How I Taught the ‘Leam from Hell’ to Trust Each Other

Effective organisations rely on teamwork, not least because it facilitates problem solving. Many leaders, however, are ambivalent about teams. They fear overt and covert conflict, uneven participation, tunnel vision, lack of accountability and indifference to the interests of the organisation as a whole. Also, more than a few have no idea how to put together well functioning teams. Their fear of delegating – losing control – reinforces the stereotype of the heroic leader who handles it all.

Although teams can generate a remarkable synergy, a number of them do become mired in endless sessions that generate very high coordination costs and little productivity gain. In some corporations and governments, the formation of teams, task forces or committees can even be a defensive act that gives the illusion of real work while disguising unproductive attempts to preserve the status quo.

Overcoming a team’s possible dysfunction very much depends on its members learning how to work together. To enable this, I have learned from experience that team coaching is second to none. By combining the life case study approach with psychometric multi-party feedback material – an intervention methodology I developed – it is possible to create well-functioning teams.

The team from hell

In this Covid era, I have also found that team coaching can be highly effective even when done virtually. Although face-to-face interaction is preferable, especially for the first session, we may not have that luxury for the foreseeable future. Frankly speaking, with much of our lives already lived online, virtual team coaching is here to stay, facilitated by today’s communications technology.