In this interview, we talk with Michelle Chambers and Evelina Rog about their article, ROI: The Big Question - Demonstrating the true value and impact of team coaching.
Team coaching is still considered a newer and evolving field, and how best to evaluate and demonstrate its impact continues to evolve. We see the purpose of measurement in team coaching as not only to demonstrate impact, but also to focus the coaching on developing awareness and capacity in relation to meaningful goals that are aligned with or directly support business priorities.
Creating team awareness and collecting feedback to measure and assess the team before and after team coaching engagement reinforces the value and impact that team coaching contributes both to the effectiveness of the team and to the organization in achieving its business priorities.
A thought leader in team coaching and organization development, Michelle has provided global consulting, leadership and coaching for many organizations, including several of Canada’s Top 50 Employers. Michelle is passionate about supporting others to create collaborative cultures that enable people to achieve purpose in their work. A Certified Team Performance Coach, global trainer of team coaches, speaker and author, she has been at the forefront of the team coaching field since she was responsible for leadership development, enterprise wide for Telus Mobility in Canada.
Evelina is an executive and team coach, award winning executive educator, and an expert in vertical leadership development. She leads a thriving private practice partnering with senior leaders and founders and their leadership teams to transform the way they lead, team, and navigate through complex human and organizational challenges. Evelina integrates cutting-edge science and practice to support her client’s development in areas that are most critical to sustainable success and business growth, yet most difficult to change.
Join us as we learn how to best assess ROI in team coaching with Michelle and Evelina.
Watch the full interview by clicking here.
Find the full article here: https://bit.ly/BtP_Chambers_Rog
Grab your free issue of choice Magazine here - https://choice-online.com/
In this episode, I talk with Michelle and Evelina about their article published in our June 2022 issue.
In this interview, we talk with Michelle Chambers and Evelina Rog about their article, ROI: The Big Question - Demonstrating the true value and impact of team coaching.
Team coaching is still considered a newer and evolving field, and how best to evaluate and demonstrate its impact continues to evolve. We see the purpose of measurement in team coaching as not only to demonstrate impact, but also to focus the coaching on developing awareness and capacity in relation to meaningful goals that are aligned with or directly support business priorities.
Creating team awareness and collecting feedback to measure and assess the team before and after team coaching engagement reinforces the value and impact that team coaching contributes both to the effectiveness of the team and to the organization in achieving its business priorities.
A thought leader in team coaching and organization development, Michelle has provided global consulting, leadership and coaching for many organizations, including several of Canada’s Top 50 Employers. Michelle is passionate about supporting others to create collaborative cultures that enable people to achieve purpose in their work. A Certified Team Performance Coach, global trainer of team coaches, speaker and author, she has been at the forefront of the team coaching field since she was responsible for leadership development, enterprise wide for Telus Mobility in Canada.
Evelina is an executive and team coach, award winning executive educator, and an expert in vertical leadership development. She leads a thriving private practice partnering with senior leaders and founders and their leadership teams to transform the way they lead, team, and navigate through complex human and organizational challenges. Evelina integrates cutting-edge science and practice to support her client’s development in areas that are most critical to sustainable success and business growth, yet most difficult to change.
Join us as we learn how to best assess ROI in team coaching with Michelle and Evelina.
Watch the full interview by clicking here.
Find the full article here: https://bit.ly/BtP_Chambers_Rog
Grab your free issue of choice Magazine here - https://choice-online.com/
In this episode, I talk with Michelle and Evelina about their article published in our June 2022 issue.
Hello everyone. I'm Garry Schleifer. And this is beyond the page. I know it always sounds like the Twilight zone brought to you by choice the magazine of professional coaching. We're more than a magazine. We're a community of people who use and share coaching tools, tips, and techniques to add value to their businesses and impact their clients in their business and personal lives. We're an institution of learning built over the course of 20 years. Yes, 20, we're in our 20th year. Can't believe it. And we are dedicated to improving the lives of coaches and their clients. In today's episode, I am speaking with two team coaches, Michelle Chambers, and Evelina Rog, who are the authors of an article in our latest issue, this one Transforming Lives, entitled ROI: The Big Question~ Demonstrating the true value impact of team coaching.
:A thought leader in team coaching and organizational development, Michelle has provided global consulting, leadership and coaching for many organizations, including several of Canada's top 50 employers. Love to know who those are sometime. Maybe I can get on the list. Michelle is passionate about supporting others to create collaborative cultures that enable people to achieve purpose in their work. A certified team performance coach, global trainer of team coaches, speaker, and author. She's been at the forefront of the team coaching field since she was responsible for leadership development enterprisewide for Teles Mobility in Canada, which if you don't know, for our international listeners is a telecom company. Evelina is an executive and team coach as well. Award-winning executive educator and an expert in vertical leadership development. She leads a thriving private practice partnering with senior leaders, obviously partnering with our friend, Michelle, and their leadership teams to transform the way they lead team and navigate through complex human and organizational changes challenges rather.
Speaker 1:And while in changes, too, Evelina integrates cutting edge science and practice to support her client's development in areas that are most critical to sustainable success and business growth yet most difficult to change. No kidding. Prior to starting her private practice, Evelina worked in internal and external consulting and coaching roles. She's an award-winning executive educator whose leadership development experiences are considered, old on, transformational. What a coincidence. She's taught in both Schulich Executive Education Program and the Lang School of Business and Economics Executive Education Programs. And let's see you put that on a business card. Evelina regularly contributes thought leadership to the coaching profession, including serving as a team, coaching SME and global co-leader for the International Coaching Federation's Team and Group Coaching Community of Practice. Wow. We got the brainiacs of team stuff here. Welcome Michelle and Evelina. Thank you so much for joining me today.
Speaker 2:Oh, thank you so much for having us Garry. Most appreciated.
Speaker 1:Oh man. You know, one of the things that's just come to mind while we were getting ready and into this is when I read your bios and everything is, so how long have you been doing team coaching, each of you? So one after the other.
Speaker 2:So I've been working with teams for 30 years, but formally been doing team coaching for about 14 years after I met Phil Sandal.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah. Dear Phil. Yeah. And Evelina.
Speaker 2:And I actually started working with groups and doing group kind of coaching back in my early twenties. Wow. And then, and then did a lot of team development, facilitation and then started really team coaching the last few years. Wow. So felt like a very natural evolution for me to work with teams.
Speaker 1:Yeah. Well, and one of the reasons I ask is because we've done issues on team coaching, like way back and I wanted to know kind of where you fit into the timeline. And I want to invite you both to consider contributing to our upcoming December issue on another one on team and group coaching, like kind of the next wave, if you will. You know, just the fact that the International Coaching Federation, let's just say ICF. It is acknowledging and working with the fact that team and group coaching is a thing. It's taken, how long, like 25 years for them to be a part of it. And I'm so proud that they are and Evelina, thank you so much for being a part of it and contributing to it and setting the standard because once ICF puts a stamp on it, it's kind of like the bar, right. It's like I was talking about the covers we do at choice, we set the bar pretty high. So, yeah. Welcome. So I know it's kind of obvious why you wrote the article, I think, but I'm still gonna ask because it was an issue based on measurement and the two of you both coach people, but what had you two get together and decide to write this article on ROI.
Speaker 2:I will turn it over to Evelina to kick it off.
Speaker 1:Okay.
Speaker 2:You know what, to be honest, Michelle and I just hit it off so quickly from the moment that we met live that we were just looking for any opportunity to collaborate. And so now we're collaborating on a number of different things, including writing now, this podcast and team coaching. So really when you make a strong connection and you're both passionate about the topic, this is just what happens and it just evolves.
:And evolved beautifully.
Speaker 2:Well, and the other thing too, is I'm also responsible for a Master Certificate in OD at Schulich and I wanted to expand the program and I had the opportunity to bring in new facilitators. And I could have done the element around working with teams, but I wanted somebody else to be able to contribute to the program and Evelina was my first choice. She thankfully said, yes and we've had a great first run of that.
Speaker 1:That's great.
Speaker 2:Partner together because I think, you know, some of the things that I look for in people that I co-coach with are people who have the same values, the same understanding of teams as a system. They're really service oriented. So, you know, it's really about ensuring that the client does reach their goals. And we just have so much fun together. I mean, just judging by the little laugh we had, the little snicker at the beginning, right. That's us. So.
Speaker 1:That's great. Well, and if you don't love what you do, like, my sister who's five years younger than me was so proud that she's retired from her corporate job. And I'm like, I can't even imagine it because I love what I do, coaching and choice. It's like, my OBM, my online business manager, challenges me to do less and give her more work to do and I'm like, but I like this stuff and she can't do the coaching, so that's fine. So I just can't see retiring or stuff and doing what I'm doing. So, but you hit on a point and we're talking about measurement. So, I mean, we can all read the article, but I love hearing from you live and please add anything that you thought of after it was published about why it's important to evaluate the effectiveness of team coaching.
Speaker 2:Yeah. I can kick it off Evelina and then you can add in some additional thoughts. So one of the reasons it's really important to evaluate team coaching is not only do you want to ensure the client has some concrete measures of before and after success and can justify their investment of time and money into the process, because it is a pretty big investment of both. Usually it's at the minimum of six months, mostly a year, you know and you're talking a significant investment sometimes of 30,000 plus dollars. And so I think that's one thing to demonstrate value to the client. I think secondly, the opportunity for the team itself to be able to see its progress as it continues throughout the process. So you continue to have the buy in and the engagement and I think that's really important. Evelina? So I would add a couple of things. So one, I think if you don't measure, because Garry, you were saying ICF, you know, has finally come up with competencies around team coaching, and now a designation that's really just unfolding as we speak. And we risk the organization, not really understanding team coaching. And so I've actually had an experience where halfway through HR actually wanted to cut off the engagement, right? So there's a risk if they don't understand the value of team coaching and if you're not actually measuring before and after, along the way, it's team progress. Yeah. That you can't demonstrate that, right. The team also can't demonstrate that. And it's really important because it takes a while, especially if you're working with a team that's starting from a really challenging place for them to get to neutral and then to start to accelerate into the positive. Right. So it's really important. like Michelle said, to have that measure of progress, both for the team itself and for the organization. And I would also say like, if you're not measuring, you'll end up somewhere else. And, you know, if you know what you're measuring that, you know, what you're working towards, but I think there's also an art and a science to it. Right. So if you make the goal to move up one point on a certain dimension, you know, that'll give you some cues, but really team coaching is such an evolving and emergent process that over time you start to potentially measure new things, right. You start to notice progress and things that you may not have anticipated you wanted to measure up front.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And I would add that too, that a lot of clients don't truly understand what team coaching is. Exactly. It is a newer term. You need to align everything with the business goals and ensure that the team coaching is done not only in service of team dynamics, obviously, but more importantly, in service of the goals they need to achieve and the larger system within which they operate. Yeah. I think that's the key factor right there. And Jonathan Passmore, actually, Garry, I posted this on LinkedIn, had 2,950 responses to date. Like not actual comments, but people looked at the article and Jonathan Passmore added to this. So I'll add his thoughts because I think he raises a good point. Because team coaching is such a new field, there's very little evidence based practices,
Speaker 1:Right? Yeah.
Speaker 2:Research around team. Yeah. And he says, he thinks that this is just the beginning, the opener of to do that, which makes perfect sense but many of us haven't gone there yet.
Speaker 1:Well, who's leading the charge on the evidence based research and ROI. Is that ICF, or do you guys like, is there body or
Speaker 2:There is a cluster of sources. There's Sebastian Fox who's part of Georgina Woodstraw's team coaching studio in the UK. He actually has been doing quite a bit of research around team coaching and he has several colleagues within that community. There are some people out of separate business schools that are starting to, within their coaching programs, do it. I would say it's mainly out of the UK. Ruth Wegmann, obviously out of the US has some team coaching research and then Peter Hawkins as well.
Speaker 1:Right. Okay. Well, I'm reaching out to a number of those names for that coming issue. What I thought, what I found was really unique that you guys mentioned in the article was that you measure at the beginning, in the middle, at the end and a follow up and my business heart fluttered, because I thought a six month follow up could mean a renewed engagement or at least being able to touch base with the client. And you've set that up because you told them we're gonna follow up with you in six months. So I just thought that additional piece was brilliant. So thanks for putting that out there. How long does it take by the time they say we're interested to a team actually starting in an organization, I guess that has not done it before. On average.
Speaker 2:I would say three months potentially by the time you get it actually going where you're starting the first. Partly because I often do interviews and assessments and it takes some time to gather that data, you know, and I think, depending on the timing within their own business goals and business cycle as well because you need to, and Evelyn and I have a similar practice, we book all the sessions right up front with the client for a minimum of like six months because getting that time is actually the hardest challenge, right.
:I'll bet
Speaker 2:In their calendar and it's about, you know, a regular cadence of coaching. Evelina, would you have something different because I know you work with some different types of teams as well. Yeah. So Garry, I would say sometimes we're brought in when there's a bit of a crisis or like an emergent urgent, I would say, need. And so it may start very quickly. But I think we've also, you know, you and I, Michelle have experience with some clients where I think they're still trying to learn about what team coaching is. Right? So I've had an experience where, you know, the CFO signs off immediately on curriculum training because they know exactly what that is, right? Whether it returns a huge return investment, you know, they're not even necessarily looking at, but they know what it is. It's easy for them to sign off on. It can take a little while, lots of conversations about what team coaching actually is and also where to begin. Right. So we don't come in with, here are the six modules we're gonna take the team through. It's really trying to figure out what does the team need exactly and part of that is doing an assessment up front before you even begin the team coaching. Right? And trying to figure out what is it that needs to change? What is it that we want to measure?
Speaker 1:Well, and so I just wanna ask one more question around the timing of stuff. So it sounds like a lot of work. Is it as much as it seems like three months, a six month engagement, but you guys joined the call today, laughing and giggling and stuff like that. Perhaps it seems like a lot of work, but when you're doing it in a pair, as a team, as a team, is it less work? Like just kind of give me a sense of the landscape from soup to nuts.
Speaker 2:Yeah. It's, I would say a lot depends on the complexity of the situation with the clients. So before I met Evelina, I worked with another co-coach and we worked with like 13 global VPs of engineering in a large 22 billion tech company. Wow. And it was huge because they had never been brought together and I had never worked with that co-coach So then you've gotta build in the time to prepare themselves, then prepare with the client, do the actual coaching, do the debriefing as a pair of coaches. So I do think there is a lot of work and I think the other thing too, is that, depending on your experience with that other co-coach, that can definitely add to it or, you know, detract from it and the complexity of the client. You know, we don't come prepared with curriculum or set tools, but there's still a lot of preparations in between sessions as well. And sometimes we contract for individual coaching of members and then there's always gonna be, Evelina, you agree the coaching of the leader of the team because they need some extra support because of the vulnerability they place themselves. Yeah. So I think being upfront with clients about what it will take, not just in terms of time, right, but actually really committing to the process because as we know, trying to learn or unlearn is not easy. There bumps along the road, it takes vulnerability. Right. It takes letting go. So I think being realistic about the time commitment that will be required during team sessions reflections all up in between. You know, Michelle and I will often set up things like peer learning groups, right? So peers that might meet in between team coaching sessions. So we take a very integrative approach so that the learning is not just happening in our sessions. T hey're actually applying i t, reflecting and sort of moving forward in between. But the other thing that comes to mind for me when you talked about the timing piece and sort of, you know, how much work is it? The number one lesson I learned from a wonderful mentor is mine is never work harder than the client. Oh. So I think it's really important, right? To think about what's the work that's going to be involved for you and your co-coach and team coaching is more complex. So I build in extra, extra time when I'm working with a team than if I were just to work with a number of individuals, right. There's additional time involved, but also the client needs to be doing the work because I always say to my clients and you probably do too, Michelle, you know, I start working myself out of a job with this engagement on day one. Right. Yeah, exactly. Trying to make them self sufficient. Right? Yeah. So that is the goal. Oh, absolutely. Yeah. The teams in the end and I think this is the other challenge and it goes to the timing too. We really share with the team that, you know, this is not a one off, this is not a team building session. If you want sustainable changes in behavior, it's gonna require commitment over a minimum period of time. And you're gonna have to work hard at it. Like this is not easy work. And in the end we want you, as a team, to hold yourselves accountable as a system to those changes. And hence why we introduce various methods of evaluation throughout so that they can then adopt that. So everything from evaluating their own team norms, are they using those? I think we talked about that in the beginning and middle of the process to, you know, formal pre and post coaching assessments, then how do they reflect on that? How are they then going to move their action plan forward? So it really is about them just like one-on-one coaching. The challenge is, I don't know if you find this, but I find sometimes when we come in with senior teams too, they want us to be consultants and tell them what to do,
Speaker 1:No. Coaching clients. They want you to tell them what to do? Never, can't happen
Speaker 2:The senior ones, right. It's like,
Speaker 1:Oh, I know.
:So there is a fair amount of time actually spent educating, as Evelina said, the team about the team process and what our role is as team coaches and really being fully present in the moment. And that's easier said than done sometimes.
Speaker 1:Yeah. Well, you hit on another topic. I was wanted to know a little bit more about, you mentioned in the article and here, some interventions and tools. Are like, are they, you know, they specific strategically placed? Is it kind of like what you said you're evaluating as you go along? Do you set it up in advance? Tell me a little bit more about these tools.
Speaker 2:Do you wanna kick it off Evelina? I'm trying to think of what, so why that comes to mind, I'm just gonna talk through this out loud. So it was a team that was really struggling, as a lot of teams do to talk about the really big challenges, right? These sort of undiscussables. So in this team that I'm thinking of, it was about, you know, breaking down silos, right, amongst the number of teams that were brought together under one umbrella. And they had a really difficult time talking about this themselves and, you know, I could've come in, right, and started the session with, okay, what are your three biggest problems? That's get it on the table. But of course everybody would've frozen cause our mind goes into a state of threat. And so my co my co-coach and another colleague of mine that I was working with with this team designed an exercise that we called sort of elephants. And so we actually asked team members to share with us in advance. What are some of the biggest pain points and challenges and things that are difficult for the team to talk about? We crafted some sort of realistic scenarios, right? As a practice because they weren't ready to really dive in, even with this creative elephants exercise. And so we practiced first on like a realistic, but not real scenario. And then they were finally ready and we made it very engaging. You know, we talked about like, what are the elephants kind of roaming around, you know, in this space? How big are they, how, you know, how did they grow? What would it look like if we could take a chunk out of them and broke people out into breakout groups? And so it just made it a fun, engaging and safer way, right, to surface those things.
:And then the next exercise we did to really dive into, okay, now we have these problems kind of named and we used a question burst exercise from Hal Greg's book. Questions are the answer. Love, love his tools and his book. So the next exercise was teaching them, how do you really understand what the problem really is? What's driving it, what's contributing to it, right? So a lot of us have a tendency to jump in and wanna fix it. So we started off that session with Einstein's quote of, you know, if I had a problem to solve, I'm paraphrasing you know, I would spend the first 55 minutes trying to understand the problem and the last five minutes solving it. And so that really set the stage for them to like pause on the fixing diving deep and really understanding, get curious by asking questions. So as you're doing this right, you're skill building, you're teaching them to pause and ask questions right. Through these exercises that are actually getting them to talk about their real challenges,
Speaker 1:You know and it sounds a lot like the, and I'm assuming here, but you can tell me if I'm wrong or not, is that team getting ready to do team coaching and engaging in it is like about 55/5 for that as well. Like you analyze, you talk to people, you do measurements, you set the goals, what are the evaluations you get kind of, you know, and I put that into prep, evaluation, and prep, maybe, of the problem. And then once you've got that all and everybody's kind of on the same page, it sounds like, you know, then, then it should, should be smooth sailing, but of course you probably have things that you need to do and you call upon. And you're like, oh, this is going on. We gotta, let's try this right now. Do you always, co-coach a team? Is that like a rule or it just, is that evolved that way?
Speaker 2:In general we support the premise that team coaches do have a co-coach. Yeah. And I think that's good reason for that one is that, first of all, you can both gain different lenses and observing the team and share a debrief around that one can help monitor the process, like the content of the coaching while one is monitoring, you know, the actual agenda, it's fine.
Speaker 1:Oh, right. Yeah.
Speaker 2:You know, cuz the complexity is there and I think the other thing too is it's so helpful even when going back to the last question to have different ideas. How can we continue to assess and measure the impact of the coaching? So Evelina and I have brought some different processes together. So for example, I often do something called a pulse check with teams, especially the first few sessions. So it's just through Survey Monkey, three key questions around, you know, what did, what are they taking away from this session? What are they looking forward to? What are they observing about their team, for example, and it's a great way in particular to get those who are more introverted to contribute.
Speaker 1:Oh right.
Speaker 2:To the process and give you feedback. It also helps give us ideas as to what we're doing well and what we can change as we go throughout. Yeah. Because there's a number of different interventions and tools and that might depend on what we're actually dealing with as an action plan that the team came up with. You know, it could be anything from conflict management. So teaching them feedback styles. Those are some of our more common ones, but also, you know, the learning journeys and the triads that Evelina talked about, you know, what are they bringing from that? And then pre and post interventions to measure impact. Right. So I think the value of the co-coaching is that you can co design as well and brainstorm together. So measuring impact as in our article is really, it's an ongoing process, but the conversation needs to start up front right and set the bar.
:And it sounds like, you know, so the two of you work together obviously, but the two of you worked with other coaches and you learn things from them and that just your resources just become more and more abundant and absolutely. Yeah,
Speaker 2:Exactly. It becomes exponential. So just to add to what Michelle was saying, the debriefing also after sessions. Right. So what I realize is that, you know, you've got one plus one equals three because what I notice plus what my co-coach notices, when we put those two together somehow then we notice something altogether different that neither one of us would have alone. So it really does grow exponentially and yeah. Being, you know, co-coach that loves to collaborate and are also very generous with our sharing, you know, with the folks that we collaborate with, it does really grow exponentially. And so all of a sudden you've got these tools and ways of seeing things and ideas, you know, for how to approach this, that just builds year after year.
Speaker 1:Yeah. That's awesome.
Speaker 2:And I think, Evelina, because we're working within systems, it's easy as individual coaches to take away, you know, reflective observations. But when we share those debriefs, now we're starting to see trends and patterns systemic that are occurring. And that's where the real value of team coaching comes in is observing the patterns and trends. So we can feed that back to the client to enable them to make the appropriate changes
Speaker 1:Right. At a higher level. That's great. So, one, couple more questions. So is there anything else that you wanted to tell our readers and our audience that you thought about after the article?
Speaker 2:One thing I would say is that clients are often very interested in measuring the impact of interventions, but they are not always set up to do so in order to collect the data. And I've experienced this through years of training, leadership, development, and team coaching, and you can have the conversation with them to say, well, it would be great if we could collect client stakeholder data and maybe do it before and after. But if they're not willing to make that investment then that's their choice. But at the very least there are ways. So particularly if we use a team assessment, we can always do a pre-team coaching and a midpoint or a post coaching. Right. So we can prepare qualitative and quantitative data. And honestly, a lot of my clients talk right up to like top 500 fortune. They're happy with that. Yeah. They just wanna know that there's some measurement being done. Yeah. And that the team has a benchmark to improve on. Yeah. But it's challenging because they're not necessarily prepared to invest more into other forms of collection. m.
Speaker 1:You know, it's interesting throughout this conversation, I had complex situations and complex, but they're both flexible, but you know, complex solutions, complex problems, but they happily go together and, you know, may shift a little bit and it's like, you know, it's like, you've got so much to choose from and it's all again, driven by the client's agenda and you're just filling in what you need. And I think it sounds like the key to it is to, to be like, wow, I can't imagine trying to do that. Like you said, as one coach, like there's so much yeah.
Speaker 2:Two years as one coach. Yeah. And I think that because I was trained as an OD consultant where that is process consulting, we're actually trained to track both at the same time. I felt that was a strength but as I've shared with Evelina, the complexity of the issues and the teams that I'm working with now, there's no question. I'm getting a lot of value out of co-coaching and anyone that I train to be a team coach. I absolutely say obviously, if you can, build that into your pricing so that you can co-coach. There's a lot of value in that because the issues are complex. Let's be honest. No one calls us when a team's high performing. Right. So like I remember my very first team client, and that was a, I put into a team coaching Facebook, they tried everything and it was a communications team and they were gonna be disbanded from this municipality. Might be one you live in Garry. And it was just like, how do you like not have communications internally in an organization. Wow. And you know, at that point of crisis sometimes. Yeah. And they successfully did their service delivery transformation. They're strong as a team, all of that. Thank goodness.
Speaker 1:Well, and it sounds truly then like an intervention, right? Like I know when you said it earlier was very, you know, well spoken, but sometimes it's a darn right. Gotta get in there and give an intervention. Anything you'd like to add to it Evelina.
Speaker 2:So, so let me just put this out there and we can talk through out loud because it just came up yesterday. So I'd be curious to hear your perspectives on it. So I was in a learning group and a coach, who's been doing team coaching for a while, but focusing more on working internally with a team. So usually, you know, team dynamics, right. Helping them to come up with a shared of pur sense of purpose and team norms. And she said she's finding it really hard to convince clients to take more of an outside perspective. So to bring in the voices of the stakeholders and to get feedback from the outside and I'm always leery about not doing that because I feel like that I'm coaching blindly. And we know that, you know, some of the research says 85% of us are not self-aware. Right. So how can we possibly know what is it that's gonna be the most valuable thing for us to work on, right. And change and develop if we're not getting those stakeholder voices in. So I guess maybe that's, I think part of that is us, as coaches, being courageous while also of course doing no harm, right. Because if a team isn't a crisis, I have made the choice, you know, to first start with working with a team internally, bring them up to a place where they can communicate and collaborate, you know, and work through difficult issues. Then they're more ready to engage with their stakeholders, but I'm always leery about not having that stakeholder voice up front because we could spend six months or even a year working together. Maybe not on the things that matter the most.
Speaker 1:Right.
:It's learning opportunity up front, right, for them to work for that feedback
Speaker 1:And/or they could pull the rug out from under it because they don't understand. That's right. Oh, we gotta save money or some other ridiculous reason. Yeah. And then they, they snap through the whole thing. Yeah, exactly. No, it's a great question. And one that, you know, I don't, I think the answer is yes, it needs to be done. And I, but I think you're asking more about how, and I think that's for another day.
:Another topic, perhaps the next team and coaching.
Speaker 1:Yeah. Well, who knows. Michelle's been on our podcast twice, so it's been known to happen. Final kind of question. So what would you like our audience to do as a result of the article in this conversation?
:Good question. Great question. I think for me is that team coaches recognize the importance of being able to measure the impact of team coaching. And even though it might be difficult conversations, I agree with Evelina to be courageous, to really have those conversations, even before engaging in a contractor or intervention with the client and to share with them the value and how it can help not only the team, but also the system they're into make positive changes and create better value for the business overall. Right. So that it really is important. And that if we can, and I'm gonna tap into Jonathan's idea, let's try and quantify and qualify as much of those changes as possible so that we can build up coaching evidence that supports the value of team coaching so that people don't see it as a soft and fluffy engagement or only dealing with team dynamics that we truly do support business goals because that in the end is why our teams are there. And I think to me, there's a lot of coaches out there who are really struggling with this and they don't understand the true value of, you know, measuring the impact.
Speaker 1:Well, it sounds like getting in touch with one of the two of you.
Speaker 2:There's so much you could say on this Garry, right. But what's coming to mind for me is being courageous, but also developing that high trust relationship with the team leader and with the team and, and maybe even exploring the hesitations, they might have around measurement evaluation and, and really starting to ask them some questions around what is it that they most want to get out of this? And what's the risk if they don't get that feedback externally. And, and I think for us as coaches to keep in mind, this is another lesson I learned from that same mentor of mine. Um, you know, the very first engagement I ever worked on with him, the client came to me and said, here's my problem. And here's the solution I'd like you to implement
Speaker 1:Good one.
Speaker 2:But that was a new lesson for me at the time. Right? Yeah. So the lesson I learned is, you know, often the clients are, are sort of going with maybe what our symptoms or what they think the problem is with good intentions, right. But that might not be the actual problem that we need to solve or the place that we need to work towards. So I think measurement helps us to just open up and really focus in on what's gonna create the most value, not just for the team, but for the organization over time, in a way that's sustainable.
Speaker 1:Well, you're right on target right along with the article and the issue. Thank you so much. Thank you for joining me, Evelina and Michelle, for this beyond the page episode. What's the best way for our audience to reach you? I mean, people have the article from the magazine, but if they're only listening to the recording, they will...
Speaker 2:So people can find me on LinkedIn. That's probably the easiest way, just Evelina Rog. And I'd be happy to connect with anyone and, you know, answer any additional questions and stay connected. Yeah.
Speaker 1:Thank you.
Speaker 2:Thank you and myself, LinkedIn, and you can do teamsmatter.ca, which will take you over to michelle@chambersandassociates.ca.
Speaker 1:Awesome.
Speaker 2:Also give you my contact information and information on team coaching.
Speaker 1:Thank you so much for your generosity of time in writing, in being on this podcast and for being contributors to the team coaching space. You guys sound like you really know your stuff and our audience should count on the two of you to continue to lead us into the future through the ICF and et cetera, et cetera. I just have these other ideas in mind. That's another day I'm, I'm a systems guy. So anyway, that that can go. So,
Speaker 2:And Garry, we'd like to thank you very much, not only for having us on this podcast and giving us an opportunity to have such a great conversation and to explore not only the article, but just, you know, other ideas around team coaching and impact, but thank you as well for your contributions to the field of coaching as a whole, because you provide a forum that enables us to reach out and connect with other coaches. And 20 years is something to celebrate beyond that and to offer, you know, a podcast because as we know, many people love to, you know, listen to audio.
Speaker 1:Yeah. Watch it and listen to it. Yeah. I know. That's how I learn a lot of stuff.
Speaker 2:You're welcome. You know, it's all, we're all part of a bigger community, right? That is really that sustainable change in supporting people. So thank you.
Speaker 1:And we lean on each other and we do well. Ah, I just made that up.
Speaker 2:Thank you, Garry. Thank you. You really honestly inspired me to start thinking like 20 years from now, where are we gonna be with team coaching?
Speaker 1:Right. Where,
Speaker 2:So congratulations on the twenty years.
Speaker 1:I'll rephrase the question for you. Where do you want to see team coaching be? Not where will it be? Because we got here, not because we said we are gonna get here, because we rode a wave. So I want you guys to consider you the wave. How do you want it to land 20 years from now?
Speaker 2:Thank you for refining that beautiful.
Speaker 1:Always look into the future and in being in the present at the same time.
Speaker 2:So that's it for this episode o f b eyond the page. As you can tell, we c ould go on forever. For more episodes, subscribe via your favorite podcast app. I know we have it on our website. We also have it on Apple and Spotify and I don't know what else my team is doing to get us out there, but we're everywhere. And don't forget to sign up for your free digital issue of choice magazine by going t o choice o nline.com and clicking the sign u p now button super easy, right? I'm Gary Schleifer. Enjoy your journey to mastery.