The Practitioner’s Handbook of Team Coaching

26 Becoming a team coach

Mary Hartog

 

 

The aim of this chapter is to explore what it means to become a team coach by drawing on theories of organisation learning and development, systemic thinking and practice, psychodynamic theory and action research. The chapter addresses the difference between one-to-one coaching and team coaching, highlighting the extensive and additional skill set and knowledge base that a team coach needs. Following Clutterbuck (2009), the chapter argues that team coaching serves a distinctive purpose in the service of performance improvement.

It begins by defining team coaching, differentiating between groups and teams as a reminder of why teams are important. Drawing on the work of Senge (1990), it then considers how ...