Tuning Up The Whole Team
Teams are more than the sum of their parts
Individual or Team Development?
A team of capable leaders does not automatically become a capable leadership team.
Often we know this logically, but not intuitively. We’ve seen the posters about teamwork, we know the leadership quotes about collaboration as invaluable, we celebrate when a sports team comes together to push for victory at the end of a tense movie.
But when the inspiration fades, we return to reality and continue to push individual development, individual achievement, and individual solutions. On a team of leaders, one may get coached, another attends a conference, one more goes to a retreat…then they all return to the same table to play out the same patterns and live in unspoken dynamics with unresolved conflict.
Individual development is genuinely valuable, but there are limits. It can’t reach what happens between people, particularly when it goes on unspoken or unresolved.
It may look like silos that people have slowly formed, which are now fully entrenched blocks to most projects. It could be the meeting after the meeting where the real conversation happens. Maybe it’s the feedback that everyone knows should be given, but no one feels safe raising their voice.
These are relational and systemic problems. They exist between individuals, not with them. This is where group work excels.
Working on the Team as a Whole
Group coaching allows a team to experience open space together, to be able to name and address the patterns that derail genuine teamwork. It’s not about pointing fingers or judging the situation — all teams will inevitably run into friction, which will naturally grow without careful attention. Instead, it’s about recommitting to the common goals, seeing the humanity in one another, and feeling safe to improve the sticky patterns that keep teams struggling.
High psychological safety is the single best predictor that a team will perform well, and group coaching is a place to open that safety in a structured environment, then develop the tools to maintain it into the future. For most teams, this feels like finally putting down the 50-pound backpack that has been plaguing them as they try to move forward.
With cohesion, a team can become much, much more than the sum of its parts.