Coaching the Team Into a Single Entity: A Challenge and an Opportunity!

Coaching a team into a single entity remains a significant hurdle for many team coaches, yet it presents a great opportunity. This topic consistently arises within our team coaches’ support group and is often discussed in the team coaching certification program where I serve as a faculty member.

When is a Team a Single Entity?

A team becomes a single entity when its members shift their perspective from individual interests to a collective ‘we’, viewing themselves as a cohesive, high-performing unit with a shared identity and purpose.

A single-entity team thrives on high levels of collaboration, coordination, and alignment among its members. They share a collective vision and harmonize their efforts to achieve the team’s objectives. Each member contributes their unique experiences and competencies to the team’s pool of resources, fostering synergistic growth.

Members of such teams often take great pride in being part of a ‘winning’ team. While no team wins every challenge, a unified team achieves more victories than losses and can step back, reassess, and re-group to take another go when it faces adversity.

In contrast, a loosely coupled team is a collection of individuals with competing interests, lacking cohesion. Members of such teams often prioritize their individual roles over their team roles. Which often leads to a lack of collaboration and a weakened sense of shared purpose.

However, being a single entity does not imply unanimous agreement or thinking alike. Diversity of perspectives and competencies in a team contributes to its high performance. Members not only advocate for their own ideas, but also actively seek to understand and build upon others’ perspectives, leading to outcomes that no individual alone can achieve.

How Does the Coach Help the Team Achieve Unity?

Guiding a team into a unified single entity is a pivotal, if often unspoken, role of the coach. Let’s explore some of the strategies a coach can employ for a team’s transformation into a single unified entity.

1) Establishing a Common Vision

A coach helps the team craft a clear, collective vision encompassing the team’s purpose, goals, and desired outcomes. This vision is a product of co-creation, where every team member contributes.

2) Building Trust to Improve Communication

Trust-building exercises facilitated by the coach enable members to embrace risk-taking, share vulnerabilities, and learn from each other. The coach promotes open and transparent channels, encouraging members to freely express ideas, concerns, and feedback.

3) Encouraging Collaboration

The coach initiates team-building activities, translating play-based lessons into productive teamwork. Encouraging collaborative thinking and actions promotes the utilization of strengths and diverse perspectives.

4) Clarifying Roles and Responsibilities

A coach intervenes when role ambiguity threatens unity. While role definition isn’t the coach’s task, stepping in to address blurred boundaries and overlapping responsibilities is crucial.

5) Shared Ways of Working

The coach guides the team in establishing shared behavioral norms that discourage unwanted behaviors (red-card) and endorse desired ones (green-card). Over time, these behaviors become intrinsic to the team’s culture.

6) Resolving Conflict

Detecting and dealing with conflict prevents its negative impact on unity. The coach ensures potential conflicts are openly addressed before they escalate, encouraging members to understand differing viewpoints and seek common ground.

7) Promoting Accountability

Instilling accountability among members is a crucial responsibility. The coach helps each member own their tasks and commitments, fosters mutual accountability, and encourages team members to seek help from each other when needed.

8) Encouraging Continuous Learning

A coach nurtures a culture of ongoing learning and growth, motivating members to share knowledge, pursue development opportunities, and adapt to new challenges.

9) Celebrating Team Achievements

Balancing work with celebration is essential. The coach prompts the team to acknowledge and rejoice in collective achievements, reinforcing pride and accomplishment.

10) Creating Collective Identity

A collective identity is crucial. The coach recognizes the power of simple elements, like naming the team creatively and incorporating shared identifiers, such as apparel and stationery to forge a unique identity.

When Does the Team Coach Get to Do This? 

The coach typically creates a series of touchpoints.

• Attending team meetings, often as an observer, uncovering subtleties and asking relevant questions, allowing the team to think differently.
• Conducting team check-ins and feedback sessions to maintain alignment, identify improvement areas, and celebrate successes.
• Facilitating specific sessions to address organizational, behavioral, or business challenges.
• Conducting occasional one-on-one meetings with the team leader to share observations and encourage them to lead the desired change. This fosters leadership growth without the risk of the coach displacing the leader in the eyes of the team members.

I encourage you to employ some or all of these strategies to guide the team you coach toward becoming a single unified entity, working collaboratively, and harnessing their collective potential to achieve outstanding results.

© 2023 by Sandeep Jain