High Performance Team Coaching

Our Approach 

High Performance Team Coaching builds strong and resilient relationships, productive ways of working, a clear collective focus, and behaviors that transform a team’s ability to succeed.  High Performing Team Coaching is collaborative, rigorous, highly interactive, and customized to the team’s specific needs and challenges. 

“Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world, indeed, it’s the only thing that ever has.”

Margaret Mead

Some of the initial challenges in working with teams are that they are …

  • Overly polite and conflict avoidant.
  • Ineffective decision-makers and revisit decisions or take too long to make them.
  • Spectators regarding what is going on across the team.
  • Dropping down into the operational airspace of their direct reports rather than maintaining their more strategic airspace.
  • Overly dependent on the leader.

One of the key pieces of the work with teams is to enable them to become acutely aware of their challenges with clarity and without judgement, to uncover blind spots and face into the obstacles to success.  When the team can align behind ‘what truly is’ as a starting point, they have begun to move forward on the path of development.  

Noticeable change often begins to occur rapidly early on as the team begins this journey.  Many team leaders in fact, often pause and wonder why they hadn’t embarked on this work sooner.  

 

Becoming a high-performing team is a journey, not a light switch.


Thank you for the amazing HPT training last month. 

I can’t even begin to tell you how great it was and, most importantly, how much it has helped me personally and as part of the team.  After several weeks of living it, our teamwork is really developing, and I think it gave us all a fantastic platform to address things.  Overall, we sure seem a lot more functional. 
Vice President, Marketing

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How it begins…

 

Why do we need to become a high-performing team? Is this the path for us?

Clarity from the leader that this is the right thing to do and they are committed to the journey.

Team orientation session

An understanding of what a of high performing team is, and the path required to get to high performance

Team member interviews

Honest conversations with each member to obtain a clear and thorough current picture of the team.

Review summary with the leader

Ensure clarity and understanding of the current dynamic as a team, their current effectiveness as the leader, and alignment on the design of the initial team session based on needs identified in the team’s self-assessment.

Initial team session

The first highly engaging team session is usually 2-days in length. The main thrusts of the session are to build strong relationships, identify the key challenges for the team, align on clear expectations for being on the team, generate agreed-upon ways of working, and commit to clear next steps for the team and individual members. A friend and colleague of mine shared with me, “Insight without action is just interesting information.” Critical to the work is the follow-up, the implementation of the next steps to generate momentum and to enable the team to operate differently among themselves, with their respective teams, and with the broader organization.

Follow Up

A 2-3 hour check-in meeting with the team about 2 months after the team session to ensure the team is heading in the right direction, and that it’s maintaining initial momentum in their day-to-day.

Reassess the team

At about the 6-month point, we do a second round of interviews, provide a summary of where the team is at that point and conduct a new follow-up team session, in order to build on progress identified by the team, dive deeper into the challenges that may remain and address any new issue or opportunity that exists.

Clients often ask how long it takes to become a high-performing team. The time required is dependent on a few factors such as how much change will occur in the team and in the larger organization, the degree of criticality or need for collaborating across the team if the team is co-located or geographically dispersed and the level of sophistication across the team. A rough estimate is about 12 – 18 months.

Some of the key changes we witness as teams become high-performing are that they…

  • Develop strong, trusting relationships.
  • Generate an atmosphere of honesty and receptivity.
  • Generate a culture of peer-to-peer feedback.
  • Make solid and efficient decisions and move on.
  • Work through conflicts quickly and productively.
  • Generate accountability for each other’s success and for that of the team as well as for themselves.
  • Elevate their collective focus to the most effective “altitude”.
  • Enable the leader to move from being the one making all of the decisions to being the one who ensures the decisions get made.

This is a journey of evolution and transformation. At times it is an uncomfortable path that often requires the team and its members to grow and change, typically taking on different mindsets, behaviors, relationships, ways of working, and aligning around different team focus areas and goals. It requires commitment and rigor. Yet the reward is seen as far outweighing the efforts needed to become a high-performing team. For many, being part of these high-performing, highly impactful teams is an enthusiastic high point in their lives.

Our business results are a lagging indicator of our ability to work together effectively as a team.
President, Pet Care Organization
The HPT work helped us understand we needed to work interdependently and place the team’s needs
ahead of our local functions. Providing rigorous feedback to one another and being receptive and
assertive about things that were not acceptable played a key role in the transformation of the
leadership team. Committing to the HPT work has had a huge positive impact on our team, our results,
and the overall organization.
CEO
Your coaching helped the team to function as a high-performing team and in producing awesome
results. I really appreciate your contributions to our team’s growth. I wanted to acknowledge your
efforts and express my gratitude for the same. Thank you.
Chief Financial Officer
Thank you for the excellent HPT session this week. I was genuinely impressed with the team’s
behaviors, with everyone holding each other to HPT principles. The team provided spontaneous, very
positive, and genuine feedback on your coaching style, how you got the measure of a large, diverse
team, and how you led the session over a day and a half. The focus on us as individuals and as a team,
versus too much on concepts, really worked. Thank you for your energy and your empathetic,
passionate, and insightful coaching to the team and to me.
Chief Financial Officer
I have worked with Pete for several years. Over this time, he has been instrumental in helping to build
the teams I have worked with. He has challenged me to stretch myself and my teams to achieve
seemingly impossible goals. I feel like a more effective leader and a more confident person – thanks in
large part to Pete.
Chief Medical Officer

Let the adventure begin!

If you’re interested in embarking on the journey to become a high performing team, let’s set up a discovery call. I’d be happy to help you assess your needs and determine the best path for you and your team.