Team Coaching
Team coaching helps teams reach their goals while creating a sustainable environment that cultivates engagement, team health, and success. A team coaching process helps teams achieve success around things like:
- Aligning around a common purpose
- Establishing an inspiring vision
- Creating healthy team relationships with clearly defined roles
- Being accountable for behavior as well as outcomes
- Making constructive decisions in line with the team and organizational goals
Team coaching involves nuances, as a team is a complex, dynamic system. It is more than simply a collection of individuals. Each team member engages in different interactions with other team members, partly as a result of differences in personality, work style, history, and interpersonal needs and culture.
UNLV Team Coaching Program Philosophy
- Coaching is focused on positive growth and professional development.
- The coachees must be dedicated to investing time and effort in their growth and professional development.
- Trust in the coaching relationship is paramount.
- Parameters of confidentiality are clearly established and agreed upon by the coach, coachees, and sponsor.
- Coaching should not be punitive or used in place of corrective action, discipline, and/or supervision.
Eligibility
- Teams interested in positive growth and development.
Great candidates include:
- Work units
- Senior leadership teams
- Cross-cultural teams
- Virtual teams
- Academic departments
- Interdisciplinary research teams
Examples:
- A successful team embarks on a new, challenging project
- To increase understanding and appreciate diversity when teams combine
- When a new manager takes over a team
- When team conflict needs to be worked through
- When engagement is low
Who Funds Coaching?
- The team's department or unit. Cost varies by coach and the number of sessions needed to succeed.
Team Coaching Model
- The team’s needs and goals are assessed and identified during individual meetings between the coach, team leader, and team representative(s), as well as joint meetings with the coach, team leader, and the sponsor (team leader’s manager or supervisor).
- The coach, team leader, and team define actions to meet goals.
- Coach, team leader, and team define success.
- Coach provides team leader and team with clear written guidance/next steps.
- The coach documents the progress the team makes towards achieving their goals.
- The coach schedules periodic updates with the sponsor and team leader to discuss progress toward goals.
- Sessions are scheduled in a timeframe and structure that respects the regular workload of the team and allows appropriate time for taking action towards goals.
- The coach, team leader, and sponsor engage in a final wrap-up session to discuss outcomes.
Getting Started
Follow the below steps to start your team coaching journey:
- The team leader secures approval from their supervisor and confirms that their department can cover the cost.
- The team leader completes the confidential preliminary intake form.
- The Director of Organizational Development (OD) will review the team leader’s completed intake form, call the team leader to complete the intake process, and share with the team leader the names and contact information of three potential coaches from the group of UNLV-approved coaches.
- The team leader and representative members of the team chosen by the leader will have the opportunity to interview all three coaches. The team leader and team may consider asking these questions.
- What is your coaching philosophy, approach, and style?
- How do you balance confidentiality between coach and client when a sponsor/ supervisor is part of the overall process (not part of each coaching session)?
- What do you do to contribute to establishing trust in a coaching relationship?
- How will you hold us accountable?
- Share with them how your team prefers to be coached and how they best learn. Ask how they have worked with others who have had similar preferences.
- Share with them the team’s goals for coaching. Ask how they have helped others who have had similar goals.
- Once a coach is selected, the team leader will meet with the coach and sponsor (the leader’s manager/supervisor) to share goals and develop a plan to achieve them. Once the plan is agreed upon by all parties, the team coaching journey begins!
- The team’s department or unit is responsible for covering the cost of coaching. Cost varies by coach and the number of sessions needed for success.
Meet the Coaches
UNLV completed an extensive Request for Proposal (RFP) process to find and select a group of qualified coaches from nationally recognized consulting companies. Expertise, diversity, and experience working in higher education were important to RFP committee members when choosing coaches. Get to know some of our coaches by checking out their videos.
Michael Smith, Ph.D.
Akshay Sateesh, B.S.E., M.S.E., M.A.
Rhovine Small, M.S.
Makesha Spence, PH.D.
John Fennig, PH.D., LP
