follow-Up Executive Coaching

Finally, in phase 3, I resumed executive coaching sessions with the team leader for three months to help him deepen his awareness and team leadership skills. Faced with a new manager joining the team, the leader used our coaching sessions to explore how best to integrate him with minimal impact on the solid trust established through the coaching process.

Lessons Learned and Key Insights

Several factors contributed to the success of this team coaching engagement, including:

  • Preparing the team leader for the experience of team coaching through one-on-one executive coaching.
  • Actively engaging the team in facilitating parts of the team coaching sessions.
  • Intervening throughout team sessions to highlight progress, key insights, and robust teaming behavior.
  • Coaching the director before the team sessions began to help him develop greater self-awareness of the impact of his behavior on team functioning.
  • Using a team assessment instrument to pinpoint areas of strength and weakness, then focusing on these in the coaching sessions.
  • Supporting the leader after the team coaching phase with additional executive coaching sessions to help her tap her newly developed insights and skills in managing her team.

In summary, for team coaching to have the most significant impact, it needs to include an upfront coaching opportunity for the leader to gain awareness of the effects of their behavior, a role for team members to play in the sessions, and opportunities for reflection at the end of each session to deepen and integrate insights.

# # # # #

Dr. Kevin Nourse is an executive team coach helping teams create amazing results. He founded Nourse Leadership Strategies, an executive and team coaching firm based in Palm Springs, CA. Kevin works with leaders and teams throughout California including Riverside, San Bernardino, Los Angeles, Irvine, Orange County, San Diego, Ventura, Santa Barbara, San Francisco, and Sacramento.  Contact him at 442.420.5578 (call or text) or kevin@nourseleadership.com

Categories
Leadership Teams Team Coaching Team Effectiveness

Team Coaching in Orange County

As a senior executive or leader, you likely know that building a high-functioning team is critical to organizational success. Yet, despite assembling strong teams, companies often need to achieve their desired outcomes. A skilled team coach can help your team identify and tackle obstacles, maximize potential, and drive your team toward its goals. In this blog, we explore six ways we deliver team coaching in Orange County: (1) Building trust, (2) Deepening Awareness, (3) Enhancing Accountability, (4) Facilitating communication, (5) Resolving and preventing conflict, and (6) Setting clear goals and objectives.

Building Trust

Trust is essential for effective teamwork and when established, leads to greater alignment and commitment to goals. We work on building trust among team members by creating a safe space for sharing, respecting confidentiality, and promoting mutual respect.

Deepening Awareness

As team coaches, we provide regular feedback and assessments to help teams identify their strengths and areas for improvement. We may use tools like surveys or assessments to gather data on team performance. In addition, we often help the team formulate their model of high performance to use as a basis for tracking progress.

Enhancing Accountability

Accountability is an essential element of high-performance teams – vertical (team members to the team leader) and horizontal (team members to each other). We partner with leaders to design accountability strategies for team members, such as creating ground rules and role expectations.

Facilitating Communication

We help teams improve communication by fostering open and honest dialogue. With improved communication, team members can express their thoughts, ideas, and concerns, creating a more inclusive and collaborative environment. This environment creates deeper trust, enabling team members to express their ideas and concerns.

Resolving and Preventing Conflict

Team coaches are skilled at identifying and addressing conflicts within the team. They can mediate disputes, help team members find common ground and solutions, and engage the team to learn from and prevent future conflict.

Setting Clear Goals and Objectives

We help teams to define clear goals and objectives, an essential element of creating organizational results. With clear and aligned goals, team members understand their roles and responsibilities. Clear and aligned goals have a tremendous impact on reducing unproductive conflict.

Nearly every organization taps team-based environments to accomplish its strategic priorities in today’s business environment. Creating an effective team requires time, effort, and various other resources that will be time-wasting if the team needs the proper guidance and support. Employing the services of an experienced team coach can make all the difference in helping your team perform and thrive. 

If you’re a senior executive or leader are interested in exploring team coaching in Orange County, contact us at 442-420-5578 or kevin@nourseleadership.com, and let’s explore how we can support you.

# # # # #

Dr. Kevin Nourse is an executive transition coach helping newly hired or promoted executives thrive. He founded Nourse Leadership Strategies, an executive and team coaching firm based in Southern California.

Categories
Leadership Teams Team Coaching Team Effectiveness

Team Coaching in Sacramento

As a senior executive or leader, you likely know that building a high-functioning team is critical to organizational success. Yet, despite assembling strong teams, companies often need to achieve their desired outcomes. A skilled team coach can help your team identify and tackle obstacles, maximize potential, and drive your team toward its goals. In this blog, we explore six ways we deliver team coaching in Sacramento: (1) Building trust, (2) Deepening Awareness, (3) Enhancing Accountability, (4) Facilitating communication, (5) Resolving and preventing conflict, and (6) Setting clear goals and objectives.

Building Trust

Trust is essential for effective teamwork and when established, leads to greater alignment and commitment to goals. We work on building trust among team members by creating a safe space for sharing, respecting confidentiality, and promoting mutual respect.

Deepening Awareness

As team coaches, we provide regular feedback and assessments to help teams identify their strengths and areas for improvement. We may use tools like surveys or assessments to gather data on team performance. In addition, we often help the team formulate their model of high performance to use as a basis for tracking progress.

Enhancing Accountability

Accountability is an essential element of high-performance teams – vertical (team members to the team leader) and horizontal (team members to each other). We partner with leaders to design accountability strategies for team members, such as creating ground rules and role expectations.

Facilitating Communication

We help teams improve communication by fostering open and honest dialogue. With improved communication, team members can express their thoughts, ideas, and concerns, creating a more inclusive and collaborative environment. This environment creates deeper trust, enabling team members to express their ideas and concerns.

Resolving and Preventing Conflict

Team coaches are skilled at identifying and addressing conflicts within the team. They can mediate disputes, help team members find common ground and solutions, and engage the team to learn from and prevent future conflict.

Setting Clear Goals and Objectives

We help teams to define clear goals and objectives, an essential element of creating organizational results. With clear and aligned goals, team members understand their roles and responsibilities. Clear and aligned goals have a tremendous impact on reducing unproductive conflict.

Nearly every organization taps team-based environments to accomplish its strategic priorities in today’s business environment. Creating an effective team requires time, effort, and various other resources that will be time-wasting if the team needs the proper guidance and support. Employing the services of an experienced team coach can make all the difference in helping your team perform and thrive. 

If you’re a senior executive or leader are interested in exploring team coaching in Sacramento, contact us at 442-420-5578 or kevin@nourseleadership.com, and let’s explore how we can support you.

# # # # #

Dr. Kevin Nourse is an executive transition coach helping newly hired or promoted executives thrive. He founded Nourse Leadership Strategies, an executive and team coaching firm based in Southern California.

Categories
Leadership Teams Team Coaching Team Effectiveness

Team Coaching in Long Beach

As a senior executive or leader, you likely know that building a high-functioning team is critical to organizational success. Yet, despite assembling strong teams, companies often need to achieve their desired outcomes. A skilled team coach can help your team identify and tackle obstacles, maximize potential, and drive your team toward its goals. In this blog, we explore six ways we deliver team coaching in Long Beach: (1) Building trust, (2) Deepening Awareness, (3) Enhancing Accountability, (4) Facilitating communication, (5) Resolving and preventing conflict, and (6) Setting clear goals and objectives.

Building Trust

Trust is essential for effective teamwork and when established, leads to greater alignment and commitment to goals. We work on building trust among team members by creating a safe space for sharing, respecting confidentiality, and promoting mutual respect.

Deepening Awareness

As team coaches, we provide regular feedback and assessments to help teams identify their strengths and areas for improvement. We may use tools like surveys or assessments to gather data on team performance. In addition, we often help the team formulate their model of high performance to use as a basis for tracking progress.

Enhancing Accountability

Accountability is an essential element of high-performance teams – vertical (team members to the team leader) and horizontal (team members to each other). We partner with leaders to design accountability strategies for team members, such as creating ground rules and role expectations.

Facilitating Communication

We help teams improve communication by fostering open and honest dialogue. With improved communication, team members can express their thoughts, ideas, and concerns, creating a more inclusive and collaborative environment. This environment creates deeper trust, enabling team members to express their ideas and concerns.

Resolving and Preventing Conflict

Team coaches are skilled at identifying and addressing conflicts within the team. They can mediate disputes, help team members find common ground and solutions, and engage the team to learn from and prevent future conflict.

Setting Clear Goals and Objectives

We help teams to define clear goals and objectives, an essential element of creating organizational results. With clear and aligned goals, team members understand their roles and responsibilities. Clear and aligned goals have a tremendous impact on reducing unproductive conflict.

Nearly every organization taps team-based environments to accomplish its strategic priorities in today’s business environment. Creating an effective team requires time, effort, and various other resources that will be time-wasting if the team needs the proper guidance and support. Employing the services of an experienced team coach can make all the difference in helping your team perform and thrive. 

If you’re a senior executive or leader are interested in exploring team coaching in Long Beach, contact us at 442-420-5578 or kevin@nourseleadership.com, and let’s explore how we can support you.

# # # # #

Dr. Kevin Nourse is an executive transition coach helping newly hired or promoted executives thrive. He founded Nourse Leadership Strategies, an executive and team coaching firm based in Southern California.

Categories
Leadership Teams Team Coaching Team Effectiveness

Team Coaching in San Francisco

As a senior executive or leader, you likely know that building a high-functioning team is critical to organizational success. Yet, despite assembling strong teams, companies often need to achieve their desired outcomes. A skilled team coach can help your team identify and tackle obstacles, maximize potential, and drive your team toward its goals. In this blog, we explore six ways we deliver team coaching in San Francisco: (1) Building trust, (2) Deepening Awareness, (3) Enhancing Accountability, (4) Facilitating communication, (5) Resolving and preventing conflict, and (6) Setting clear goals and objectives.

Building Trust

Trust is essential for effective teamwork and when established, leads to greater alignment and commitment to goals. We work on building trust among team members by creating a safe space for sharing, respecting confidentiality, and promoting mutual respect.

Deepening Awareness

As team coaches, we provide regular feedback and assessments to help teams identify their strengths and areas for improvement. We may use tools like surveys or assessments to gather data on team performance. In addition, we often help the team formulate their model of high performance to use as a basis for tracking progress.

Enhancing Accountability

Accountability is an essential element of high-performance teams – vertical (team members to the team leader) and horizontal (team members to each other). We partner with leaders to design accountability strategies for team members, such as creating ground rules and role expectations.

Facilitating Communication

We help teams improve communication by fostering open and honest dialogue. With improved communication, team members can express their thoughts, ideas, and concerns, creating a more inclusive and collaborative environment. This environment creates deeper trust, enabling team members to express their ideas and concerns.

Resolving and Preventing Conflict

Team coaches are skilled at identifying and addressing conflicts within the team. They can mediate disputes, help team members find common ground and solutions, and engage the team to learn from and prevent future conflict.

Setting Clear Goals and Objectives

We help teams to define clear goals and objectives, an essential element of creating organizational results. With clear and aligned goals, team members understand their roles and responsibilities. Clear and aligned goals have a tremendous impact on reducing unproductive conflict.

Nearly every organization taps team-based environments to accomplish its strategic priorities in today’s business environment. Creating an effective team requires time, effort, and various other resources that will be time-wasting if the team needs the proper guidance and support. Employing the services of an experienced team coach can make all the difference in helping your team perform and thrive. 

If you’re a senior executive or leader are interested in exploring team coaching in San Francisco, contact us at 442-420-5578 or kevin@nourseleadership.com, and let’s explore how we can support you.

# # # # #

Dr. Kevin Nourse is an executive transition coach helping newly hired or promoted executives thrive. He founded Nourse Leadership Strategies, an executive and team coaching firm based in Southern California.

Categories
Leadership Teams Team Coaching Team Effectiveness

Team Coaching in Irvine

As a senior executive or leader, you likely know that building a high-functioning team is critical to organizational success. Yet, despite assembling strong teams, companies often need to achieve their desired outcomes. A skilled team coach can help your team identify and tackle obstacles, maximize potential, and drive your team toward its goals. In this blog, we explore six ways we deliver team coaching in Irvine: (1) Building trust, (2) Deepening Awareness, (3) Enhancing Accountability, (4) Facilitating communication, (5) Resolving and preventing conflict, and (6) Setting clear goals and objectives.

Building Trust

Trust is essential for effective teamwork and when established, leads to greater alignment and commitment to goals. We work on building trust among team members by creating a safe space for sharing, respecting confidentiality, and promoting mutual respect.

Deepening Awareness

As team coaches, we provide regular feedback and assessments to help teams identify their strengths and areas for improvement. We may use tools like surveys or assessments to gather data on team performance. In addition, we often help the team formulate their model of high performance to use as a basis for tracking progress.

Enhancing Accountability

Accountability is an essential element of high-performance teams – vertical (team members to the team leader) and horizontal (team members to each other). We partner with leaders to design accountability strategies for team members, such as creating ground rules and role expectations.

Facilitating Communication

We help teams improve communication by fostering open and honest dialogue. With improved communication, team members can express their thoughts, ideas, and concerns, creating a more inclusive and collaborative environment. This environment creates deeper trust, enabling team members to express their ideas and concerns.

Resolving and Preventing Conflict

Team coaches are skilled at identifying and addressing conflicts within the team. They can mediate disputes, help team members find common ground and solutions, and engage the team to learn from and prevent future conflict.

Setting Clear Goals and Objectives

We help teams to define clear goals and objectives, an essential element of creating organizational results. With clear and aligned goals, team members understand their roles and responsibilities. Clear and aligned goals have a tremendous impact on reducing unproductive conflict.

Nearly every organization taps team-based environments to accomplish its strategic priorities in today’s business environment. Creating an effective team requires time, effort, and various other resources that will be time-wasting if the team needs the proper guidance and support. Employing the services of an experienced team coach can make all the difference in helping your team perform and thrive. 

If you’re a senior executive or leader are interested in exploring team coaching in Irvine, contact us at 442-420-5578 or kevin@nourseleadership.com, and let’s explore how we can support you.

# # # # #

Dr. Kevin Nourse is an executive transition coach helping newly hired or promoted executives thrive. He founded Nourse Leadership Strategies, an executive and team coaching firm based in Southern California.

Categories
Healthcare Leadership Development Team Effectiveness

Go to the Source: Underperforming Teams and Leader Behavior 

poor team effectiveness and the role of leadership team
One arrow moves the opposite direction than the others. Unique, think different, individuality, standing out from the crowd and choosing a different path in business and life concepts.
Leaders come to me in search of solutions to improve their underperforming teams, but they might need to realize that leadership team behavior can also be at the root of issues. In this blog, I explore a case study of a healthcare leader whose aversion to conflict and micromanagement habits were making it hard for her team to reach its full potential and provide strategies to improve team effectiveness.

Other relevant blogs include misaligned leadership teams and improving the impact of team-building efforts. 

Susan, a senior leader in a healthcare organization, brought me in as a coach to help improve the effectiveness of her leadership team. She decided that a team coaching engagement was the right solution to improve the team’s functioning, which struggled with unproductive conflict and a lack of collaboration. In particular, one of Susan’s direct reports, Barbara, was the source of many of the issues preventing team cooperation.

Assessing the Team

I began the engagement by collecting data from Susan, interviews with team members, the organizational engagement survey, and a written survey of team functioning. Some of the themes from my assessment included:
  • Susan confessed she was afraid to confront Barbara since she had so much tenure and strong alliances with senior leaders across the organization. She feared facing Barbara would cause her to quit, leaving Susan in a precarious situation with key division stakeholders.
  • Team members observed that they were generally okay except for their interactions with Barbara because of her unwillingness to collaborate and her defensive personality.
  • Team interviews and the engagement survey revealed that Susan experienced substantial negative impacts on her credibility and reputation since her team members wondered why she was not addressing the issue with Barbara.
  • The team’s culture was largely top-down, command-and-control oriented, providing relatively few opportunities for the team to provide input to influence key division priorities or raise challenging issues to Susan.
  • The team survey revealed that the team’s overall effectiveness was mediocre at best, and members struggled with conflict, either avoiding it or criticizing each other behind their backs.

Working with Barbara

I began by coaching Barbara to explore the assessment findings, especially the impacts of her top-down approach and the team impacts of her reluctance to confront Susan’s challenging behavior. We explored the shifts that would have to happen in her style to enable a genuinely high-performance, collaborative team. I challenged Barbara’s ungrounded assumptions that addressing Susan’s behavioral issues would immediately cause her to resign. In our coaching sessions, I assumed the role of Susan and invited her to practice delivering feedback to me so she could develop mastery in this skill. We continued this process until she felt ready to engage Barbara and address issues for the team.

Working with the Leadership Team

My work with the whole team began with a half-day retreat to debrief the assessment data, formulate a team vision and ground rules, and identify aspects of the team dynamic that needed improvement. We then conducted ongoing team coaching sessions every 3-4 weeks to continue the work that started in the retreat that included practical actions team members would take between sessions. I also coached Barbara after each session, inviting her to reflect on the team’s interactions and her behavior.
We explored several team issues: trust, communication, collaboration, alignment, and conflict. Each session consisted of an educational segment and a team-led discussion of a business issue, enabling me to observe team dynamics and share real-time observations. In one session, we used a conflict styles assessment to surface patterns for each team member on their strengths and weaknesses in navigating conflict. After several months, Barbara developed the courage to let go of her micro-managing tendencies and let the team meet with me separately to enable their capacity to self-manage and speak honestly with each other.

Outcomes

Before concluding the six-month engagement, I readministered the team survey to determine any perceived changes in team functioning. Among the most significant positive shifts:
  • 43% improvement in their ability to surface and navigate conflict
  • 26% improvement in their ability to trust and rely on each other
  • 23% improvement in alignment among team members
These outcomes align with author Patrick Lencioni’s work on team effectiveness, which suggests how trust among team members and the ability to surface and resolve conflict contribute to team alignment. I also noticed significant shifts among team members in their ability to surface challenging issues, respectfully pushing back on Barbara, and function more autonomously. Barbara was much more relaxed and engaging with the team, enabling the team to respond in kind.
 
Rarely is the cause of an underperforming team simply a result of the team members. The leadership team plays an integral role in influencing team behavior. Thus, successful team coaching engagements must include attention to the team leader as well as the interactions of the members.  

# # # # #

Dr. Kevin Nourse has more than 25 years of experience coaching healthcare leaders and teams to help them succeed. He is the founder of Nourse Leadership Strategies, a coaching and leadership development firm based in Southern California. For more information, contact Kevin at 310.715.8315 or kevin@nourseleadership.com

(c) 2023 Kevin Nourse
Categories
Leadership Teams Team Effectiveness

The Misaligned Leadership Team

Leadership team alignment is critical to achieve results

Do you ever feel like your leadership team is out of sync? Do you see some members thriving while others are struggling to keep up?

A misaligned leadership team can quickly become a significant issue when leading an effective organization. In this case study, we’ll look at how one leadership team overcame its challenges with fragmented and misaligned execution by creating greater alignment on successful outcomes and decision-making. Team coaching is a valuable strategy for helping leadership teams achieve enhanced performance by building greater trust, alignment, and collaboration. It differs from team building since the goal is to empower members of the team to develop the awareness and skills to manage their own team processes. This blog presents a case study of a client I recently worked with as a team coach.

 

Situational Background

The leadership team consisted of four leaders in the division of a small consulting company that was recently recognized they needed to meet the needs of their clients better, improve their profitability, and ensure the sustainability of their practice. The senior vice president and team leader enjoyed taking charge and was typically very personable, but tended to overpromise to clients and others and avoid conflict. The other three team members – vice presidents – were frustrated with not having a say in reorganizing their practice. Team members were so focused on delivering client projects that they ignored necessary team functions such as decision-making and communication. Finally, coming out of COVID and faced with challenges to improve their financial viability, the team struggled with diminished resilience.

Team Coaching Approach

For this engagement, I used a multiphase approach to assessing the current functioning of the team, partnering with the senior vice president to help him navigate the journey and coaching the team to develop critical teaming skills. 

Phase 1: Leadership team project kickoff

I started the project by developing a trusting partnership with the team leader. An essential part of any effective team intervention is sustainability once I wrap up as the team coach. Therefore, I explored the leadership strengths and weaknesses of the senior vice president by administering the Hogan Personality Assessment. Using an assessment tool, we identified skills he wanted to develop through the team coaching process.  

Phase 2: Leadership team assessment

I assessed the current realities faced by the leadership team with an electronic team survey to identify team strengths and weaknesses, interviewed each of the four leaders, and engaged lower-level managers to provide feedback about their collective effectiveness. I also attended a regularly-scheduled leadership team meeting to observe their interactions. 

Based on this assessment, I discovered several team strengths:

  • Members felt accepted
  • Viewed each other as being well-intentioned
  • Felt comfortable discussing challenging issues

Weaknesses as perceived by the team included:

  • Issues impacting their commitment include inequitable allocation of resources and overly drawn-out decision-making.  
  • Implementation factors such as a lack of alignment resulted in the fragmented execution of their strategic plans. 

Feedback from middle managers about the senior leadership team noted a need for more alignment on business practices and policies, a lack of clarity about their roles, and poorly managed meetings.

In analyzing the assessment results, I identified several themes impacting alignment: 

  • Ineffective communication, usually taking the form of talking at each other instead of listening
  • Unproductive leadership team meetings that rambled without a timed and prioritized agenda
  • Lots of discussions but no efforts to summarize agreements and action items
  • Team members get stuck on tactics but allocate little time to discuss and align on strategic priorities and plans

Phase 3: Leadership team kickoff retreat

I facilitated a kickoff retreat with the four leadership team members to debrief the assessment results, explore the elements of a high-functioning team, formulate a team vision, and clarify two goals for improving how they function as a team. This session also allowed me to observe how well they explored their challenges and navigated conflict.  

Phase 4: On-going leadership team coaching

The engagement included six two-hour leadership team coaching sessions. The team members and I jointly facilitated each session and invited each member to reflect on their progress and lessons learned in their journey. Most sessions involved team members exploring a business issue while I observed their interactions and provided real-time feedback. In several sessions, I invited them to experiment with new teaming behavior, such as giving feedback to each other. 

Phase 5: Leadership team post-assessment

After the engagement, I administered the same team survey I distributed in Phase 2 to collect additional feedback and determine any improvements. I also interviewed middle managers to assess their perceptions of progress in the functioning of the senior leadership team. In the final team session, we explored the post-assessment results, identified the next steps in their collective development, and celebrated the successes they achieved. 

Leadership Team Coaching Outcomes

Based on interviews with each team member and the pre-to post-survey, the team achieved several gains:

  • Increased trust due to developing skills in surfacing and navigating conflict, enhanced listening skills among team members, and achieving greater team results.
  • Increased alignment in several domains – overall direction, decision-making processes, and outcomes.
  • More synergy and discipline in executing their strategic plan.
  • Strengthened team management skills for each leader.

Finally, the quality and impact of their weekly meetings significantly improved due to greater clarity about their goals shared meeting management responsibilities, and the use of an agenda to stay on track. Middle managers noted similar improvements in the senior leadership team.

Team coaching can be a precious strategy for helping leadership teams achieve enhanced performance and increasing alignment. By building greater trust, alignment, and collaboration within the team, leaders can avoid many pitfalls that lead to fractured execution, inconsistency, unproductive conflict, and wasted efforts. 

# # # # #

Dr. Kevin Nourse has more than 25 years of experience coaching leadership teams to help them succeed. He is the founder of Nourse Leadership Strategies, a coaching and leadership development firm based in Southern California. For more information, contact Kevin at 310.715.8315 or kevin@nourseleadership.com

(c) 2022 Kevin Nourse

Categories
Leadership Leadership Teams Team Effectiveness

Improving Team Building Efforts

Team building is a process of improving the ability of a team to collaborate and help it both achieve organizational results and fulfill the needs of its participants. Because some groups demonstrate unconscious patterns that limit their effectiveness, these engagements usually involve diagnosis, facilitation, and coaching over many weeks and months.

Unfortunately, the investments some organizations make in team building do not translate to improved results. Before hiring a consultant to help you conduct a team building effort to enhance collaboration, consider the following five questions.

How are you defining collaboration?

Your definition of collaboration may or may not correspond with how your team defines it. 

Collaboration is more than team members demonstrating positive teaming behaviors in meetings or team members acting upon top-down decisions. Instead, it implies that members willfully engage each other, share their best thinking with each other, consciously debate ideas, and remain open to feedback from their colleagues – both within and outside of team meetings.

Before I accept team building engagements, I often suggest that CEOs first elicit input from their leadership teams about what it means to collaborate. This practice can help surface any inconsistencies among team members and ensure that a team building initiative will succeed because there is alignment around what collaboration means. 

Is your executive group really a team?

A workgroup is not necessarily a team. Workgroups are traditionally top-down oriented with team members focused on tasks with little or no need for collaboration. However, to be a team implies there are dependencies between individuals on the team, as well as a shared vision. It also suggests that the nature of the work to be done is complex enough to call forth a need for different perspectives. It is not a good investment of organizational resources to conduct a team building effort when a workgroup is not a team. 

Are members of your executive team capable of collaborating?

Some leaders are seemingly not wired to collaborate in a team environment. In fact, some leaders should remain individual contributors and not be expected to collaborate based on their working style and personality. Before conducting a team building session, its critical to assess the capacity of team members to function as a team. For those team members who actively resist such efforts, they may need additional one-on-one coaching and feedback to help them remain open to the idea. 

One healthcare CEO I worked with had a CMO on his senior leadership team who actively resisted efforts to build a collaborative team. The engagement was still positive, but several months later the CMO resigned. The new CMO was strongly supportive of team effectiveness, and the senior leadership team flourished in its efforts to collaborate. 

Are there structures in place that support collaboration?

The lack of structural support for a team and collaboration can diminish any effort to help a workgroup become a team. For example, if executives are compensated solely for their individual effort, there is little motivation to function as a collaborative team. Another example of a critical organizational structure is performance standards. Organizations that embed expectations of success for both business goals and demonstration of core competencies (e.g., collaboration, communication, etc.) provide a compelling incentive for members of the senior leadership team to collaborate.

In the vignette noted in the last question, the CEO did raise the issue of the CMOs resistance to him directly. However, there were no implications regarding negative impacts on his performance appraisal. As a result, the resistant behavior continued. 

How does your behavior impact collaboration?

I rarely take on a team building client if I don’t believe an executive can reflect on how their behavior may contribute to the lack of collaboration on a team. This behavior can be explicit, such as verbally criticizing the ideas of team members in an open forum, as well as non-verbally such as when an executive rolls her eyes when team members share their proposals.

I recall working with an executive team where the CEO was frustrated because team members remained passive and would not step up and address important issues. Upon further exploration, it became evident that he was unable to let go of control of the team – thus, reinforcing a pattern of passivity among these direct reports. I raised the issue with him directly, and after some exploration, he became more receptive to letting the team take greater ownership of their process. As the team increased its trust, this CEO even became willing to allow the senior leadership team to meet without him.

Many sectors, especially healthcare, are facing higher pressure to delivering quality services at lower costs. Therefore, collaboration within the organization, especially at the senior-most levels, is critical. A team building initiative can make a substantial contribution to accelerating this process to become more collaborative. CEOs should ask themselves some critical questions before launching such an effort to ensure its success.

# # # # #

Dr. Kevin Nourse has more than 25 years of experience developing transformational change leaders in healthcare and other sectors. He is the founder of Nourse Leadership Strategies, a coaching and leadership development firm based in Southern California. For more information, contact Kevin at 310.715.8315 or kevin@nourseleadership.com

(c) 2020 Kevin Nourse