Nuances in Fostering Purposeful Teams
The nuances of language, structure, and narrative intrigue and influence my continuous learning and practice as a leadership and systemic team coach. While in partnership with a co-coach and a client team, the following three case studies across various sectors feature these nuances and reflective learning in fostering purpose-led teams who embody a systemic perspective.
Health Care
In partnership with a team of nurse educators, we adopted the language of ‘Value Proposition’ to emerge shared purpose.
We explored personal values, team values and observed the connection across personal, team and organizational values, blending Clarifying, Co-Creating and Core Learning disciplines of Peter Hawkins’ “5 Disciplines of High Performance Teams”. Team sessions on ‘Walking in the shoes of’ those who were most impacted - interest holder groups - by their work as a team were highly emotional. We surfaced deeply held values of service to others, compassion, and cross-collaboration. Team members gained refreshed perspective across impacted interest-holder groups: nurse educators, nursing manager, care team member, and patients.
Bringing the Commissioning discipline to the forefront, the sessions on ‘walking in the shoes of...’ were poignantly enlightening and painful for the reality of the pandemic. Team members began to visualize their shared purpose and see how they were working on many of the same things. They verbalized what they have in common and different and began to formulate a shared purpose statement.
Reflective Learning
Being with the emotions, and holding the pauses, these moments are where the learning was most fertile. Fading our presence gradually, team members explored learning edges together in the moment. Less is more. Less questions. More creation of courageous space for shared learning. We noticed when the team began to collaborate more authentically, they saw their world differently. Shared vulnerability was most powerful. Creating the conditions for courageous expression, we applied ‘Brave Space’. This fostered deeper conversations, surfaced underlying values, purpose and vulnerabilities.
As a marketing professional, Value Proposition is a comfort zone. And it is in the teams’ ‘hands’ to emerge their expression of values, value proposition and what emerges as their shared purpose. Here was an opportunity to unlearn and let go of what I know to hold the space and pauses for team expression.
Cultural and Community Centre
We adopted accessible language of guiding principles in setting up working agreements in partnering with a senior leadership team. We asked: ‘Who do we serve?’ during interest-holder mapping. We transitioned to creating a Team Charter, newer language for this team.
We primarily applied the Clarifying and Connecting disciplines of the 5-Disciplines Model of Effective teams, Core Learning was active throughout. We held multiple sessions on the team charter, interest-holder mapping and conducted one-to-one interviews with the team and their staff. The sticky point was a reluctance to explore beyond the inner team to broader interest-holders. The team narrative was a belief that they won’t know what they do, so how could they contribute? We felt frustration. This is precisely the point! That said, my co-coach found an empowering and illustrative resource: ‘The Orpheus Model’[1]. This broke the pattern of insular thinking.
The resulting dialogue resonated and shifted perspective, helping them relate greater to their interconnectedness and interdependence across interest-holder groups. What emerged was a willingness to continue exploring. We created a Google form team survey for team members and staff, based on the 5 disciplines. The results revealed internal communication gaps and cross-collaboration opportunities. We explored: “What’s connected and disconnected?” and aligned on “What’s the ‘truest’ thing that we most need to work on?”
An in-person team day culminated our work, attended by the senior leaders and staff members. It was during this session that we brought the broader stakeholders “into the room”. The structure resembled footsteps across the team’s journey:
Who are we? – Exploring Superpowers
What did we learn about us? – Team Survey Highlights
How do we want to be, together? – Walking in the Shoes of External Stakeholders
Action Plan – Emergent from steps 1-3
We surfaced the team narrative related to and across each of the 5 disciplines. Illuminating the Commissioning, Core Learning and Connecting disciplines, with a circle taped to the floor for ‘walking in the shoes of…’, each wedge represented an external interest-holder. Adapting the ‘Metaskill’ exercise from ORSC, each team member named, embodied, and voiced, in first person: “What’s it like to walk in the shoes of…? and “What we need from each other?”, fostering spontaneous expression to explore their connections and purpose within their broader eco-system.
Reflective Learning
Through SuperVision, we explored our frustration in their reluctance to involve their external partners / interest-holders. We found within us a curiousity to be with what is, being with the resistance. This perspective allowed us to continue to be of service, surface where they were most stuck, and build deeper trust. We noticed a parallel process, where we were each stuck. This edge became an opportunity for deeper learning to be with what is and emerge the rest, with time.
Economic Development Agency
Engaging with a CEO eager to achieve team integration, the opportunity for the ‘team in the making’ was to see themselves collectively accountable for their successful integration.
The CEO’s request, and narrative, was to help the senior leaders be a real team: “Our vision is to be lived, breathed, and felt beyond contractual understanding, a lived experience felt across interest-holders, embedded in our DNA.”
Within the inquiry phase an established relationship and effective past team coaching experience accelerated scoping, commitment to invest and contracting a ten-month engagement.
Check out the full case published in the 3rd Edition of “Leadership Team Coaching in Practice - Case Studies on Creating Highly Effective Teams” Edited by Peter Hawkins.
My deepest re-learning across the case studies was the power of integrating a structure with spontaneous in-the-moment exploration. Holding the silence. Going with the flow of the emergent. Being with curiousity in what shows up. These ways of being provided depth and differentiated dialogues awaiting to be revealed. There’s magic in being prepared and making the best of the unexpected; the dance between observer and participant and tapping ‘self-as-instrument’.
“No matter where you go, there you are.” ~ Unknown