Team Coaching
You’ve got a team full of good people, all individually good at their jobs – everyone knows what to do and how to do it, but something is still “off”. Meetings end the way they started; you’ve been trying to have the same difficult conversation three times; people are unwilling to make a decision because that means taking ownership of – what? In isolation this happens to all teams at some time, but this isn’t any team, it’s yours, and that means it’s on you.
But you’ve tried – not performatively, not in the “I read a management book” way. Really tried. The painful direct conversation that moved nothing; the Ways of Working changes that didn’t change the way anyone works; the offsite on Friday that was forgotten by Tuesday afternoon. The issue is that it’s hard to see patterns and systems clearly when you’re in the middle of them. All the intention and effort in the world won’t get you and the team where you want to go if it’s not directed at the right thing, and when you’re inside the problem the questions that you are asking are rarely those that really need answering. There’s too much assumed knowledge, too much baggage and too much sunk cost to be able to detach yourself completely.
You know others have succeeded. Maybe you’ve even been fortunate enough to be part of one of those teams that everyone wants to be a part of, one that always finds a way. But elite teams don’t just happen: it takes effort, focus and external perspectives. Someone to point out the deficiencies, blind spots, strengths that were taken for granted, the unacknowledged work that underpinned everything. As a leader you need to be part of that work, not guiding it –you set the conditions, the direction and bounds of the work, and then throw yourself into it and strap in. It’s a brave thing to do, selfless even, because a meaningful shift means an uncomfortable inspection of how everything currently works and the decisions that guide why things happen – including how you lead your team.
This is uncomfortable because it feels like a failure – “I should have been able to fix this. It’s my responsibility.” The failure isn’t in being stuck, it’s in not being brave enough to own the stuckness and your part in it. In not being willing to say “let’s change something, because these people and what we are here to do are too important to stall”.
The choice is what you do now. If you’re ready to own the discomfort and commit to better, then you’re in the right place.
The process
No two team engagements look the same. But they all start in the same place.
Discovery.
The most important thing in any development work is knowing what question you're actually trying to answer. Team coaching is a way of accessing capability the team can't reach on its own — but only if it's built around the right question. Discovery is where we establish that: conversations, interviews, 360 diagnostics and stakeholder perspectives, working out what the data is actually telling you before we design anything.
Design.
The programme is designed with the team, the leader and the organisational sponsor — built around what you're actually trying to optimise for, not what looks good on a development plan. It might include coaching, mentoring, facilitation or team days. Whatever the shape, we keep returning to three things: the outcomes you identified in discovery, the system the team is operating in, and what the team itself needs.
Delivery.
Over 6-12 months, we work through the programme together: half or full day team sessions, individual coaching for some or all of the team, facilitation or training to bring new capability in, and observations of how the team actually operates. The mix adapts as we go.
Who am I?
I've been part of high-performing teams built over years — and ones pulled together in hours to execute something complex in a single night. Both kinds of team taught me what extraordinary actually looks like: the quality of how they think together, their shared understanding of what they're actually for, their willingness to hold each other to account. Capability is the entry price. This is the difference.
That shapes how I work with teams. I pay as much attention to what's not being said in the room as what is. I work with the team leader, the team members, and the wider system they're operating in — because a team that only looks inward rarely understands why it keeps running into the same walls. Where the work calls for it, I bring co-coaches: a second set of eyes and ears surfaces things a single observer misses.
I hold ICF and EMCC accreditation in executive and team coaching. But credentials tell you I'm qualified. They don't tell you whether team coaching is the right intervention for your team right now. That's what the first conversation is for.
