In ‘The Wisdom of Teams’, Jon Katzenbach and Douglas Smith outline six key factors that drive team performance:
- Compelling purpose
- Specific goals
- Clear roles
- Open communication
- Effective leadership
- Mutual accountability
These are all seemingly straightforward, but many teams struggle to put them into practice.
Here, we’ll explore how coaching – particularly training leaders as coaches – can bridge the gap between aspiration and execution.
Let’s look at how coaching connects with each factor and why company culture also plays a pivotal role in making them stick.
1. Compelling purpose: Uniting the team
A compelling purpose inspires a team to work together toward something greater than individual achievement. It provides a sense of meaning and shared motivation. Yet, many teams lack clarity around their purpose or feel disconnected from it.
How coaching helps:
Coaching encourages leaders to help their teams articulate and internalise a shared purpose. This often involves asking provocative questions like, “What’s the greater impact of what we’re trying to achieve?” Individual or team coaching sessions can uncover hidden motivations and align individual values with team goals.
Organisations that celebrate purpose-driven success stories reinforce the importance of a compelling purpose. Our work on developing culture always starts with purpose (or the popular “What’s your why? “question).
What you can do:
- Schedule a coaching session to revisit your team’s purpose and ensure it resonates with everyone
- Use team meeting as an opportunity to remind people of the purpose and how it links to organisational goals
2. Specific goals: From vision to action
Without specific goals, even the most inspired teams stumble. Vague objectives lead to confusion, frustration, and lack of progress.
How coaching helps:
Coaches help leaders break down high-level visions into actionable, measurable steps. By employing tools like SMART goals (or any of its countless variants) coaching ensures everyone knows what success looks like and how to measure it.
I once coached a team leader struggling to meet sales targets. We reframed her perfectly sensible but hopelessly vague goal of “increase revenue,” as “Achieving a 10% increase in subscription renewals by the end of Q3.” This clarity sparked a comeback, and the team hit their target well ahead of schedule.
What you can do:
- Use coaching questions like, “What would achieving this goal look like?” to refine objectives
- Regularly revisit and adjust goals during coaching sessions to maintain relevance and focus
3. Clear roles: Avoiding overlap and gaps
Ambiguity in role profiles often leads to duplicated effort or worse, critical tasks falling through cracks. Teams perform best when every member knows their responsibilities and contributions.
How coaching helps:
Coaching emphasises the importance of role clarity by encouraging leaders to explore team dynamics. Questions like, “Who is best suited for this task?” and “What gaps do we need to fill?” help leaders align individual strengths with team needs.
A culture of clarity supports role alignment. For example, organisations with clear competency frameworks or similar make it easier for teams to identify who does what and why.
What you can do:
- Facilitate a coaching workshop to map out team roles and responsibilities.
- Use personality assessments to align roles with individual strengths
4. Open communication: The lifeblood of teams
Communication breakdowns derail even the most skilled teams. Open communication ensures that ideas flow freely and issues are addressed before they escalate.
How coaching helps:
Coaching builds communication skills by fostering an environment of active listening and constructive feedback. Leaders trained as coaches learn to model these behaviours, creating a ripple effect across the team.
I recall facilitating a team-building exercise where a brand-new team member’s brilliant idea was overshadowed by all the louder, more experienced voices. Coaching the leader to actively seek input from quieter members led to breakthroughs that wouldn’t have surfaced otherwise. Brilliance doesn’t always shout.
What you can do:
- Encourage leaders to use coaching techniques like reflective listening in team meetings
- Integrate psychological safety principles into team culture, where all voices are valued equally
5. Effective leadership: Beyond command and control
Great teams need great leaders. However, we know that traditional top-down leadership styles often stifle collaboration and innovation.
How coaching helps:
Coaching shifts leaders from being directive to facilitative. Leaders trained as coaches empower their teams to solve problems and make decisions, fostering ownership and engagement.
Organisations that value leadership development and invest in coaching programmes see sustained performance improvements. A culture of continuous learning ensures that leadership evolves with the team’s needs.
What you can do:
- Provide training in coaching techniques for leaders, focusing on areas like questioning and feedback
- Encourage leaders to share their own development journeys, inspiring others to do likewise
6. Mutual accountability: Strength in ownership
Accountability isn’t about finger-pointing – it’s about creating a culture where everyone owns their contributions. Mutual accountability fosters trust and resilience.
How coaching helps:
Coaching helps teams establish a sense of accountability. Leaders trained in coaching use techniques like collaborative goal setting and regular check-ins to ensure that accountability is shared and celebrated.
What you can do:
- Incorporate accountability discussions into regular team meetings using coaching tools like the GROW model
- Celebrate accountability wins to reinforce positive behaviours
The culture connection: Coaching and team performance
Company culture is the backdrop against which all these factors play out. A coaching approach only thrives when the culture supports trust, openness, and a shared commitment to improvement.
Leaders must embody the culture they wish to see and make coaching a natural extension of their leadership style.
As I write this my favourite football team (who shall remain nameless) has once again conspired to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.
The pundit in the TV studio has just explained that without money to sign new players an improvement in team performance will only come from good coaching.
Wise words.
