Photo by Brooke Cagle on Unsplash
Curiosity, collaboration, and constructive feedback
Hello everyone! Here are some insights on how team coaching builds trust, frames feedback and can transform teams:
When people think of team coaching, they may hope for quick and dramatic transformations or breakthroughs. But the real impact lies in the smaller changes that happen in the middle of a team coaching conversation: for example, the awareness of trust building between colleagues who may have worked together for years, or are just learning to collaborate. It’s not about overnight transformation; it’s about creating a safe constructive environment. This is one where curiosity and feedback becomes a way of relationship building, not something that causes damage.
In my experience, team coaching helps teams to:
- Give feedback with respect and impact
It’s more than being kind: it’s about being both respectful and challenging. Teams learn to deliver feedback in ways that both stretch and support, turning even the most demanding conversations into opportunities for professional growth. I’ve seen teaching leads in educational settings use these skills to make ungraded lesson observations more constructive, while other professional peers use them to help each other reach their full workplace potential and develop new soft or technical skills. - Stay curious, stay connected
The secret mindset ingredient is curiosity. By opening our minds and leaning into a curiosity mindset, we experience listening deeply, paraphrasing, and staying open to others’ perspectives. We reduce frustration and build understanding. Some team coaching models encourage giving feedback without advice and sharing experiences as possibilities, not prescriptions. “This worked for me; it may or may not work for you.” This small shift transforms feedback from a directive advice-based-statement into a gift; something we are offering that the other colleague may take or leave at their discretion. - Level the playing field
In peer coaching, power isn’t top-down: it’s shared. The person receiving feedback holds the power to respond, while coaches ask questions that bring fresh insights. But then the roles change and in the moment it’s different. Power is more equally shared than in the traditional coach-coachee relationship, because each person is both the coach and the coachee. Of course power is always there in the background and foreground, but peer coaching – and peer mentoring – helps to level the playing field. - What’s often missing in team development that is present in team coaching?
Many team building approaches focus on skills or processes, but in team coaching sustainable trust and sustainable resilience come from:
- supporting your colleagues to resolve real-life not imagined scenarios
- coachee and therefore staff self-awareness, reflexivity and reflection – the foundations for self-awareness and team awareness
- using deep open-minded curiosity to create a culture of psychological safety that develops during team coaching frameworks. This is also where feedback is gradually welcomed, not feared.
Employers have a role here too. Legislation may cover basics like duty of care and anti-discrimination, but real trust thrives when organisations lean into team coaching that demonstrates that legislation in action. Team coaching is, in my experience, a real life example of developing cultures of respect, enhancing psychological safety, including open dialogue, and shared responsibility.
In summary: as the African saying goes, we may go faster alone, but we go further together. The most resilient teams aren’t just skilled—they’re breaking solos and learning to be better connected, building resilience by learning how to listen to each other, exploring how to give feedback safely and developing collaborative problem-solving. That’s team coaching in a nutshell.
Reading
If you’re curious about resilient teams too read on: how does sustainable resilience work in real-world challenges like organisational restructuring, for instance? Take a look at my blog “When the university restructures, what keeps you going?”, where I discuss why resilience is not only about ‘bouncing back’ but building up the energy and support to thrive through sustained change. That’s very similar to our discussion above on trust, collaborating, and co-responsibility!
If you’re curious about models of team coaching, there are different approaches, including case clinics and solutions focus team coaching circle. The founders of this approach of coaching are often considered to be Steve De Shazer and Insoo Kim Berg. You’ll find so much information about solutions focus online including its applications to therapy, the public sector and education.
Connect
Want to explore how team coaching could benefit your organisation? Get in touch: andry@thelearningmoment.org.