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choice Magazine
choice Magazine
Episode 106: The Future of Team Building: Insights with guest Jonathan Passmore
Ever wondered how to unlock the full potential of your team? Join us for an insightful conversation with Professor Jonathan Passmore, a pioneering researcher in professional coaching, as we unpack the secrets behind effective team coaching. Discover key takeaways from his latest article, "Team Building Blocks," and gain a deeper understanding of why team coaching is becoming a cornerstone for organizational success. You'll learn about the influential roles of major coaching bodies like ICF and EMCC and the necessity of backing coaching practices with solid scientific evidence.
In this episode, we dive into the groundbreaking use of Lego Serious Play in team coaching, exploring its benefits and the importance of proper training for its application. You'll hear about the future of AI in coaching and its struggle to navigate the complexity of team dynamics. We'll also share intriguing insights from recent research comparing AI coachbots to human coaches. Tune in to stay ahead of coaching trends, experiment with innovative techniques, and access valuable resources available on Jonathan Passmore's website. Don't miss this chance to elevate your understanding and practice of team coaching!
Watch the full interview by clicking here.
Find the full article here.
Learn more about Jonathan Passmore here.
Visit Jonathan's website to access hundreds of research articles and technical reports on coaching from his coaching research over the past 20 years.
Grab your free issue of choice Magazine here - https://choice-online.com/
Welcome to the choice Magazine podcast, Beyond the Page. choice, the magazine of professional coaching, is your go-to source for expert insights and in-depth features from the world of professional coaching. I'm your host, Garry Schleifer, and I'm thrilled that you're joining us today. In each episode, we go beyond the page of articles published in choice magazine and dive deeper into some of the most recent and relevant topics impacting the world of professional coaching. We explore the content and interview the talented minds behind the articles and uncovering the stories that make an impact. Choice is more than a magazine, my friends. For over 22 years, we've built a community of like-minded people who create, use and share coaching tools, tips and techniques to add value to the business. And, of course, what do we all want to do? Make a difference with our clients. Yay. In today's episode, I'm speaking with Professor of Coaching, Jonathan Passmore, who is the author of an article in our latest issue and I happen to have it here that just came in by FedEx yesterday A Livelihood from Coaching Feasible or Fanciful? His article is entitled Team Building Blocks ~ Is it Time to Get Out the Logo? And we've had a blast talking about that.
Garry Schleifer:But before we get right into it, a little bit about Jonathan. He has a Doctorate of Occupational Psychology, MBA, MSC, a BA, a BSC, an FBPS, an MC and he's also a PCC with the ICF and a partridge in a pear tree. He is the Professor of Coaching at Henley Business School in the UK, Senior V ice President of Ezra Coaching, of which I'm a coach, and still finds time to run his own coaching practice. He's previously worked for PWC and IBM. He published widely more than 40 books, including the wildly popular Becoming a Coach, the Essential ICF Guide, and soon to be published, becoming a Teach Team Coach, also the Essential ICF Guide, not to mention oh you know, like at least 250 scientific articles, book chapters and an article in choice, the magazine of professional coaching, making him one of the most published coaching researchers in the world. He's also listed in the Global Gurus and Thinkers 50 Coaches list. Welcome, Jonathan. And what I want to key in on is the word researchers. What called you to write the article at this time?
Jonathan Passmore:I think there were a couple of things. One is the team coaching, and that has been really exploding over the last five, six, seven years. And we've seen the ICF, we've seen the EMCC, the European Mentoring and Coaching Council, a professional body that's particularly large in Europe. Both of them engaging with team coaching, building out team coaching competencies and offering team coaching accreditation. So team coaching is becoming a thing. But there was very little research and most of the papers that have been written, we go back over that sort of decade or so, they were really case studies. People saying I did some team coaching and wow, it was fabulous, and aren't I brilliant? Well, okay, that's interesting, but it's not the sort of evidence that we might want if we were going to go to a drug store and we're looking for a prescription drug to cure a headache. The fact somebody tells us that it's brilliant isn't enough. We want a randomized, controlled trial, we want science, hard evidence. So that was one feature.
Jonathan Passmore:And a second aspect is there's also been a growth of interest around Lego and Lego Serious Play. So I thought I could bring these aspects together in a study exploring team coaching and how Lego Serious Play could be a tool to be used within a team coaching conversation, workshop day to help teams improve their performance at work, to improve the relationships between team members. So that's where we started with this particular project. Could we build a high quality scientific study, randomized control trial? And how could we do that?
Jonathan Passmore:Maybe combining in this growing popular tool of Lego Serious Play and I've done in the past a number of other similar quasi-experimental or randomized control trials because my interest here in the field of coaching is for us not only to be using it in a practical way but to be able to build the evidence to demonstrate to those critical audiences in organizations the procurement, the finance people, the HR people to say this is an intervention that works and is worth you investing your dollars in this. Hiring coaches, yes, Ezra, of course, but many other coaches to help you to improve your leadership, improve the way that your people work together, improve the well-being in your organization.
Garry Schleifer:Yeah, awesome. Thank you very much and for all the work you've done too. Seriously, like your name comes across my screen so many times, it's crazy, in a good way., I was to remind our audience who are not familiar, and I will quote right from your article, what team coaching is. It is a partnering process using coaching methodology with a group of people who share a common purpose to facilitate them reflecting on themselves, their relationships and context and thereby identify new insights, actions and ways of being to achieve their common purpose. Has that evolved over the years, or would you say that's pretty much what's been in the background as a definition, since we've learned about team coaching?
Jonathan Passmore:No, I think that the definitions are often contested spaces. There isn't a shared universal agreement of even what coaching is, and we still have conversations about that. Of course, the ICF has its definition but it's not unique.
Jonathan Passmore:The MCC and other professional bodies offer their definitions and academics, writers, have offered their definitions of what coaching is. There is broad agreement, I think, now that we've come together, that it's broadly one-to-one. It's broadly facilitative, non-directive, where we're using listening, open questions, summaries, reflections to help people develop new insights and enhance their performance and well-being at work. When it comes to team coaching, that's a whole new practice and there's confusion about, well, what is a team? Is a team a group? Are they different? Are they similar? And our view was that a team is a special type of group. A group can be a collection of people waiting at a bus stop or waiting on a platform for a train, and they might all be waiting for the same train or the same bus, and maybe they're not you can't tell. Whereas a team have a common purpose that is shared, is understood between them, and they are focused on working collectively together to deliver that shared or common purpose.
Jonathan Passmore:And that common purpose may be a series of objectives that are specific to that team. Maybe they're the payments team in an organization, processing invoices. So it may be very specific, processing the invoices, making sure the payments are correct, that there is an audit trail, that payments are done within a due date. So you have specific shared objectives there. But it might be more intangible, it might be a mission for that group of people. There might be thousands, tens of thousands of people are working collectively together to put a man or woman on the moon or to travel to Mars. So lots of mini tasks within that, but a shared vision that they have, that they're working collectively together, and that's the engineer, but also the person who's on the reception desk and the person who's sweeping up the floor and emptying the bins. Shared purpose of getting that objective achieved over a specific timeframe. So teams are that group of individuals working together to do that and of course, in modern organizations very rarely is success achieved individually. The world is complex, it's dynamic and so success comes through teams.
Garry Schleifer:Teamwork makes the dream work.
Jonathan Passmore:Lovely Garry. Lovely.
Garry Schleifer:It's a very entrepreneurial thing to say, but I think it's also a very corporate thing to say. I want to ask you, for example, but before I do, I want to add some of the things you said about the impact of coaching. You said it creates team cohesion and psychological safety. So people can read that in the article. What's the most bizarre thing you've seen that was a result of team coaching?
Jonathan Passmore:One of the common things that I have seen that sort of surprises me and I'm talking specifically about using LEGO® Serious Play is that people not only engage really actively in the process. It involves those people who often, if you're running a team, facilitation or way day, who are the people who sit at the back of the room, who sit quietly you don't contribute. It draws them in because everybody has to participate. Everybody's building a character or a construction of some form but what is peculiar about it is invariably people want to take their construction, their object, the thing that they're built away and put it on their house.
Jonathan Passmore:So when we did the follow-up to this particular study and I went and visited the individual organizations, I checked with the manager. Is everybody going to be in on Tuesday? I'll come in and we did a follow-up after around about 12 weeks to collect data to see whether the change had been sustained over time. Because of course, coaching, you might do a pre measure and a post measure immediately afterwards and people feel better. But is it a sustained change? So we went back 12 weeks later and I went into the office and many of those people still had those things on their desk.
Garry Schleifer:That would be me. I so hear myself in that. That would be me.
Jonathan Passmore:And I think people like the physicality and have a sense of ownership of what they've created and then it becomes almost a physical metaphor, an expression of what they're trying to do as their contribution towards the team. And our hypothesis was that maybe this is one aspect, but why Lego Series Play really stuck as a team intervention compared to a traditional away day, and it was funny just seeing the pieces of Lego that they played with childlike activity. But people were preserving these as something of significance to them and their team.
Garry Schleifer:Amazing. Yeah, when we were just getting warmed up in the green room, we were chuckling about our past and when we were growing up, Lego didn't have all the different colors and sizes and kits and all that sort of stuff. And yes, I'd be that guy that took it back to my desk and went this is my physical manifestation. So a couple of things out of what you just said. What else makes that using Lego different? So physical manifestation was one thing. Is there anything else that you noticed? That was different from a team coaching intervention that doesn't have Serious Play.
Jonathan Passmore:So I think the second thing that I referred to was this idea that everybody has to participate. Everybody has to build their own object. Then they have to create collectively together those pieces to tell a story. And what you see is a much more active engagement by everybody across a team, and I'm talking that these are team sizes of typically eight through 12 people, so we're not talking about 25 people. But it is possible to run Lego Serious Play. Colleagues who do this run it with 200 or 300 people. The whole system are then using thousands of pieces of Lego to craft their smaller pieces and then build them together in a story. But it encourages everyone to participate, I think is the second thing. And the third thing, it externalizes their thinking. I have to take it out from here and I can craft it, I can build it into something that represents my thinking which I then explain to others. So it acts as a medium to help people to tell their story, which sometimes for some people can be a real barrier in a way days. People don't feel comfortable talking.
Jonathan Passmore:They feel introverted yeah, absolutely, and that I think saw more openness, more genuine conversation as a result of using Lego Serious Play in those team pieces, and the final thing that I would say is it's fun and there's no wrong answers, because what you have built is what you have built, and if you think a pink piece represents the Eiffel Tower, then it represents the Eiffel Tower. That's great. It's whatever you want it to be. There's no judgment around the quality of the build or what your story you're telling connected to that piece. So in that sense, it's very liberating and fun, like playful that draws people in and allows people to experiment and to be whoever they are.
Garry Schleifer:Yeah, no, that's great, and you know, I think something else that comes to mind for me that I would imagine is possible. It's about something other than themselves. So you know, they now have this thing that they can focus on that takes them away from, well, you're doing it and this is your risk, and you know, and it really I mean I think that's what team coaching is supposed to do anyway. It's like in any disagreement or something, if you make that third entity, the thing in the room that you focus your attention on, it doesn't become personal if that were an issue with the team. Jonathan, I want to ask you something else. You use the word team coaching intervention. Why do you call it an intervention?
Jonathan Passmore:Well, I guess that's me and my psychological roots coming forward. So I'm intervening, I'm doing something actively, I've constructed a plan and now I have an intervention that I'm working with the client, based on my plan, to help them move to achieve their goals. So coaching is an intervention. It is something that I am actively doing. I have a plan and that plan might be I ask them, open questions and then I listen, see what the client says and respond in a way that helps the client to get new insights or build a plan.
Garry Schleifer:Yeah, you know, it's one of those words that when you hear it, it's like judgment. It's like, well, no, judgment, as my friend Janet Harvey says, is really discernment and we all judge. There's no getting away from it. It's in our DNA. We're judging, meaning making machines. So when you hear the word, when I heard the word intervention, I'm like, oh, that sounds like you know something really serious. But when you break down the word down to intervene, of course we're intervening to change the course of what is or isn't working or wants to be different into something else.
Jonathan Passmore:It's not what I want to be different, it's what the client wants to be different.
Garry Schleifer:Of course you're merely the intervention with a little "i". So can anybody use this Lego Serious play? Like do you have to do a certification? What's the prep?
Jonathan Passmore:It is open source so theoretically, anybody can go out, buy themselves some Lego kit and use it with a client. I would say that we get better when we're trained. We observe others, we practice ourselves, we reflect on our practice within a managed, structured, supported environment. And then we go out, practice a little bit more, reflect a little bit more, but having used the foundation of the training and there are a multiplicity of training providers that are out there and I would encourage people who are interested to check that out go and see well, maybe this is something I can enhance my practice with. Another reason that might be super attractive if people have not read it so far.
Jonathan Passmore:I published a research report just a couple of months ago looking on a global coaching survey of trends in coaching. It's available on the Henley Business School website. It's called Trends in Digital and AI, but as part of that we gather data on fee rates. It's always nice to see fee rates. How do they compare.
Garry Schleifer:Exactly.
Jonathan Passmore:So people might like to check this out. But what came top of the list Team Coaching. Highest fee rates globally.
Jonathan Passmore:Team coaching is a more advanced skill and, of course, team coaching usually is not a 45 minute or a 60 minute intervention. You might well be working across a whole day, so you might do six hours with a client. So you're not just talking about selling one hour or two or three back-to-backs, you might be selling six hours worth at a higher rate because it's more complicated. And again, I would encourage people to get trained in team coaching, get certified, but that would allow them to extend their practice. And a second reason why team coaching might be something that people are going to get interested in maybe they want to check out Henley Business School because we offer a team coaching program.
Jonathan Passmore:We've written the team book looking at the ICF competencies. But not only is it higher fee rates, but when it comes to AI, AI might well be stepping into the space of one-to-one coaching as AI tools improve in their quality over the next two or three years. Team coaching is a completely different level. It will be extremely hard for AI to master that space in the way that a human can work with a group. So this could be an area, a niche area of practice, a unique area of practice that AI is unlikely to, in the short to medium term, step in and still work.
Garry Schleifer:Right, wow. Well, thank you, because that's one of the things I learned when we did the issue on AI and coaching was that we need to be unique. We need to I don't want to say beat the machine, but we need to be better and more unique than a machine. Machines can do so much and they'll learn so much more, but, to your point, we need to be unique. Jonathan, was there anything that came to mind that you would wish you you would have written in the article, or has come to mind that you want our audience to know today?
Jonathan Passmore:Well, always with research, you think, well, what's the next step? And the next step will be to separate out team coaching and to compare team coaching that doesn't have Lego Serious Play with a facilitated team event. So that might be a future study and that will be very interesting to do, because what we did is combine team coaching with Lego Serious Play. So let's pull them apart. What impact might that have? And, of course, I've got a whole host of other randomized control trial ways of experimental studies. One I'm just writing up today, Garry, comparing AI coach bot performance with human coaches.
Jonathan Passmore:So we had a sample of human coaches evaluated by the clients and an AI coach bot evaluated by the clients. So look out for that article that's going to be coming out.
Garry Schleifer:Wow, well, I hope you let us know about that one. I'd love to get something published in choice about that as a follow up. That'd be great. Jonathan, other than what you wrote in your takeaway tips in the article, what else would you like our audience to do as a result of this article and the conversation? I always like to give them actionable items.
Jonathan Passmore:Well, so number one number one, I would say, is stay in touch with developing trends. So read widely, continue to have an open mind about how technology and other tools of practice are impacting on coaching, so you can be choiceful about which areas you develop in. Second thing that I would say is, go and experiment with team coaching, go and get some training in this and maybe then add Lego Serious Play to this because this could be another string to your bow. And the third thing that I would say is, if you haven't already tried or read some of the articles that I publish, maybe go and check out my personal website, Jonathan Passmore. com, or connect to me on LinkedIn because I publish, for free, lots of this content. So there are hundreds of articles and research reports, technical manuals that are on that website that are free. I just give it away because I believe the knowledge should be something we share to improve our whole community's practice.
Garry Schleifer:Well, thank you very much for your generosity and thank you for all the work that you've done, the work that you're doing, for just being you, your lighthearted self, I love it, your generosity and for writing this article, and for joining us on this podcast.
Jonathan Passmore:Garry, it's a pleasure, remember.
Garry Schleifer:You can reach Jonathan at jonathanpassmore. com or go, like most people do, to LinkedIn. That's it for this episode of Beyond the Page. For more episodes, subscribe to your favorite podcast app that led you here. If you're not a subscriber, you can sign up free for a digital issue of choice by. Let's see if I can do this. No, oh, there we go. You can scan the QR code over there or go to our website, choice-online. com, and click the sign up now button. I'm Garry Schleifer. Enjoy the journey of mastery. Thanks again, Jonathan.
Jonathan Passmore:Thank you, Garry.