Team coaching · Atlas

1. Introduction

Version followed: Peter Hawkins' Systemic Team Coaching (Five Disciplines model and the CID-CLEAR engagement cycle, as in Leadership Team Coaching, 3rd ed., ch. 6, and AoEC training material). It is supplemented by Hackman, Wageman and Fisher's timing model (2009), Clutterbuck's seven-stage team coaching process framework (GTCI handout, 2020), the ICF Team Coaching Competencies (2020), and, for the coaching–therapy boundary, the ICF referral resource and the Global Code of Ethics (v4, 2025).

Team coaching is a coaching model, not a psychotherapy. The client is the team as a whole, and the aims are collective performance and collective leadership. Treating individual members' psychological difficulties is outside its scope. ICF defines it as "a co-creative and reflective process with a team and its dynamics" aimed at shared goals [source: ICF Team Coaching Competencies]. Hawkins defines systemic team coaching as coaching a whole team "both when they are together and when they are apart". It covers the team's internal functioning and its engagement with stakeholders and the wider business [source: AoEC Making teams work 2020; Wikipedia, Systemic Team Coaching].

How change happens, as these authors describe it:

Hawkins: a team creates value when it is more than the sum of its parts. It does so through five interconnected disciplines. The coach helps the team see and interrupt its own patterns, works "outside-in" (starting from stakeholders) and "future-back" (starting from future scenarios), and builds the team's capacity to keep learning without the coach [source: Hawkins ch. 6].
Hackman, Wageman and Fisher: coaching helps only once a team has a sound basic design. It works best at predictable moments: launch, midpoint and end [source: Hackman, Wageman & Fisher 2009].

For a psychotherapist this is a change of role. You work with a work system on its task, not with individuals on their mental health. Section 5 sets out where the boundary lies and when to refer.

2. Framework

Sources differ on how to stage an engagement. The sequence below follows Hawkins' CID-CLEAR as the main structure. Clutterbuck's stages and Hackman's timing points are mapped onto it. [source: readingraphics summary of Hawkins, Leadership Team Coaching; Clutterbuck GTCI handout; Hackman, Wageman & Fisher 2009]

Typical format. An engagement means working with the whole team over time, both live and between meetings. Hawkins says team coaching is "never just a series of events or away-days" [source: AoEC 2020]. Clutterbuck's framework describes at least four whole-team sessions over 6–12 months [source: Clutterbuck handout]. AoEC suggests re-assessing team effectiveness at 6, 9 or 12 months [source: AoEC 2020]. The format typically mixes several elements [source: Hawkins ch. 6; AoEC 2020]:

off-site workshops
live coaching in the team's ordinary meetings
sponsor and stakeholder interviews
coaching around stakeholder engagement events
individual coaching, especially for the team leader

Session lengths are not specified in the sources [uncertain].

Phase A: Contracting 1, with the team leader and sponsor (Hawkins "C"; Clutterbuck stages 1–2: preparation, scoping and contracting)

Goals:
- Establish what performance means in this context.
- Check readiness and willingness for coaching.
- Agree goals, timescales and how outcomes will be measured.
- Map the barriers to and drivers of success.
- Explain what team coaching is and is not.
- Agree confidentiality, including the status of private one-to-one conversations.
- Agree how ownership of the process will move from coach to leader to team.
- Agree whether a co-coach will be used. [source: Clutterbuck handout; ICF competency 3]
Move on when the leader and sponsor have agreed a written outline and the team has been told the engagement's purpose [synthesis].

Phase B: Inquiry, then Diagnosis/Discovery and Design (Hawkins "I" and "D")

Goals: gather data on the team as it functions now, then design the coaching from that data.
Methods [source: Hawkins ch. 6; AoEC STCC info sheet 2024]:
- interviews with members, sponsors and stakeholders
- team questionnaires, such as the high-value-creating team questionnaire or TeamConnect 360
- observation of team meetings
The summary expands "D" as "Discovery". Some secondary accounts use "Diagnosis and Design" [uncertain].
Move on when the data has been fed back to the team and a coaching focus has been agreed with it [synthesis].

Phase C: the CLEAR cycle with the whole team (repeats across sessions)

CLEAR comes from Hawkins and Smith (2006). It was adapted for teams as Contracting 2, Listening, Exploring and Experimenting, Action, Review [source: hotpmo CLEAR summary; readingraphics].

Contracting 2: agree with the whole team the outcomes for this phase and the ground rules.
Listening: understand the situation from the team's own accounts, beyond what documents say.
Exploring and experimenting: first examine the current impact of the team's patterns, then what is possible, trying new ways of working in the room.
Action: the team decides on actions jointly. The coach does not prescribe them.
Review: review progress and the coaching process itself.

Clutterbuck adds a step at the start: early sessions teach basic "learning dialogue" skills (process skills development). He reviews the process briefly at the end of every session and in more depth every third session [source: Clutterbuck handout].

Hackman timing overlay [source: Hackman, Wageman & Fisher 2009]

Point	Coaching type	Main focus
Launch	Motivational	Effort
Calendar midpoint	Consultative	Performance strategy
End of a performance period	Educational	Members' knowledge and skill

Between these points, use small real-time interventions when problems emerge.

Phase D: Process transfer and outcomes review (Clutterbuck stages 6–7)

The team takes over leadership of its own coaching conversations through peer coaching and self-coaching.
The team evaluates what the coaching achieved and reports outcomes to senior management [source: Clutterbuck handout].
Hawkins' aim is a team that keeps learning after the coach leaves [source: Hawkins ch. 6].
End when the agreed outcomes have been reviewed, the team runs its own reviews and stakeholders have been consulted. Re-contract or close at that point [synthesis].

The Five Disciplines structure what is worked on in Phases B–D. They are interdependent and not a sequence [source: Wikipedia; Hawkins ch. 6; AoEC 2020].

Commissioning (external task): what the team's sponsors and stakeholders require of it, and why the team exists.
Clarifying (internal task): shared purpose, strategy, values, vision, objectives and roles, set out in a team charter. Key question: what can the team achieve that it could not by working in parallel?
Co-creating (internal process): how the team works together generatively, including its meetings, dynamics and culture.
Connecting (external process): how the team and each member engage stakeholders on behalf of the whole team.
Core learning (integration): how the team learns, unlearns and develops as a collective.

3. Guiding principles

The team is the client. Hear every member, but serve the collective. In practice, avoid any appearance of siding with a subgroup or individual [source: ICF competency 1].
Systemic and outside-in. Start from what stakeholders need. Bring their voices into the room before working on internal relationships [source: Hawkins ch. 6].
Future-back. Ask what the future will require of the team, not only what went wrong before [source: Hawkins ch. 6].
The "third way" between directive and non-directive. Use inquiry that reframes how the team sees its work. Neither tell nor just follow [source: Hawkins ch. 6].
Process consultant, not facilitator. Observe the team's real meetings and step in occasionally with time-outs. Do not run the agenda [source: Hawkins ch. 6]. ICF places facilitation on the surface and team coaching deeper, in subsurface dynamics [source: ICF].
Coach the connections between disciplines. When a process problem appears, check whether it comes from an unclear task or commission [source: Hawkins ch. 6].
Task focus first. Hackman and colleagues found that relationship-focused interventions often fail to improve performance. Address interpersonal issues only where they are reducing effort, strategy or the use of members' skills. Conflict about how to do the work can be productive [source: Hackman, Wageman & Fisher 2009].
Design before coaching. Coaching cannot rescue a poorly designed team. First check five conditions: a real team, a compelling direction, an enabling structure, a supportive context, then expert coaching. A persistently dysfunctional team may need a "re-launch" with a new design [source: Hackman, Wageman & Fisher 2009].
Timing. Make the main interventions at launch, the midpoint and the end. Teams are most receptive then [source: Hackman, Wageman & Fisher 2009].
Participative by default, directive when needed. Ask questions by default. Become directive only when the team is stuck or heading for disaster, and use it to widen the team's view [source: Hackman, Wageman & Fisher 2009; ICF competency 1].
Transparency about roles. Keep coaching, consulting, training and therapy distinct. Say which hat you are wearing [source: ICF competency 1].
Turn communication back to the team. When members address you, redirect them to each other [source: ICF competencies 4 and 6].
Do not get pulled into the system. Stay aware of power, alliances and disputes. Use supervision, which is especially important for team coaches [source: ICF competency 2; Global Code of Ethics s.4].
Ownership transfers. From the start, plan for the team to run its own coaching through peer coaching and self-coaching [source: ICF competency 3; Clutterbuck handout].
Reflect when things go well, not only in crisis. Fear and conflict make patterns harder to see and change [source: Hawkins ch. 6].
Commitment, not agreement. Watch for nonverbal reluctance. If the shift does not happen in the room, it will not happen outside it [source: Hawkins ch. 6].
Work within competence and refer. Coaching is not counselling, psychotherapy or medical intervention. Refer when needs exceed the coaching agreement [source: Global Code of Ethics; ICF referral resource]. A psychotherapist acting as team coach must not switch into therapy with a member during or alongside the engagement [synthesis].

4. Intervention inventory

The inventory is grouped by phase and by Hawkins' Five Disciplines.

Sources: most interventions are from Hawkins, Leadership Team Coaching 3rd ed., ch. 6. The timing interventions are from Hackman, Wageman and Fisher (2009). The process stages are from Clutterbuck's GTCI framework. Contracting and referral rules are from ICF.
Example language: all example wording is illustrative unless quoted.
Licensed tools: TeamConnect 360 and the high-value-creating team questionnaire are described here, not reproduced.

4.1 Contracting and set-up

Contracting with the leader and sponsor (Contracting 1)

Purpose: agree the engagement before meeting the team. Use at the start, and again whenever the sponsor, the team's membership or its mandate changes. [source: ICF competency 3; Clutterbuck stages 1–2]
Steps:
1. Explain how team coaching differs from training, consulting, mentoring and facilitation.
2. Agree team goals, how success will be measured, and the timescale.
3. Agree who the client is (the team) and what the sponsor will receive, such as process-level reports and no individual disclosures.
4. Agree the confidentiality rules for team sessions and for any one-to-one conversations.
5. Agree the limits of confidentiality: illegality and risk of harm to self or others [source: Global Code of Ethics].
6. Agree how ownership will pass from the coach to the leader and then to the team.
7. Agree whether a co-coach will be used.
8. State that coaching is not therapy and that you will suggest other help if it seems needed [source: ICF referral resource].
Example language (illustrative): "I'll be working for the team as a whole, not for you or any one member. You'll hear from me about how the team is working, never what an individual said to me privately."
Watch for:
- a sponsor who wants an assessment of individuals
- a leader who wants the coach to deliver hard messages for them
- pressure to begin without agreed outcomes

Readiness check and the five conditions

Purpose: decide whether coaching is the right intervention at all. Coaching helps most when four conditions are already in place: a real team, a compelling direction, an enabling structure and a supportive context. [source: Hackman, Wageman & Fisher 2009; Clutterbuck stage 1]
Steps:
1. Ask the leader about each condition: Is membership clear and stable? Is there a shared task that needs members to depend on each other? Is the direction clear and challenging? Do the team's structure and organisational support enable the work?
2. Check the team's willingness and readiness for coaching.
3. If basic design is missing, recommend a launch or re-launch rather than coaching.
Example language (illustrative): "Before we work on how you meet, can we check what this team exists to do that none of you could do alone?"
Watch for: a "team" that is in fact a group of individuals reporting to a hub. The coaching target then becomes the design, not the team's relationships.

Inquiry and diagnosis (I-D)

Purpose: gather data from several perspectives, then design the coaching from it. [source: Hawkins ch. 6; AoEC 2024; readingraphics]
Steps:
1. Interview each member and key sponsors and stakeholders.
2. Run a team diagnostic, such as the high-value-creating team questionnaire or the licensed TeamConnect 360. Feed back averaged scores and their spread, not individual answers.
3. Observe one or more ordinary team meetings.
4. Arrange the themes under the Five Disciplines.
5. Present the data to the team as material for inquiry, not as a verdict.
6. With the team, agree two or three focus areas.
Example language (illustrative): "Here is what I heard and saw, organised by the five areas. What strikes you? What's missing?"
Watch for:
- a wide spread of scores, which often signals subgroups
- members trying to identify who said what

Contracting with the whole team (Contracting 2) and team norms

Purpose: gain the whole team's ownership of the goals and agree ways of working in sessions. [source: ICF competencies 3 and 4; Hawkins CLEAR]
Steps:
1. Restate the purpose of the engagement and the confidentiality rules.
2. Invite the team to propose its own norms, such as speaking for oneself, challenging ideas rather than people, and what may be repeated outside the room.
3. Record the norms and schedule regular reviews of them.
4. Agree how the coach will intervene, for example with time-outs.
Example language (illustrative): "What would need to be true in this room for you to say what you actually think?"
Watch for: norms imposed by the leader, and silence from the quieter members.

Process skills development (learning dialogue)

Purpose: teach the team basic reflective dialogue skills early in the engagement. [source: Clutterbuck stage 3]
Steps: The source names this stage without detailing its content. A practical version follows [synthesis]:
1. Introduce a few dialogue practices: inquire before advocating, build on others' points, and allow reflective pauses.
2. Have the team practise them on a live but low-stakes topic.
3. Debrief what helped.
Watch for: rapid-fire debate in which nobody asks a question.

4.2 Commissioning (external task)

Sponsor interviews with "guess first" feedback

Purpose: bring out what sponsors value and want changed, and turn their feedback into a dialogue. Use early in an engagement, or when the team's mandate is unclear. [source: Hawkins ch. 6]
Steps:
1. Interview sponsors: what they appreciate about the team, what the team should deliver, what should be different, and how the relationship could improve.
2. Before you feed back, have the team predict what the sponsors said and list the questions it wants answered.
3. Tailor the feedback to those questions and predictions.
4. Plan a follow-up conversation between the team and its sponsors.
Example language (illustrative): "Before I share what your sponsors said, what do you expect they told me? What would you most want to know?"
Watch for: defensiveness when feedback is delivered cold. Building curiosity first reduces it.

Joint board–executive ("co-missioning") workshop

Purpose: create purpose, strategy, values and vision with sponsors and the team together. Use during mergers or major redefinitions. [source: Hawkins ch. 6]
Steps:
1. Convene board members and executives from all relevant parts of the organisation.
2. Run structured dialogue on purpose, strategy, values and vision.
3. Capture a shared draft.
Watch for: large groups (Hawkins' example had over 30 people) bring politics and mistrust. Use small mixed subgroups [synthesis].

Roots-and-future purpose inquiry

Purpose: discover the team's purpose rather than invent it. Use when the team has lost sight of why it exists. [source: Hawkins ch. 6]
Steps:
1. Ask why the organisation or team was founded.
2. Ask what that founding intent would demand now.
3. Bring in stakeholders to describe the challenges they see emerging.
4. Draft a purpose statement.
Example language (illustrative): "If the people who set this team up walked in today, what would they ask of you?"
Watch for: purpose drifting into goals and targets. Hawkins treats those as milestones, not purpose.

Commissioning–clarifying "dance"

Purpose: gain sponsor endorsement of the team's self-defined purpose. [source: Hawkins ch. 6]
Steps:
1. The team clarifies its purpose internally.
2. The team takes the draft to sponsors and stakeholders.
3. The team incorporates their feedback.
4. Repeat until both sides endorse it.
Watch for:
- a team that accepts its commission with resentment
- a mission that has drifted from what sponsors expect

4.3 Clarifying (internal task)

Team charter

Purpose: agree a shared purpose, strategy, core values, a two-year vision, and roles. Use when setting up a team or re-clarifying one. [source: Hawkins ch. 6]
Steps:
1. Each member writes three to five bullet points under each heading: purpose, strategy (distinctive capabilities), core values and a two-year vision.
2. Build the bullets into a shared version using the collective build method (next).
3. Add roles and decide who owns which commitments.
Example language (illustrative): "Two years from now, if you had succeeded, what would stakeholders see and hear?"
Watch for: generic statements that could belong to any team.

Collective build

Purpose: use diverse views while avoiding groupthink. [source: Hawkins ch. 6]
Steps:
1. Give individual thinking time.
2. One person (start with a quieter member) offers their top bullet point.
3. Others immediately add statements that build on it.
4. When the thread is exhausted, someone starts a new one. Repeat.
Watch for: one person reading out a finished answer. Interrupt this and return to building.

Parallel charters (board and executive)

Purpose: produce a joint statement richer than either group would write alone. [source: Hawkins ch. 6]
Steps:
1. Each group drafts separately: the executive team its charter, the board its expectations.
2. The groups exchange drafts.
3. In dialogue, the groups create a third, joint version.
Watch for: one side treating the other's draft as something to correct rather than build on.

Strategy and action questions

Purpose: turn the charter into strategy, objectives and actions. [source: Hawkins ch. 6]
Steps: Work through these questions in order:
1. How will we fulfil our purpose in each strategic area, true to our values and moving towards our vision?
2. What milestones and scorecard will show progress?
3. Which work belongs to the whole team, which to subgroups, and which to individuals?
4. How will we balance business as usual with transformation?
Watch for: every item landing on the "whole team" list. That is a sign roles are unclear.

Wider team charter

Purpose: collect in one document the team's working agreements, transformational KPIs, and required and prohibited behaviours. [source: Hawkins ch. 6]
Steps:
1. Compile the agreed charter, KPIs and behavioural agreements in one place.
2. Review the document at set intervals.

Launch coaching (Hackman)

Purpose: motivational coaching at the start of a team or a performance period. [source: Hackman, Wageman & Fisher 2009]
Steps:
1. Set out a specific, challenging goal, attached to something meaningful.
2. Help members commit to the work.
3. Do not let the team debate detailed work strategy yet. That belongs at the midpoint.
Watch for: a launch that turns into a long, early debate about method.

4.4 Co-creating (internal process)

Commit–check–close cycle

Purpose: turn the team's commitments into practice. Hawkins cites this cycle from Moussa et al. He says that where psychological safety is low, the safety work below should come first. [source: Hawkins ch. 6]
Steps:
1. Commit: clarify the charter and its targets.
2. Check: at each meeting, compare progress against the commitments.
3. Close: agree actions to close the gap.
Watch for: checking that turns into blaming individuals.

Meeting redesign

Purpose: make meetings focused on outcomes and on creating value. Most teams need this early in the engagement. [source: Hawkins ch. 6]
Steps: choose the options that fit the team.
1. Cut meetings: attend only those with a stated outcome and a clear contribution to make.
2. Set top outcomes: agree the top three outcomes at the start and spend about 80% of the time on them.
3. Separate modes: keep information sharing, generative dialogue and decision-making apart, and give dialogue the most time.
4. Weed the agenda: send subgroup items to sub-meetings and information to written updates.
5. Licence challenge: for example, a "yellow card" for any item without a clear purpose.
6. Use time-outs to notice the team's dynamics.
7. Check in and check out: personal engagement at the start, commitments at the end.
8. Front page each item: why it is here, the outcome wanted, its connections and the next step.
9. Stakeholder chairs: empty chairs that represent customers, investors, employees, future generations and the ecology.
10. Close properly: before leaving, confirm agreements and what will be communicated, and rehearse the message if needed.
11. Review regularly what creates value in the meetings, without letting the review become a ritual.
Example language (illustrative): "Whose voice is this chair holding? What would they say about the decision you just made?"
Watch for: the team believing that good meetings equal a good team. Hawkins lists this as a trap.

Live coaching in team meetings (time-outs)

Purpose: help the team try new processes and handle its dynamics in real work. This is what Hackman calls the unpredictable, Type II coaching moment. [source: Hawkins ch. 6; Hackman, Wageman & Fisher 2009]
Steps:
1. Sit in on an ordinary meeting.
2. Observe and listen.
3. At agreed points, or when a pattern repeats, call a short time-out.
4. Name what you observed and ask the team what it notices.
5. Return to the agenda.
6. Keep interventions modest when the team is basically well designed.
Example language (illustrative): "Can I pause you for a moment? In the last ten minutes three proposals were made and none was responded to. What do you notice?"
Watch for:
- over-intervening
- attending only to dramatic moments at the expense of effort, strategy and use of skills

Team culture workshop

Purpose: identify which parts of the team's culture enable it and which block it. [source: Hawkins ch. 6]
Steps: Give the team structured prompts on its culture, sort what it finds into enabling and blocking, and choose what to change [synthesis on the detail].
Watch for: a list of complaints about the organisation with no team ownership.

Diversity workshop

Purpose: recognise, value and make use of differences in identity, thinking style, psychological type and role. [source: Hawkins ch. 6]
Steps: Use dialogue or experiential exercises to surface the differences, then ask how the team could use each one.
Watch for: members being pressed to disclose more personal identity information than they choose [synthesis].

High-value-creating team questionnaire

Purpose: a shared baseline across the Five Disciplines. [source: Hawkins ch. 6]
Steps:
1. Members complete the questionnaire.
2. Feed back averaged scores and their spread.
3. The team chooses areas to improve.
4. Re-run the questionnaire at review.
Watch for: a large spread on an item. Explore it before averaging it away.

Team sculpt and "cartoons" of the team

Purpose: bring deeper dynamics to the surface non-verbally. AoEC also teaches "virtual sculpting" for remote teams. [source: Hawkins ch. 6; AoEC 2024]
Steps ("floating" team sculpt): Members position themselves, or objects, in relation to each other and to the team's task to represent how things are. The team then reflects on what the arrangement shows. Exact sculpt instructions are not given in the source text, so this procedure is [synthesis].
Steps (cartoons):
1. Small groups draw the team as it was a year ago, as it is today, and as it could be a year ahead.
2. Groups show the drawings to each other.
3. The team discusses what changed and what it wants.
Watch for: strong emotion. Sculpting is an experiential method close to psychodrama. Keep the focus on the team's work patterns and do not deepen into members' personal histories [synthesis].

Unwritten rules inquiry

Purpose: make the team's implicit norms visible. [source: Hawkins ch. 6]
Steps:
1. Ask members, alone or in pairs, to complete prompts such as "Around here you never…" or "To get on in this team you must…" (illustrative wording).
2. Gather the answers and look for themes.
3. Ask which rules help the team and which hinder it.
Watch for: rules that protect the leader. Raise these with the leader first if needed.

Team "interruptions" diagnosis

Purpose: find what stops the team being more than the sum of its parts. [source: Hawkins ch. 6]
Steps:
1. Present Hawkins' list of common interruptions:
  - unclear collective focus
  - low psychological safety
  - recurring either-or debates (a third repeat means the team is asking the wrong question)
  - top-down accountability only, with the team working as hub and spokes
  - parallel process, where the team treats others as it is treated
  - seeking agreement rather than commitment
  - agenda-driven rather than outcome-driven meetings
  - believing good meetings equal a good team
  - ignoring the "smell of the dead elk" (an issue everyone knows about and nobody raises)
2. Alternatively, present Lencioni's five dysfunctions.
3. In small groups, members say which traps they recognise and give examples.
4. The team chooses which ones to work on.
Example language (illustrative): "This is the third time you've argued 'centralise or devolve'. What question might you be avoiding?"
Watch for: recognising the traps without committing to anything.

Psychological safety assessment

Purpose: measure and discuss how safe it feels to take interpersonal risks in the team. [source: Hawkins ch. 6]
Steps:
1. Run a psychological safety questionnaire anonymously.
2. Feed back the results.
3. Ask what makes it more or less safe to speak.
4. Agree changes to the team's behaviour.
Watch for: scores that differ by seniority. The leader often rates safety higher than members do [synthesis].

Secrets exercise

Purpose: make unspoken issues collective without exposing who raised them. [source: Hawkins ch. 6]
Steps:
1. Each member anonymously writes down an issue that is not being addressed.
2. Shuffle the slips and hand them out again.
3. Each person speaks to the issue they received as if it were their own.
4. The team discusses the themes.
Watch for:
- disclosures of misconduct, harassment or personal crisis. These need a different process (HR, legal, safeguarding or clinical), not team dialogue. Agree beforehand that issues about named individuals' wrongdoing or health are excluded [synthesis].
- handwriting identifying the author. Use typed or verbal collection [synthesis].

Extra-contractual agreements (low-trust teams)

Purpose: add explicit safety rules where trust is very low. [source: Hawkins ch. 6]
Steps:
1. Propose a specific agreement, for example that the coach may interrupt any blaming statement.
2. Get every member's assent.
3. Apply the agreement consistently.
Example language (illustrative): "I'm going to stop you there, as we agreed. Can you say what you need from Sam instead of what Sam did wrong?"

Working through Lencioni's dysfunction pyramid

Purpose: a structured route through trust, conflict, commitment, accountability and results. Hawkins lists it as one psychological-safety option. [source: Hawkins ch. 6]
Steps: Lencioni's own procedures are not drawn on here [uncertain]. A practical version [synthesis]:
1. Introduce the five levels.
2. Have the team rate itself on each one.
3. Start work at the lowest level that is weak.

Appreciative inquiry (sentence completion)

Purpose: explore dynamics from a strengths basis. Suited to mature teams. [source: Hawkins ch. 6]
Steps:
1. Members privately complete prompts: the team's unwritten rules, what they enjoy, what they are proud of, what the team avoids, and when it is at its best and its worst.
2. Members share their answers.
3. Each member receives feedback on which of their contributions are valued and which are difficult.
4. Each member says what they want to be different in the team.
5. Close with stop, start and continue actions.
Watch for: feedback that turns into attack. Use the norms and the coach's licence to interrupt.

Contribution Grid

Hawkins refers to it (book ch. 17), but its content is [uncertain]. Not described here.

Three-way sort

Purpose: turn insight into a prioritised development plan. [source: Hawkins ch. 6]
Steps:
1. Put up three flipcharts: "hold on to and build on", "stop doing" and "start doing".
2. Split the team into three subgroups, one per chart. Each brainstorms for about 5 minutes, then rotates.
3. In the second and third rounds, groups build on and sharpen what is there. They do not cross anything out.
4. Return each group to its first chart.
5. Everyone prioritises with five stars each.
Watch for: vague items such as "communicate better". Ask what that would look like on Monday.

Midpoint review (Hackman)

Purpose: consultative coaching on performance strategy at the calendar midpoint. [source: Hackman, Wageman & Fisher 2009]
Steps:
1. Hold a structured mid-course review: what is working, what is not, and what to do differently in the second half.
2. Consider bringing in outsiders who have solved similar problems.
3. Do not use this point to teach new skills.
Example language (illustrative): "You're halfway through. If you carried on exactly as now, where would you land? What would you change?"

Re-launch

Purpose: for a persistently dysfunctional team, redesign rather than repair. [source: Hackman, Wageman & Fisher 2009]
Steps: Return to the readiness conditions. Redesign membership, direction or structure with the leader and sponsor. Then hold a new launch.

4.5 Connecting (external process)

Stakeholder mapping

Purpose: identify who the team creates value with and for, and the state of each relationship. [source: Hawkins ch. 6]
Steps:
1. Post the broad stakeholder segments.
2. Name the critical groups within each segment.
3. Name the individuals who link the team to each group.
4. Colour-code each relationship: green (ally or ambassador), amber (neutral) or red (problematic).
5. Extend the map with the "13th fairy": stakeholders the team is wilfully blind to. Hawkins' example is BP's failure to see East Coast fishermen as stakeholders.
6. Extend it with the "seventh generation": future generations and the legacy the team wants to leave.
Example language (illustrative): "Who isn't on this map who could derail you?"
Watch for:
- maps that list only internal or friendly stakeholders
- red relationships owned by a single member

TeamConnect 360

Purpose: show how the team as a whole is seen by its critical stakeholders and its own members, against both groups' aspirations. It is a licensed online tool, available after AoEC certification. [source: AoEC 2020; AoEC 2024; Hawkins ch. 6]
Steps:
1. Agree with the team which stakeholders to invite.
2. Run the survey.
3. Review the report with the team, comparing how it sees itself with how stakeholders see it.
4. Agree priorities.
Watch for: the team discounting stakeholder views. Return to the guess-first method.

Stakeholder inquiry conversations

Purpose: the team gathers direct data itself instead of relying on the coach. [source: Hawkins ch. 6]
Steps:
1. Coach members to prepare open questions.
2. Pairs of members interview key stakeholders.
3. Pairs bring the data back to the team for collective sense-making.
Example language (illustrative), questions for stakeholders: "What do you need from us that you're not getting? What should we stop doing?"

Engagement ladder

Purpose: choose the right level of engagement for each stakeholder. [source: Hawkins ch. 6]
The levels:
1. Informing: one-way and factual; builds knowledge.
2. Communicating: two-way discussion; builds understanding.
3. Engaging: collaborative contribution; builds ownership.
4. Partnering: working as equals on what neither can do alone.
Steps: For each key stakeholder, the team decides the current level and the level needed, then plans how to close the gap.

Individual authority, presence and impact

Purpose: strengthen each member's ability to represent the whole team. [source: Hawkins ch. 6; AoEC 2020]
Steps:
1. Members self-assess their authority, presence, impact and ability to engage others.
2. They compare this with feedback from colleagues and any 360 data.
3. Each member sets one development goal.
Watch for: feedback that strays into personal criticism. Keep it tied to the member's team role.

Engagement event rehearsal and pitch-side coaching

Purpose: improve the team's live engagement with stakeholders. [source: Hawkins ch. 6]
Steps:
1. The team designs the event, such as a roadshow, board presentation or customer meeting.
2. The team rehearses, with feedback from members and the coach.
3. During the event, brief the team beforehand and give short half-time feedback.
4. Debrief afterwards.
Example language (illustrative): "At the break: the audience leaned in when you asked them questions. Do more of that in the second half."

Integrating team and divisional roles ("team of teams")

Purpose: reduce the split between the senior team and the divisions its members lead. [source: Hawkins ch. 6]
Steps:
1. Each member pilots the team's commitments in their own function, reports back, and the team amends them.
2. Give individual coaching on linking the senior-team role with the divisional role.
3. Run inter-team coaching between the senior team and the teams that report to it.
4. Settle conflicts at constituent level first (Hawkins citing Cross and Katzenbach).
Watch for:
- "torn-middle" leaders who disown the senior team in their division
- conflict migrating downwards when the top team leaves it unresolved

4.6 Core learning

Action learning cycle

Purpose: make sure the team moves through every phase of the cycle: doing, reviewing, thinking, planning, doing. [source: Hawkins ch. 6]
Steps:
1. Map where the team spends its time.
2. Add structured review and thinking time to its calendar.
3. Optionally use Honey and Mumford's learning styles questionnaire to see which styles dominate.

Learning short-circuit diagnosis

Purpose: name limiting learning patterns so the team can change them. [source: Hawkins ch. 6]
The five short circuits:
1. Fire-fighting: plan, do, plan, do. Trial and error with a short-term bias.
2. Post-mortemising: do, reflect, do. Error correction with too much focus on the past.
3. Navel-gazing: theorising that is never tested.
4. Paralysis by analysis: endless analysis and fear of risk.
5. Totalitarian: decide in theory, then impose. This produces resistance.
Steps:
1. Describe the five patterns.
2. The team identifies its own default.
3. The team designs one change that completes the cycle.
Example language (illustrative): "Which of these sounds most like your last quarter?"

Preflection (future-back learning)

Purpose: build the team's capacity for disruptive change, not only continuous improvement. [source: Hawkins ch. 6]
Steps:
1. Preflect on scenarios and emerging stakeholder needs, using 3 Horizons thinking or Causal Layered Analysis.
2. Generate new thinking.
3. Innovate, then experiment with prototypes.
4. Review the results, so that reflection and preflection combine into a developmental spiral.

Unlearning

Purpose: let go of behaviours, relationships, beliefs and assumptions that no longer serve the team. Hawkins writes: "Teams not only need to learn, but also unlearn." [source: readingraphics; Hawkins ch. 6]
Steps [synthesis]:
1. List what made the team successful so far.
2. Ask which of these will not serve the future.
3. Agree what to stop.
Watch for: past success, which Hawkins notes can block unlearning.

Catalytic mechanisms

Purpose: turn good intentions into sustained practice by changing what bystanders do. [source: Hawkins ch. 6]
Steps:
1. Identify a recurring unhelpful pattern.
2. Agree a simple, specific response that everyone will make whenever it appears.
3. Hawkins' example: partners in a firm where gossip had replaced direct feedback agreed to ask any gossiper what the absent partner had said, then offer help to have that direct conversation.
Watch for: the mechanism fading after a few weeks. Review it in the process reviews.

Double-loop learning

Purpose: notice and shift the mindsets and emotional patterns beneath behaviour. It is woven through work on the other disciplines. [source: Hawkins ch. 6]
Steps [synthesis]:
1. After a behavioural change fails, ask what belief made the old behaviour make sense.
2. Test that belief together.

4.7 Review, transfer and ending

Process review

Purpose: keep the coaching process itself effective. [source: Clutterbuck stage 5]
Steps:
1. Give a few minutes at the end of every session to how the session went.
2. Hold a deeper review every third session.
3. Invite open feedback to the coach.
Example language (illustrative): "What helped today, what didn't, and what should I do differently next time?"

Co-coaching

Purpose: a second coach observes the dynamics, offers other perspectives, models collaboration and helps the lead coach stay present. A co-coach requires agreement from the team and sponsor and must be named in the contract. [source: ICF competencies 5 and 6]
Steps:
1. Agree roles, for example one leads while the other observes.
2. Debrief between sessions.
3. Openly show respectful disagreement between the coaches when useful.

Individual coaching alongside team coaching

Purpose: develop individual contributions to the team's effectiveness, particularly the team leader's. [source: AoEC 2020; Hawkins ch. 6]
Steps:
1. Contract the boundaries carefully with the whole team.
2. Treat one-to-one content as confidential unless the person agrees to share it [source: ICF].
3. Keep the focus on the person's team role.
Watch for: the coach becoming a channel for gossip or holding the leader's secrets about other members.

Process transfer

Purpose: the team takes over leading its own coaching. [source: Clutterbuck stage 6; ICF competency 3]
Steps:
1. Rotate the facilitation of reviews among members.
2. Teach peer coaching in pairs.
3. Step back progressively from leading to observing to absent.

End-of-period debrief (Hackman) and outcomes review

Purpose: educational coaching when the work is finished and members are less anxious. Evaluate what the coaching achieved and report to sponsors. [source: Hackman, Wageman & Fisher 2009; Clutterbuck stage 7]
Steps:
1. Ask what went well and what needs to improve.
2. Re-run the baseline questionnaire or 360.
3. Compare against the agreed measures.
4. The team presents its outcomes to senior management, with coaching from you.
5. Decide whether to close or re-contract.

5. Handling problems

Defensiveness and resistance to feedback

Source guidance: do not deliver stakeholder or diagnostic data cold. First build curiosity: ask the team to predict the data and list its questions, then answer those questions [source: Hawkins ch. 6].
Further steps [synthesis]:
- Treat resistance as information about the system. Ask what the team is protecting.
- If one member carries all the objection, ask who else partly shares that view. This stops the team scapegoating its spokesperson.

Stuck teams and recurring debates

Source guidance [source: Hawkins ch. 6; Hackman, Wageman & Fisher 2009]:
- A third round of the same either-or debate means the question is wrong. Reframe it, for example: "What would have to be true for both to work?" (illustrative).
- Use the learning short-circuit diagnosis and catalytic mechanisms.
- If the team stays stuck despite good process, go back to design: direction, membership and structure. Consider a re-launch.
- Become directive only when the team is stuck or heading for failure.

Agreement without commitment and non-adherence between sessions

Source guidance [source: Hawkins ch. 6]:
- Watch nonverbal signs of reluctance. Hawkins warns that a shift not made in the room will not happen outside it.
- Use the commit–check–close cycle so commitments are checked at every meeting.
- Where leaders commit and then ignore the decision, have each member pilot it in their own area and report back.
Further steps [synthesis]: Ask each member to state their personal commitment aloud. Check for "yes, but" by asking what could stop it happening.

Conflict and low trust

Source guidance:
- Bring conflict to the surface and handle it constructively; do not suppress it [source: ICF competency 4].
- Hackman and colleagues note that conflict about how to do the task can be productive. Intervene on relationships only when they are damaging effort, strategy or the use of skills [source: Hackman, Wageman & Fisher 2009].
- With very low trust, use extra-contractual agreements and psychological safety work before deeper exercises [source: Hawkins ch. 6].
- Conflict left unresolved at the top moves down to the next tier [source: Hawkins ch. 6].
Further steps [synthesis]:
- When conflict is between two members, keep it in the team frame: "What does this disagreement tell the team about its priorities?"
- Do not offer to mediate privately unless that is contracted and the team knows about it.

Overwhelm and high emotion in the room

[synthesis] The sources give no procedure for acute distress in a team session. As a psychotherapist:
1. Slow the pace and offer a break.
2. Acknowledge the emotion without exploring it in front of colleagues.
3. Check in privately with the member afterwards.
4. Return the group to its task.
5. Do not turn the session into group therapy. Members did not consent to that, and their manager may be present.
6. If the distress suggests a clinical problem, follow the referral steps below.
7. Choose experiential methods (sculpts, secrets, appreciative feedback) only after trust and norms are in place.

Ruptures with the coach and being pulled into the system

Source guidance [source: ICF competencies 1–2; Hawkins ch. 6; Global Code of Ethics]:
- Stay neutral and avoid appearing to side with anyone.
- Name parallel process when you notice it in yourself, for example feeling the same pressure to compromise that the team feels.
- Take the engagement to supervision.
- Declare conflicts of interest. Withdraw if they cannot be managed.
Further steps [synthesis]:
- Open a process review on the relationship itself: "How am I helping or getting in the way?" (illustrative).
- If the leader tries to recruit you as an ally against members, go back to the contract that the team is the client.

The team leader dominates or undermines

Source guidance:
- Agree with the leader at contracting how ownership will pass to the team [source: ICF competency 3].
- Offer the leader individual coaching on their contribution to the team [source: AoEC 2020].
- Start round-robins and collective builds with quieter members [source: Hawkins ch. 6].
Further steps [synthesis]:
- Give the leader feedback privately first, then help them name the pattern to the team themselves.

Psychotherapist-specific difficulties [synthesis]

Drifting into individual psychology. The pull is to interpret individual members' histories or defences. Return to the team's task and the Five Disciplines.
Dual relationships. Do not take a team member on as a psychotherapy client during the engagement. Do not coach a team that includes a current or recent therapy client. Doing either creates conflicts of interest and confidentiality conflicts under the Global Code of Ethics.
Language. Avoid clinical vocabulary such as "defence", "trauma" or "pathology" with teams and sponsors. It positions you as an assessor of individuals.

The coaching–psychotherapy boundary as the bodies publish it

ICF:
- Coaching focuses on the present, the future and performance, with generally well-functioning people. Therapy addresses psychopathology, healing and trauma.
- A coach does not diagnose or treat.
- A coach refers when a need exceeds their qualifications, experience or coaching agreement.
- ICF's analogy is an athletic trainer who sends an injured athlete to the team doctor [source: ICF Referring a Client to Therapy].
- The team competencies require coaches to keep coaching distinct from consulting, psychotherapy and other support professions, and to refer when appropriate [source: ICF Team Coaching Competencies].
Global Code of Ethics (created by EMCC and the Association for Coaching, 2016; v4, 2025):
- Coaching is not counselling, psychotherapy or medical intervention.
- Members work within their competence and refer when appropriate.
- Members encourage ending a coaching relationship if the client would be better served by another form of help.
- Confidentiality yields to illegality or risk of harm. [source: Global Code of Ethics PDF; EMCC news page]
Gaps:
- Separate AC or EMCC team-coaching documents on this boundary are not drawn on here [uncertain].
- Hawkins' chapter does not discuss the therapy boundary, nor do Clutterbuck's or Hackman's texts [source: AoEC 2020; Clutterbuck handout].

Signs that a team member needs referral to clinical care

From the ICF referral resource (paraphrased) [source: ICF Referring a Client to Therapy]:

Main test: the issue is interfering with daily functioning, such as self-care, work, relationships or leisure.
Persistence: problems lasting weeks and affecting daily life.
No progress in coaching: the same past issues keep returning, feelings are processed repeatedly without insight, behaviour is self-defeating, or the member feels stuck or victimised.
General signs of distress:
- marked change in mood (irritability, anger, anxiety or sadness)
- falling performance
- withdrawal from colleagues and activities
- changes in weight or appearance, including neglect of hygiene
- sleep disturbance Look for a cluster of signs and weigh their duration, frequency and intensity.
Specific concerns ICF lists for referral:
- anxiety
- depression, including overwhelming grief
- eating disorders
- trauma or PTSD symptoms (intrusions, avoidance, hypervigilance)
- substance misuse
- suicidal thoughts or plans: hopelessness, giving possessions away, seeking means, reckless behaviour, talk of rage or revenge
- thought disorder: paranoia, delusions, hallucinations, disorganised speech
Immediate danger to self or others: this needs emergency action.
Signals in the coach: feeling overly responsible, pressured to rescue, anxious about the client, or a sense of having failed them. Also a member becoming dependent on the coach. Take these to supervision and consider referral.
Team-specific signals [synthesis]:
- a member repeatedly breaking down in sessions
- disclosures of bullying, harassment or abuse. Route these to HR, legal or safeguarding processes as well as offering support.
- collective distress after a critical incident, such as a patient death, redundancies or a colleague's suicide. Offer an evidence-based psychological response through occupational health or EAP. Do not process trauma in a team coaching session.

How to refer

ICF's referral steps, paraphrased [source: ICF Referring a Client to Therapy]:

Meet the person privately, never in the team session, at an unhurried time.
Express care and concern.
Describe the specific changes you have observed.
Ask open questions, listen, validate, and allow silence.
Ask how they feel about seeing a therapist.
Reaffirm your support.
Offer named resources: GP, EAP or occupational health, and qualified therapists [synthesis on the UK and workplace options].
Leave the door open to come back to it, and offer help to book an appointment.

Other points from the same resource:

Normalise help-seeking and do not diagnose.
If the person declines, respect it. Raise it again if the issue recurs. You may then need to review, against the contract, whether to continue.
Coaching can continue alongside therapy if the person is functioning and progressing. Otherwise pause it.
If there is imminent danger:
- Contact emergency services and stay with the person.
- Ask about access to means and arrange safekeeping of them.
- Use crisis lines.
Follow the confidentiality limits in your contract.
In team coaching [synthesis]:
- Do not tell the leader or sponsor about a member's mental health without consent, except where there is risk of harm.
- Do not let the team process a member's crisis in their absence.

Example language (illustrative): "I've noticed you've seemed very low in the last few sessions and said you're not sleeping. I care about how you're doing. This sounds like more than team coaching can help with. Would you be open to talking to someone who specialises in this?"