Coaching Your Team to Success

Ted Middelberg, Ed.D., MBA

President, Systemic Leadership LLC

Outcomes for our conversation

• Why coach team leaders• Following a coaching process• Two diagnostic frameworks• Four team tools• Six usable templates• Practical application discussions

Are you in the right conference session?

GOAL: Increase in both your ability and motivation to use a coaching stance to build high performing teams.

ObstaclesRemoved

GoodThings

JobSatisfaction

CollectiveEfficacy

FeedbackEnvironment

LeaderBehaviors

Why coach team leaders? What the data showed

Are you creating a team culture loaded for success?

Ted Middelberg Dissertation

Why coach team leaders?Results are not generated equally

What is your coaching ROI potential?

Fortune 100 Company 2009 Research

Bottom 30% Top 10%

Turnover 19% <10%

Thinking about quitting 45% <15%

Customer satisfaction 39% >70%

Bottom-line results Negative 5X better

Commitment 30% >85%

Goes the extra mile 15% >60%

Why coach team leaders? Benefits of a neutral, outside perspective

Manager• Holds a boss’s view

of leadership

• Has deep insider knowledge

• Often has decision preferences or ideas

• Is embedded in the system

Coach• Is service-oriented

• Does not presume to know the real issues

• Does not know the answers; enter with curiosity

• Sees the system from “above”

How will you enter the system?

Why coach team leaders? Outcomes defined using three criteria

1. Deliverable acceptable to client

2. Growth in team capability

3. Individual member learning

What are your short-term and long-term criteria?

J. Richard Hackman

Why coach team leaders? Because team leaders really matter!

• Leaders create the environment• Business impact and ROI potential • Coaches enter with unique advantages• Coaches bring a long-term perspective

Following a coaching process:A classic coaching model

OUTCOMES Agree on the

results you want to achieve

1

INFORMATION Collect and

analyze information

2

ACTIONS Create and implement

an action plan

3

RESULTSMeasure progress and

clarify next steps

4

Lee Hecht Harrison

Leadership is always about change!Moving to a team-owned goal

Staking a goalTaking stock Pathways to success

Is the goal theirs or yours?

OUTCOMES

2. Create a guiding coalition

8. Institutionalize the new approach

7. Consolidate gains/produce more change

6. Generate short-term wins

5. Empower broad-based action

4. Communicate the change vision

3. Develop a vision and strategy

1. Establish a sense of urgency

John Kotter

What is your team’s business case for change?

Leadership is always about change!From agreement to engagement

OUTCOMES

Leadership coaching: Scope of work

Team Name: Organization: Assignment Length: Contact Info:

Start Date: Anticipated End Date: Manager / Sponsor / Title: Contact Info:

Team’s Most Pressing Work Challenges:

Overarching Coaching Focus:

Key Team Performance Strengths/Behaviors(Leverage these as explore Action Steps)

Key Team Areas / Behaviors for Development(Each of these becomes a goal on the following pages)

Goal 1:

Goal 2:

Goal 3:

How do you keep your team focused on outcomes?

OUTCOMES

Following a coaching process:A classic coaching model

OUTCOMES Agree on the

results you want to achieve

1

INFORMATION Collect and

analyze information

2

ACTIONS Create and implement

an action plan

3

RESULTSMeasure progress and

clarify next steps

4

Lee Hecht Harrison

Gathering information:Predictable and systematic

Per

son

al R

elat

ion

ship

sTask Functions

Storming

Norming

Performing

Forming

Bruce TuckmanPatrick Lencioni

INFO

Predictable team challenges:Trust – Lencioni’s foundation

Results: An unrelenting focus on specific objectives and clearly defined outcomes

Accountability: The willingness of team members to call their peers on performance or behaviors that might hurt the team

Commitment: Make clear and timely decisions and move forward with complete buy-in from every member of the team, even those who voted against the decision

Conflict: Teams discuss and resolve issues more quickly and completely than others and emerge from heated debates with no residual feelings or collateral damage

Trust: Confidence among teammates that their peers’ intentions are good, and that there is no reason to be protective or careful around the group

INFO

How to build or rebuild trust: Know what its absence looks like

• Conceal their weaknesses and mistakes from one another• Hesitate to ask for help or provide constructive criticism• Hesitate to offer help outside their own areas of responsibilities• Jump to conclusions about the intentions and aptitudes of others

without attempting to clarify them• Fail to recognize and tap into one anothers’ skills and experiences• Waste time and energy managing their behaviors for effect• Hold grudges• Dread meetings and find reasons to avoid spending time together

Does this create urgency for change in your team?

INFO

How to build or rebuild trust:Invite leaders to change their behaviors

• Acting with integrity: Behaving in a consistent manner• Demonstrating concern: Respecting the well-being

of others• Achieving results: Following through on

business commitmentsRobert Bruce Shaw

What new behaviors would help your leaders build trust?

INFO

How to build or rebuild trust:Subordinate individual interests

Francis Fukuyama

“The ability of people to work together for common purposes … depends on the degree to which communities share norms and values and are able to subordinate individual interests to those of the large group.”

“The group, moreover, has to adopt common norms as a whole before trust can become generalized among its members.”

How does you team reinforce subordinating individual efforts?

INFO

How to build or rebuild trust:Create and reinforce team norms

How teams create norms:• Imported by members• Evolve gradually• Created from group structure

Reinforcing norms:• Regular interactions• Focus on member behavior• Define group limits

J. Richard Hackman

What are the norms that your team has co-created?

INFO

How to build or rebuild trust:Use facilitation to jump start change

• Build the business case for trust• Clarify what behaviors are desired• Establish team meeting ground rules supporting trust• Identify the restraining forces or barriers to trust• Make those barriers discussable• Hold members accountable for their behaviors

What did your mother teach you about rebuilding trust?

Facilitation Literature, e.g., Roger Schwarz

INFO

A diagnostic framework summary: Predictable team dysfunctions – Trust example

1. Know what the absence of trust looks like

2. Invite leaders to change their behaviors

3. Subordinate individual interests

4. Create and reinforce team norms

5. Use facilitation to jump-start change

INFO

Two diagnostic frameworks:Predictable and systematic

21

Per

son

al R

elat

ion

ship

sTask Functions

Storming

Norming

Performing

Forming

TuckmanLencioni

INFO

Stages of team development: Normalizing expectations and identifying barriers

Personal relationships

Task functions

Storming

Norming

Performing

Forming

Interdependence

Cohesion

Conflict

Dependent

DataOrienting Organizing Problem Solving

INFO

Personal relationships

Task functions

FormingDependent

Orienting

Stages of team development: Forming

What gets accomplished:•Establish rapport•Develop basis for trust•Learn expectations

What we see:•Superficial conversations•Polite•Little or no conflict

INFO

Stages of team development: Storming

What we see:•Confrontations•Frustration•Confusion

What gets accomplished:•Resolutions of vying for position/influence•Focus out of multiplicity of priorities•Foundation for safety•Clarifying culture

Personal relationships

Task functions

StormingConflict

Organizing

INFO

Stages of team development: Norming

What we see:•Goal-oriented behaviors•Lots of ideas•Active feedback

What gets accomplished:•Healthy conflict•Goal/priority alignment•Building momentum•Effective communication

Personal relationships

Task functions

NormingCohesion

Data

INFO

Stages of team development:A fresh way of conceptualizing

What we see:•Task-oriented behaviors•Free exchange of ideas•Not taking it just personally•Supportive

What gets accomplished:•The goal/task•Developing as a group•Individuals learning

Personal relationships

Task functions

Performing

Interdependence

Problem solving

INFO

A diagnostic framework:Predictable stages of team development

1. What we can expect to see

2. What gets accomplished

3. Where to look when something goes amiss

4. Normalizing the conversationsP

erso

nal

rel

atio

nsh

ips

Task functions

Storming

Norming

Performing

Forming

INFO

Following a coaching process:A classic coaching model

OUTCOMES Agree on the

results you want to achieve

1

INFORMATION Collect and

analyze information

2

ACTIONS Create and implement

an action plan

3

RESULTSMeasure progress and

clarify next steps

4

Lee Hecht Harrison

Four team tools for taking action

At the heart of many team challenges is the need to resolve priority differences among scarce resources.

Tools for mastery include:1. Functional sub-grouping2. Decision fallback matrix3. Strategic planning hybrid model4. Force field analysis

ACTIONS

Team tools: Functional sub-grouping

• The concept of joining on similarities• Build cohesive positions• Suspend judgment while listening to both sides• Explore the similarities within the differences

Yvonne Agazarian

ACTIONS

Team tools: Functional sub-grouping application

Take a topic with known differences of opinion. Describe the concept of exploring fully one side and then the other side. Invite someone to start and then to continue by asking, “Anyone else?”

Do not allow differences to enter until the first group is well developed.

Yvonne Agazarian

ACTIONS

Team tools: Decision fallback matrix

Co

mm

itm

ent

Time

Advising

Voting

Consensus

Telling

• Honor the time and priority challenges facing the team. • Make trade-offs discussable up front.

Developed at IBM

ACTIONS

Team tools: Decision fallback matrix application

Acknowledge your time realities and be prepared to “fall back” to the faster option.

“We have until noon to reach a decision on this. While a consensus would be preferred, I may have to make this decision without that.”

Developed at IBM

Co

mm

itm

ent

Time

Advising

Voting

Consensus

Telling

ACTIONS

Team tools: Strategic DDP hybrid

• The challenge facing the strategy executives at IBM: Introduce a wider range of alternatives, suspend judgment on any one answer, seek the hybrid or best of all world solution

• Build on potency of functional sub-grouping; drop being married to one solution idea.

• Clarify your perspectives (short-term and long-term)

or

either

“my” silo … “my” plan

Decision Dialogue Process

ACTIONS

Team tools: Strategic DDP hybrid application

Find the best elements within each viable alternative. Seek to meld these and thus create an outcome better than any of the original alternatives.

Create multiple viable alternatives, resisting the pull to stop after the first one is on the table.

The best elements of viable options

Decision Dialogue Process

ACTIONS

Team tools: Force field analysis

• There are plenty of forces that push us towards our goals, including our own drive and influence.

• The challenge is that in a system there are an equal and offsetting number of forces that restrain us from our goals.

• The efficient, long term path is to remove the restraining forces.

GOAL:

RESTRAINING FORCESDRIVING FORCES

Kurt Lewin

ACTIONS

Team tools: Force field analysis application

Ask for the behaviors that help move the group towards the goal. Restate until these are behavioral.

Ask for the behaviors that deter or retard the group from achieving the goal.

Test: Are the driving forces sufficiently motivating? If not, seek additional driving forces.

Test: What will this team do to eradicate these restraining forces?

GOAL:

RESTRAINING FORCESDRIVING FORCES

ACTIONS

Summary: Four team tools for taking action

Commitment

Time

GOAL:

Which of these tools will you introduce to your leaders?

Functional sub-grouping

Strategic DDP hybrid

Decision fallback matrix

Force field analysis

ACTIONS

Following a coaching process:A classic coaching model

OUTCOMES Agree on the

results you want to achieve

1

INFORMATION Collect and

analyze information

2

ACTIONS Create and implement

an action plan

3

RESULTSMeasure progress and

clarify next steps

4

Lee Hecht Harrison

Leadership coaching: Scope of work

Team Name: Organization: Assignment Length: Contact Info:

Start Date: Anticipated End Date: Manager / Sponsor / Title: Contact Info:

Team’s Most Pressing Work Challenges:

Overarching Coaching Focus:

Key Team Performance Strengths/Behaviors(Leverage these as explore Action Steps)

Key Team Areas / Behaviors for Development(Each of these becomes a goal on the

following pages)

Goal 1:

Goal 2:

Goal 3:

How do you keep your team focused on outcomes?

OUTCOMES

Leadership coaching: Motivation and desired differences

GOAL #1 (From the key areas / Behaviors for development):

Value of achieving this goal What would be different in six months

Are these sufficiently motivating? Would others be able to see these?

INFO

Leadership coaching: Driving and restraining forces

GOAL #1 (From the key areas / Behaviors for development):

Driving forces Restraining forces

Are these sufficient? What actions to overcome?

INFO

Coaching skills that enable success:Have you achieved your goals?

GOAL #1 (From the key areas / Behaviors for development):

Action steps Progress report

What are behaviors are you changing? Where are you applying these changes?

ACTIONS

Coaching skills that enable successMeasurement by asking!

1. … provide relevant inputs and connect to your issues?2. … follow a clear methodology or model?3. … enable you to discuss important issues?4. … hold you accountable for your commitments?5. … stretch your comfort zone by asking challenging questions?6. … establish an environment marked by trust and

open communication?

Survey question template using a five-point Likert scale plus space for comments. Did your coach:

RESULTS

Coaching evidence-based outcomes:Survey question template

1. Coaching is intended to provide objective, third-party input to frame/reframe issues. What new ways of seeing the issues would you point to as evidence of this?

2. Coaching is intended to help the coachee change behaviors. What behavioral changes would others (boss, peers or direct reports) point to as evidence of this?

3. Coaching is intended to foster improved performance. What data would you point to that demonstrates improved performance?

4. Coaching is intended to help the executive articulate and then achieve specific goals. What evidence would you provide that demonstrates achievement of key coaching goals?

5. Coaching is intended to provide value to the organization. What is the “return” portion of ROI that you would attribute to this coaching?

6. Coaching is intended to embed support for on-going change. What steps have been taken to ensure your ongoing success?

RESULTS

Outcomes for our conversation

• Why coach team leaders

• Following a coaching process

• Two diagnostic frameworks

• Four team tools

• Six usable templates

• Practical application discussions

GOAL: Increase in both your ability and motivation to use a coaching stance to build high performing teams.

Plus- Delta on this session

RESTRAINING FORCESDRIVING FORCES

GOAL: Increase in both your ability and motivation to use a coaching stance to build high performing teams.

RESULTS

Ted Middelberg, Ed.D., MBAPresident, Systemic Leadership LLCIn 1992, Ted followed his passion for developing leaders and moved from a career as a financial executive to being a doctorate student in leadership at UT. Ted is the founder of Systemic Leadership LLC, a consulting firm specializing in helping executives and teams to increase their leadership effectiveness, guiding organizations to implement and run mentoring programs, and coaching leaders to enhance their executive presence. He also serves as an executive coach and consultant for Lee Hecht Harrison, addressing leadership development needs within large, multi-national corporations. Prior to starting his own business, Ted was an organizational development consultant at IBM and coordinated leadership development for AMD.

Middelberg earned his undergraduate degree from Brown University, his MBA at The Ohio State University, and his Ed.D. at The University of Texas - Austin. His dissertation explored the behaviors leaders use to maximize team performance. He teaches leadership topics as an adjunct faculty member for the Masters of Science in Organizational Leadership and Ethics program at St. Edward’s University.  Ted is currently serving as the VP of Career Development for the Austin Human Resource Management Association (AHRMA). Earlier, he served on the board of the Council on At-Risk Youth, of Austin’s ASTD chapter and as President of the Austin Chapter of the Financial Executive Institute. Ted is a member of many professional organizations.

Appendix A: 15 +1 Conflict management skills

• Traditional leadership tools (5)• Group-dynamics-based techniques (5)• Attitude-based commitments (5)• Leader as fallback resource (1)

Appendix A on conflict management skills: Five traditional leadership tools

1. Conflict management style– Withdraw, artificial harmony, aggressively disagree, collaborate

2. Active listening– Open-ended questions, paraphrase, demonstrate full presence

3. Goal alignment– Rich overlap of WIIFM, team and organizational objectives

4. Collaborative problem solving– Neutral setting, purpose clarification, active listening, respectful

exchanges, join alternative exploration, seek best solution for both

5. Root cause or underlying issue analysis– Explore more than the presenting or surface-level issue, use

quality literature techniques.

Appendix A on conflict management skills: Five group-dynamics-based techniques

1. NTIJP: Not taking it just personally

2. Use sub-groups to explore similarities and differences

3. Keep an observer-self present and active

4. Converse to minimize defensiveness

5. Participate at multiple levels in the system

Appendix A on conflict management skills: Five attitude-based commitments

1. Demonstrate the courage to be authentic and vulnerable

2. Sit with your discomfort

3. Take the risk of making your thinking transparent

4. Establish and live shared values and norms

5. Hold each other accountable

Appendix A on conflict management skills: Leader as the fallback resource

• Context: the conflict becomes too personal and so the parties involved are brought together by the leader.

• Questions:– What is the problem as you perceive it?

– What does the other person do that contributes the problem?

– What do you want or need from the other person?

– What do you do that contributes to the problem?

– What first step can you take to resolve the problem?

• Process– Diagnosis – clarify differences and recognize areas of common understanding

– Initiation – bring the disagreement to the surface

– Listening – hear both the factual and the emotional aspects of what is being said

– Problem solving – traditional approaches work.

Questions?

This presentation is available for download at

www.tgslc.org/tgconference.