Sylvia's Journal

Through my volunteer work with EthicalCoach I am drawn into the world of team coaching. Although intellectually I do understand the distinctions between training, process facilitation, teambuilding, team mentoring and team coaching, listening to very experienced team coaches I am (virtually) hanging out with these days recognize I have much to learn from doing it (the team coaching).

This morning we had a team coach community meeting with some 44 people attending from, among others, South Africa, UK, Holland and the US. Through this forum I am meeting, albeit virtually, several Dutch coaches – a very active European coaching club I didn’t know existed.

It was only a month ago I was talking with a team in a nearby municipal government about engaging with team coaching – I was so excited about this. It would have been my first chance at real team coaching, with the possibility of doing this virtually or face to face. 

Before I became a free agent, I had considered building up a local coaching business that would focus on helping municipal governments (paid or volunteer staff) be better at what they do, deal better with conflict, tensions, and improving their listening and inquiry skills.  Government dynamics are actually quite similar around the world. In most places I have worked with public officials I have seen very little real listening and a lot of exhortations (telling, advice giving, an addiction to being right). A few of my former colleagues have landed in local government positions (state and town) and have told me the dynamics are not all that different from the dynamics of local government in Nigeria for example.

But, among all the other things it has done, the coronavirus has also upended my adventure into the new territory of team coaching. Budgets are being redone. Whatever small budget there was is now redeployed to deal with more urgent stuff.  

I do think there is now a need, may be more than ever, for coaching, and team coaching in particular, to become a critical service that needs to stay open for business.