Team Development And Coaching For Performance

Team development should be the top priority of anyone that fills a leadership position. Efficiency starts with team development and continues through coaching.

• What is team development?
• Where do team development and coaching start?
• How do you develop your team?
• Who holds the key to team development?
• Team Development and Coaching - Summary

What is team development?

Team development is achieved by taking into consideration all individual characteristics of team members and combined with resources blend it into one productive unit.

This will include the development, sharing, and application of individual skills for the greater good of the team. Leaders who can find this balance within their team will turn out the most effective individuals in your business.

To be effective your team should never come out of development mode as there will always be a requirement for new skills.

Where do team development and coaching start?

Team development and coaching start with the leadership and more specifically it is the task of the manager to get his team performing to and above standards.

Many managers believe that end results are the only measure of a successful team and their ability to lead. It is important to know the constant motivation and the skills development of your team members.

This is untrue as there are many units achieving success due to individual effort within the group and then there are other teams seen as very successful but not achieving much in reality.

There is a major shift in business and organizations are no longer depending on a superman-type CEO to lead the business.

Instead, more emphasis is placed on the development of individuals who can focus on specific aspects of the business unit.

How do you develop your team?

Developing your team will need positive action in order to ensure successful outcomes. These actions will include:

• Monitoring performance
• Team Guidance
• Report
• Coach
• Rectify

Monitoring performance

It is necessary to monitor individual performance as well as the performance of your team. The only way to find holes in your team development plan is to monitor and identify shortcomings.

It is easier to develop team members than to rectify poor performance.

Team Guidance

True leaders guide their teams to success through guidance, motivation, and inspiration. Therefore it is important for you as the leader to know your resources and their limitations.

Adaptation is necessary if you have restricted resources and development plans must be creative. This is where your guidance is crucial or your team will become stagnant.

Report

Reporting on team progress is essential in that it is the only way to identify weak spots. It will highlight what essential skills are lacking in your team to make them effective. This will give you the perfect opportunity to act and improve the overall skill set of the team.

Coach

You are not just a leader. You are considered to be the team coach and your team members depend on you to create opportunities to develop new skills. As the coach, you transfer the skills of one person to the others through engagement.

Rectify

When things go wrong you rectify and reset the path your team is drifting onto. Though leadership team members will learn to rectify themselves and that makes them more efficient than others.

How well managers can develop their employees depend on various factors of which some are out of their control as a manager. These factors can include:

• Management experience
• Manager’s willingness to share knowledge
• The ability of staff to be developed
• The purpose of development
• Organizational support to the coaching manager

For managers to coach, they must have good experience in identifying the team's needs and evaluating the progress of the individuals.

They must also have the correct knowledge to share and be willing to part with it.

Many managers would not coach their staff because of the belief that their knowledge is the only thing that separates them from their subordinates.

Sadly the ability to lead is what makes the difference.

It is also true that the staff must be able to be coached. Anybody can be coached only to a certain level and it is up to the manager to identify needs and required skill levels when recruiting his team.

For people to accept coaching there must be a visible goal or purpose at the end of the process such as coaching all team members to one day perform their tasks with minimum instruction and maximum trust.

Who holds the key to team development?

Very important in the process are that the organization must encourage the development of staff and the fact that their management is the coach.

Too many organizations presume that employing someone with experience clinch the whole package but unfortunately no two companies operate in the same manner.

I’ve moved through 8 companies in the last 33 years and each one of them was completely different. I still learn from scratch every time I start a new position.

This is evident when looking at the change in processes, values, people, and social behaviour.

There is no magic winning recipe for creating a high-performance team but the combination of the following processes is critical for survival:

• Focused and purposed recruitment of individuals to fit organizational goals and vision
• The setting of achievable goals for the team as a whole
• Develop and coach with the goal to expand the knowledge of all members of the unit
• Constant feedback on achievements and goals

Team Development and Coaching - Summary

Team Development and Coaching for performance can be seen as a nuisance for most managers which is why having development and coaching policies in place will help keep the organization's motivation in place.

Looking after your employees will make sure they look after you.