You can be on Entrepreneur’s cover!

Business Teams Need Coaches Too Build high performance teams using the unique strengths, objectives and challenges of the group.

By Melissa Dawn

entrepreneur daily

Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.

Thomas Barwick | Getty Images

Currently, only about 12 percent of business teams rate themselves as high performing. That leaves nearly 90 percent struggling or flat out dysfunctional. So, if your team is struggling, it is not alone. But it is unique.

Team coaching in business is about building high performance teams using the unique strengths, objectives and challenges of the group.

Related: Coaching Secrets From the Founder of IMG

The team as a system.

Every team is its own system. It has a past, present and future, and its own strengths, weaknesses, habits, even moods. It has a set of values, a personality and certain attitudes. All of this contributes to the team culture, which has tremendous impact on team performance.

Individuals within the team.

Do individual team members matter? Yes. But individual impact is only part of the picture. While the behavior of an individual can influence the team as a whole, the influence of the team system on the individual is much greater.

Why is the system so powerful?

It often comes down to unwritten rules. Whether you're aware of them or not, every team has them. These rules dictate:

  • How conflict and challenges are handled
  • How the team perceives customers, competitors, leadership and others within the organization
  • How the team communicates within and outside the team
  • How team leaders manage resources and make decisions

There can even be ground rules for who you can and can't talk to. None of these rules are written in your employee handbook or dictated by HR. But they are understood within the team and hold powerful influence over team performance.

Every team is unique.

All of these rules, values, moods and personalities mean that every team truly is unique. So, when it comes to improving a team, what works for one won't work for all. The team system needs to be fully understood, inside and out, in order to understand how to move forward.

That's team coaching in business.

A team coach first gains clarity on your team system -- the values, culture and unwritten rules that drive it, how it interacts with others inside and outside the organization, its strengths, its weaknesses, its opportunities -- basically everything.

Using a cornerstone of team coaching -- "what gets measured gets improved" -- a business team coach assesses your current situation, identifies the best path forward and works side-by-side with your team to keep it on the path, course correct as needed and help build a high performing team that brings the whole organization to the next level.

Related: Unlike Raises, You Can Afford to Give Your Team All the Recognition and Praise They Have Earned

Measured change.

Any change made, or action taken within the team, will alter the team dynamic. The way team coaching works in a business setting is that it changes with that dynamic.

It isn't about prescribing a new set of rules and sending you on your way. Instead, this style of business coaching is fluid and works to identify and address opportunities and challenges as they arise. It works to establish new practices that become the norm, and holds the team accountable for change.

Measurement is key. The unwritten rules of your team may not be documented, but their impact on team performance can be.

Positivity and productivity.

The team coaching approach works on these two key elements. Sometimes there is a fear that you have to choose one or the other; that if you create a positive work environment, productivity will suffer.

Both are possible and necessary. Creating a positive team culture drives productivity. Likewise, true productivity -- the kind that creates results, not just busyness -- contributes to a more positive team culture. We know this because we can measure it.

Strengthening teams by strengthening the people within them.

The individuals within your team will always matter. While the team system may have the greater power of influence, that system is ultimately driven and upheld by individuals.

A good team performance coach will also work with the individuals within your team to help them identify their own unique strengths, core values and inner leader, and guide them to bring it all forward in a way that is aligned with the values and objectives of the team.

This is what we mean when we say a team runs "like a well oiled machine." All the parts together are far more powerful than the individual parts alone, but only when each of those parts is at its best within the system.

Related: This Is the Secret to Teamwide Productivity in 2019

Can you benefit from team coaching in business?

Let me ask you:

  • How would you rate the competence of your team?
  • What is your team tolerating?
  • What team strengths are not being used to their fullest?
  • What is getting in the way of achieving team objectives?
  • What would happen if those things were improved?
  • What will happen if you maintain status quo?

If these questions get you thinking, either about the struggles your team is experiencing or about the exciting possibilities if those struggles are overcome, then you can absolutely benefit from team coaching.

Melissa Dawn

Coach and founder of CEO of Your Life

Melissa Dawn is a coach and founder of CEO of Your Life. As a life and business coach, she helps entrepreneurs build a business that fits their values and creates the lifestyle they crave. Her specialty is helping people transition out of their day jobs and into building businesses they are orgasmically joyful about.

Want to be an Entrepreneur Leadership Network contributor? Apply now to join.

Editor's Pick

Business News

'Wildly Inappropriate': Woman Says She Was Denied a Job Because She Didn't Wear Makeup During the Interview

Melissa Weaver was applying for a VP of HR job at a tech company via video.

Business News

Uber Is Fixing One of the Biggest Complaints Families and Parents Have With the Company

Uber Car Seat is now available in New York and Los Angeles.

Business News

Founders of Companies Worth Over a Billion Dollars Have These Simple Things in Common

A new study found three traits that stood out in unicorn founders.

Business Ideas

63 Small Business Ideas to Start in 2024

We put together a list of the best, most profitable small business ideas for entrepreneurs to pursue in 2024.

Business News

Dollar Tree Is Raising Its Price Cap to $7: 'The Macro Environment Has Gotten in Our Way'

The discount chain's cap was most recently raised to $5 last June.