Working Resources Blog

Executive Coaching for Virtual Teams – Working with Virtual Teams

Are you working in an organization where leaders are good at building virtual teams? Do the leaders in your organization create virtual teams that are emotionally intelligent?

One of the most powerful questions one can ask oneself is “How do I create virtual teams where full engagement is assured by emotionally intelligent individual members?” Emotionally intelligent leaders create virtual teams that are comprised of individuals with excellent interpersonal skills.

Are you good at creating effective virtual teams? Do you inspire your team by full supporting the desires of team members? Are you adept at building virtual teams that produce sustainable results?

Working with Virtual Teams

An obvious case for paying attention to team emotional intelligence is with virtual teams. Deprived of most non-verbal and visual cues, communications can be a challenge. This often results in interpersonal relationships that are more problematic. Exacerbating the problems inherent in any team is the fact that virtual team members are often from different parts of the company, different cultures and even different countries.

The challenges of working with diverse team members in virtual environments place even more importance on communication skills and emotional intelligence competencies. There is a great need for building cohesiveness and commitment to a shared purpose. Working with a team coach, both individually and with the whole team, can help define the team’s purpose, set specific goals, develop mutual accountability, and facilitate communication that leads to high performance results.

Every company faces specific performance challenges for which teams are the most practical and powerful vehicle at top management’s disposal. The critical challenge for senior managers is how to obtain maximum performance and in developing the kinds of teams that can deliver it. Teams have a unique potential to deliver results, and executives have to know when to deploy teams strategically, when they are the best tool for the job, and how to foster the basic discipline of teams that will make them effective. By doing so, top management creates the kind of environment that enables team as well as individual and organizational performance.  

Working with a seasoned executive coach trained in emotional intelligence and incorporating leadership assessments such as the Bar-On EQ-i and CPI 260 can help you become a transformational leader who builds powerful virtual teams. You can become a leader who models emotional intelligence, and who inspires people to become happily engaged with the strategy and vision of the company.

Executive Coaching for Teams – Using Feedback and Follow-Up

Are you working in an organization where leaders are good at using feedback and follow-up to build teams quickly? Do the leaders in your organization create teams that are emotionally intelligent?

One of the most powerful questions one can ask oneself is “How do I create teams where individual members believe in the value of teamwork?” Emotionally intelligent leaders create high performing teams incorporating regular feedback.

Are you good at creating teams quickly? Do you inspire your team by having a coaching style of leadership with team members? Are you adept at building teams that quickly produce results?

Using Feedback and Follow-Up to Build Teams Quickly

Everyone extols the value of teamwork. The need to build effective teams is increasing and the available time to do is decreasing. How do you increase team effectiveness in a climate of rapid change with limited resources? Here is an excellent team-building exercise developed by Marshall Goldsmith (Team Building without Time Wasting, Keilty, Goldsmith & Company, 1998.)

Research with thousands of participants has shown that focused feedback and follow-up can increase leadership and customer service effectiveness. A parallel approach has been shown to help leaders build teamwork without wasting time. It requires that team members courageously ask for feedback, have the discipline to develop a behavioral change strategy, to follow-up and to “stick with it.”

To implement this process, the leader will have to coach or facilitate rather than be the boss of the project. Members should develop their own behavioral changes, rather than have them imposed upon them.

1. Begin by asking each member of the team to confidentially answer two questions:
    A. On a scale of 1 to 10, how well are we working together as a team?
    B. On a scale of 1 to 10, how well do we need to be working together as a team?

Calculate and discuss the results. Research involving several hundred teams in multinational corporations showed that the “average” team member believed that his/her team was currently at a “5.8" level of effectiveness but needed to be at a “8.7.”

2. Ask the team, “If every team member could change two key behaviors to help close the gap between where we are and where we want to be, which two behaviors, should we all try to change?” Prioritize the behaviors and determine the two most important behaviors to change for all team members.

3. The team members also choose two behaviors for personal change that will help close the gap. Then they ask for brief progress reports from each other monthly.

Progress can be charted. Results have clearly shown that if team members have regularly followed up with their colleagues, they will invariably be seen as increasing their effectiveness in their selected individual “areas for improvement.” The process works because it encourages team members to primarily focus on changing their own behaviors.

Working with a seasoned executive coach trained in emotional intelligence and incorporating leadership assessments such as the Bar-On EQ-i and CPI 260 can help you become a transformational leader who builds powerful virtual teams. You can become a leader who models emotional intelligence, and who inspires people to become happily engaged with the strategy and vision of the company.

Executive Coaching for Emotionally Intelligent Teams – Building the Emotional Intelligence of Teams

Are you working in an organization where leaders are good at building emotionally intelligent teams? Do the leaders in your organization create teams that are emotionally aware?

One of the most powerful questions one can ask oneself is “How do I create teams that regulate the emotions of individual members?” Emotionally intelligent leaders create high performance teams that are comprised of self aware individuals.

Are you good at creating emotionally intelligent teams? Do you inspire your team by emotionally igniting the desires of each team member? Are you adept at creating teams that produce consistent results?

Building the Emotional Intelligence of Teams

Some successful companies have consistently produced the most innovative products under intense deadline and budget pressures by focusing on team emotional intelligence. Many executives realize that emotional intelligence is often more crucial than IQ to an individual’s effectiveness. But team emotional intelligence may be even more important, since most work gets done in teams.

A group’s effectiveness isn’t simply the sum of its members’ individual competencies. Instead, it comes from the synergism of members’ capacities for awareness and regulation of emotions within and outside the team. These competencies build trust, group identity and a sense of group efficacy. Members feel that they work better together than individually.

To build a foundation for emotional intelligence, a group must be aware of and constructively regulate the emotions of individual team members, the whole team, and other key groups with whom it interacts.

Working with a seasoned executive coach trained in emotional intelligence and incorporating leadership assessments such as the Bar-On EQ-i and CPI 260 can help you become a transformational leader who builds powerful teams that establish urgency and achieve results. You can become a leader who models emotional intelligence, and who inspires people to become happily engaged with the strategy and vision of the company.

Executive Coaching for Teams – Eight Keys to Building Team Performance

Are you working in an organization where leaders are good at building team performance? Do the leaders in your organization create powerful teams?

One of the most powerful questions one can ask oneself is “How do I create teams that establish urgency and a clear direction?” Emotionally intelligent leaders create high performance teams that are laser focused on results.

Are you good at creating high performance teams? Do you inspire your team by setting clear goals? Are you adept at creating teams that produce intended results?

Eight Keys to Building Team Performance

Katzenbach and Smith in their books about teams (The Wisdom of Teams; Teams at the Top) talk about the essential disciplines of effective teams:

Here are eight key approaches for building team performance that Katzenbach and Smith found in their research of high performing teams.

1. Establish urgency, demanding performance standards and direction.
2. Select members for skill and skill potential, not personality.
3. Pay particular attention to first meetings and actions.
4. Set some clear rules of behavior.
5. Set and seize upon a few immediate performance-oriented tasks and goals.
6. Challenge the group regularly with fresh facts and information.
7. Spend lots of time together.
8. Exploit the power of positive feedback, recognition and reward.

Working with a seasoned executive coach trained in emotional intelligence and incorporating leadership assessments such as the Bar-On EQ-i and CPI 260 can help you become a transformational leader who builds powerful teams that establish urgency and achieve results. You can become a leader who models emotional intelligence, and who inspires people to become happily engaged with the strategy and vision of the company.

Executive Coaching Secrets for Creating High Performance Teams – Mutual Accountability Leads to Results

Are you working in an organization where leaders are good at building high performance teams? Do the leaders in your organization create powerful teams?

One of the most powerful questions one can ask oneself is “How do I create teams that promote mutual accountability?” Emotionally intelligent leaders create high performance teams that are accountable.

Are you good at developing high performance teams? Do you inspire your team by making work social and enjoyable? Are you adept at creating teams that produce high performance results?

Mutual Accountability Leads to High Performance Results

Though it may not seem like anything special, mutual accountability can lead to astonishing results. It enables a team to achieve performance levels that are far greater than the individual bests of the team’s members. To achieve these benefits, team members must do more than just listen, respond constructively, and provide support to one another. In addition to sharing these team-building values, they must share an essential discipline.

Katzenbach and Smith in their books about teams (The Wisdom of Teams; Teams at the Top) talk about five essential disciplines of effective teams:

1. A meaningful common purpose that the team has helped shape.
2. Specific performance goals that flow from the common purpose.
3. A mix of complementary skills.
4. A strong commitment to how the work gets done.
5. Mutual accountability.

The challenge for top management is how to build effective teams without falling into the trap of appearing to promote teams for their own sake. There should be relentless focus on performance. If management does not put the focus on the link between teams and performance, then there is the risk of teams becoming another management fad. Paying constant attention to specific teams and their progress on specific performance goals is the key.

Working with a seasoned executive coach trained in emotional intelligence and incorporating leadership assessments such as the Bar-On EQ-i and CPI 260 can help you become a transformational leader who builds powerful teams that promote mutual accountability. You can become a leader who models emotional intelligence, and who inspires people to become happily engaged with the strategy and vision of the company.

Executive Coaching Secrets for Developing Powerful Teams – Defining Common Purpose and Goals

Are you working in an organization where leaders are good at building powerful teams? Do the leaders in your organization create high performance teams?

One of the most powerful questions one can ask oneself is “How do I create teams that promote individual and collective performance?” Emotionally intelligent leaders create high performing committed teams.

Are you good at developing teams? Do you inspire your team by making work social and enjoyable? Are you adept at creating teams that produce intended results?

Defining Common Purpose

The best teams spend a significant amount of time and effort exploring, shaping and agreeing on a mutually defined purpose. This activity continues throughout the life of the team. Research on failed teams, shows that they rarely develop a common purpose.

The best teams also take their common purpose and translate it into specific performance goals. These goals relate to the common purpose and build on each another, moving the team forward towards achievement and creating powerfully motivating and energizing steps to success. The achievement of goals along the way builds momentum, fosters trust among members and helps build continued commitment

Specific performance goals may be such things as bringing a product to market in record time, a 50% decrease in customer complaints, or achieving a zero-defect rate while cutting costs by 40%. Transforming broad directives into specific goals provide first steps for forming the identity and purpose of the team. As the team progresses with small wins, they reaffirm their shared commitment.

Specific Goals Provide Clarity and Focus

The combination of purpose and specific goals is essential to performance. Each depends on the other. Clarity of goals helps keep a team on track, focused and accountable. The broader, overlying aspirations of a team’s purpose can provide meaning and emotional energy.

When people are working together toward a common objective, trust and commitment follow. Members hold themselves responsible both as individuals and as a team for the team’s performance. This sense of mutual accountability produces alignment towards achieving a common goal. All members share in the rewards. People who participate in effective teams find the experience energizing and motivating in ways that their usual jobs could never match.

On the other hand, groups that are established as a “team” but that do not have a clear common purpose rarely become effective teams. Only when appropriate performance goals are set does the process of discussing the goals and the approaches to them give team members a clear choice: they can disagree with a goal and opt out, or they can pitch in and become accountable with and to their teammates.

Working with a seasoned executive coach trained in emotional intelligence and incorporating leadership assessments such as the Bar-On EQ-i and CPI 260 can help you become a transformational leader who builds powerful teams with a common purpose. You can become a leader who models emotional intelligence, and who inspires people to become happily engaged with the strategy and vision of the company.

Executive Coaching Secrets for Creating Powerful Teams – From Group to Team

Are you working in an organization where leaders are good at building powerful teams? Do the leaders in your organization create high performance teams?

One of the most powerful questions one can ask oneself is “How do I create teams that promote individual and collective performance?” Emotionally intelligent leaders create high performing committed teams.

Are you good at developing teams? Do you inspire your team by making work social and enjoyable? Are you adept at creating teams that produce intended results?

Teams are the most common business unit for high performance. Although the word gets used loosely and not always appropriately, there is universal acceptance that teams create opportunities for high performance results. A team’s performance includes both individual results and collective work products, yielding sums greater than its parts.

True teamwork promotes individual and collective performance. Effective teams value listening and communicating, sharing work responsibilities, provide support and can make work more social and enjoyable. Members are supportive of one another and recognize the interests and achievements of each other. When they are working the way they should, they are incredibly effective in achieving high performance results.

The essence of a team is common commitment. Teams evolve over time and have a pattern of development. During the forming stage, groups attempt to define their tasks and decide how to accomplish them. They sort out how the members will relate to each other. During the storming stage, members establish a pecking order within the group. Then, in the norming stage, members accept the ground rules and norms by which the members will cooperate. In the performing stage, the group has settled relationships and validated expectations and can turn to work for which they are mutually responsible. At this stage the team is capable of more work in concert that the sum of the individual efforts would have produced.

Teams differ from working groups because they require both individual and mutual accountability. While they also rely on sharing information, perspectives, and joint decisions, teams produce results through the joint contributions of its members. They are committed to mutual goals, as well as individual goals, and they share a common purpose. Teams develop direction and momentum as they work together to achieve a shared goal. Thus they commit to working together towards the same ends, even though each member may participate in different ways.

Management should not leave teams alone. Teams left on their own can be confused. Most successful teams shape their purpose in response to a demand or opportunity put in their path by higher management. This helps teams get started by broadly framing the organization’s performance expectations in alignment with the organization’s mission and purpose. Management is responsible for clarifying the team’s challenges. It should let the team develop a shared commitment to purpose, set specific goals, and determine its timing and work approach.

Working with a seasoned executive coach trained in emotional intelligence and incorporating leadership assessments such as the Bar-On EQ-i and CPI 260 can help you become a transformational leader who builds powerful teams. You can become a leader who models emotional intelligence, and who inspires people to become happily engaged with the strategy and vision of the company.

Executive Coaching For Building A Winning Team - 7 Common Mistakes To Avoid

Seven Common Mistakes

When it comes to building a winning team, many leaders in new positions stumble, partly because it is extremely difficult to let people go. Failure to act decisively and quickly prolongs the transition period and can derail your efforts. Here are some of the most common mistakes leaders make, from the excellent book by Michael Watkins The First 90 Days: Critical Success Strategies for New Leaders at All Levels

1. Keeping the existing team too long. You should decide who will remain and who will go within your first 90 days. After six months, you should have communicated your planned personnel changes to key stakeholders, your boss and HR.

2.  Not repairing the glitches. Develop options right away, even if you have to hire people in temporary       positions. You can’t let the engine stop running while you recharge the batteries. You may be able to         find people at lower levels of the organization.

3. Not working organizational alignment and team-restructuring issues in parallel. It isn’t enough to have the right team in place. Members must be aligned and clear about the organizational mission, goals and values.

4. Not holding onto the good people. You need to look for ways to signal to the top performers that you recognize their capabilities. Reassurance can do wonders

5. Undertaking team-building before the core team is in place. Don’t strengthen the bonds of a team whose members will not continue with you as a cohesive group. Wait until you have the right people in place.

6. Making implementation decisions too early. Wait until core members of your new team are in place before attempting to secure their buy-in for changes. You cannot afford to delay some issues, but it’s difficult to get buy-in from people when they haven’t been part of the decision-making process.

7. Trying to do it all yourself. The process of restructuring a team is full of legal, emotional and company policy complications. Don’t undertake this on your own. You have HR people who can advise you and help you chart a strategy.

Working with a seasoned executive coach trained in emotional intelligence and incorporating leadership assessments such as the BarOn EQ-i and CPI 260 can help you become an inspiring team leader. You can become a leader who models emotional intelligence and social intelligence, and who inspires people to become happily engaged with the strategy and vision of the company.

Assessing an Existing Team: 6 Probing Questions To Ask

Assessing an Existing Team

Work today is frequently accomplished in teams. You want to create a winning team in the first 90 days. Emotionally intelligent and socially intelligent leaders assess team members by asking each person powerful questions. Everyone needs to quickly and honestly know where they stand regarding the mission and goals of the team and organization.

In my executive coaching work with leaders, I help them formulate the right questions to ask team members. It takes a lot of interpersonal skill to formulate and ask questions that will provide a comprehensive assessment of team members and the team.

Can you think of any questions that you might ask to assess an existing team?

Prepare to meet formally with each person by reviewing available personnel history, performance data and other appraisals. During your meeting, ask probing questions. Michael Watkins, in his excellent book The First 90 Days: Critical Success Strategies for New Leaders at All Levels suggests the following for a comprehensive evaluation:

1.  What do you think of our existing strategy?

2.  What are the biggest challenges we face in the short term? In the long term?

3.  What are the biggest opportunities we face?

4.  What resources could we leverage more effectively?

5.  How could we improve the way the team works together?

6.  If you were in my position, to what would you want to pay attention?

Be on the alert for nonverbal cues. While a person’s actual words have merit, much is revealed by body language, as well as what a person omits and the way in which he communicates:

• What doesn’t he/she say?
• Does he/she volunteer information or wait until he/she’s asked?
• Does the person reveal areas of weakness or only strengths?
• Does the team member blame others or take responsibility for specific things?
• Does the person make excuses?
• How consistent is his/her body language with his/her words
• Which topics evoke a lot of energy?
• What is this person like outside of meetings, when he/she interacts on an informal level with others?
• Does he/she tend to be cordial, polite, tense, competitive, judgmental or reserved?

Working with a seasoned executive coach trained in emotional intelligence and incorporating leadership assessments such as the BarOn EQ-i and CPI 260 can help you become a more inspiring and happy team leader. You can become a leader who models emotional intelligence and social intelligence, and who inspires people to become happily engaged with the strategy and vision of the company.

How To Lead A Team In The First Ninety Days: 6 Criteria to Assess an Existing Team

Work today is often accomplished by self-managed high performing teams. Emotionally intelligent and socially intelligent leaders are learning agile at building high performance teams by quickly assessing talent. Everyone needs to quickly and honestly know where they stand regarding the mission and goals of the team and organization.

How do you assess your existing team as quickly as possible? How do you reduce your learning curve and jump start your team’s performance in the first 90 days? What are the most common mistakes leaders in a new position make?

How to Assess an Existing Team

When performing your evaluation, you’ll find some excellent, some average and some unsatisfactory people in place. You will inherit a group with its own dynamics and habitual ways of working. You cannot afford to make one of the most common errors: gathering them in a room, telling them that you’re in charge now, and that you’ll be making some changes. Instead, you will need to sort out who’s who, the functions people perform and how the group has worked in the past.

Go in and shake the tree, and you’re guaranteed to lose some of the best leaves along with the rotting ones. Always evaluate thoroughly before acting. Hasty action compromises trust and credibility. You may inadvertently lose valuable team members.

If you are like most leaders, you will form an impression each time you meet someone. Hold onto those thoughts, but don’t hold them as truths. Remember: They are merely first impressions. Allow them to register, don’t suppress them, and then allow other factors to influence your ultimate appraisal.

You also must decide which criteria to use when evaluating your people. Michael Watkins, an associate professor of business administration at Harvard and author of The First 90 Days: Critical Success Strategies for New Leaders at All Levels suggests using the following:

o    Competence – Does this person have the technical skills and experience to do the job well?

o    Judgment – Does this person exercise good judgment under pressure or when faced with sacrifice for the greater good?

o    Energy – Does this team member bring the right kind of energy to the job, or is he/she disengaged, burned out or unfulfilled?

o    Focus – Does this person stick to priorities, or is he/she easily distracted and scattered?

o    Relationships – Does this person get along well with other team members, supporting team decisions?

o    Trust – Can you trust this person to be honest, consistent and reliable?

Working with a seasoned executive coach trained in emotional intelligence and incorporating leadership assessments such as the BarOn EQ-i and CPI 260 can help you become a more inspiring and happy team leader. You can become a leader who models emotional intelligence and social intelligence, and who inspires people to become happily engaged with the strategy and vision of the company.