Recently an opportunity arose to coach one of these teams. Their current leaders needed help and an impartial opinion about how to resolve the issues pertaining to the inner workings of the team. They also felt that the team needed a safe environment in which to process. The team consisted of 9 people and were coached individually a half-hour per week for 4 weeks. Each week as the session was closed team members were asked to pick which quadrant they thought they were in based on their opinion of their current motivation and effectiveness.



* Quadrant 1 - Motivated Ineffective (New to Job) * Quadrant 2 - Motivated Effective (High Energy, High Creativity) * Quadrant 3 - De-Motivated Effective (Coasting) * Quadrant 4 - De-Motivated Ineffective (Wanting Out)



During the coaching process the overall issues affecting the team members were captured as documented below.

TEAM ISSUES



1. Interpersonal conflicts between team members due to stress and communication/relationship style differences (team control) 2. The team being located in several locations (leadership control) 3. Team feels they have lots of responsibility and no authority (leadership control) 4. The team needs roles and responsibilities defined for issues to be effectively resolved i.e. priorities, decisions - (team and leadership control) 5. Long hours due to lack of planning and customer demands (team and leadership control) 6. The Program Managers attitude towards the team (leadership control)



Deming's work on the Five Factors of Performance indicates that people taking action in organizations have control of only 1 out of 5 actual components that make up successful performance - that of effort!

DEMING 5 FACTORS



1. Innate ability (genetic ability or hardwiring) 2. Selection and Training (job selection and training availability and selection) 3. Variation in the system (environment) 4. Variation in the measurement of performance (the way they are judged or appraised) 5. Individual Effort (the one factor they have control of)



Now let's look at the TEAM ISSUES how many of those issues did they have direct control over? The conclusion is #1 - interpersonal conflicts between team members due to stress and communication/relationship style differences. They had control of themselves and how they were handling each other and the stressful environment they were working under. TEAM ISSUES numbered 2-6 were out of their total control and map to DEMING 5 FACTORS numbered 1-4.



Team Issues to Deming 5 Factors Mapping Team Issues Deming 5 Factors 1. Interpersonal conflicts between team members due to stress and communication/relationship style differences (team control) 5. Individual Effort (the one factor they have control of) 2. The team being located in several locations (leadership control) 3. Variation in the system (environment) 3. Team feels they have lots of responsibility and no authority (leadership control) 4. Variation in the measurement of performance (the way they are judged or appraised) 4. The team needs roles and responsibilities defined for issues to be effectively resolved i.e. priorities, decisions - (team and leadership control) 2. Selection and Training (job selection and training availability and selection) 5. Long hours due to lack of planning and customer demands (team and leadership control) 3. Variation in the system (environment) 6. The Program Managers attitude towards the team (leadership control) 1. Innate ability (genetic ability or hardwiring)

Coaching was used with each of the team members individually working on their interpersonal relationships and stress points. Each week they came to a greater awareness of how they were contributing to the environment with their own attitudes, assumptions and beliefs. Once they reached this personal awareness they began to identify 'healthy choices' or 'right actions' they could take when the stress situations occurred. As the team began to implement their 'right actions' it began to have a positive effect on their motivation and effectiveness, other team members began to notice and their interpersonal relationships began to change for the positive.

The table below shows where the team members placed themselves in regards to motivation and effectiveness from week to week. This table also shows the average yearly salary of the team members, the average yearly charge to the customer for these people and the productivity rate (highlighted below) for each quadrant. The table shows that employees that are motivated and effective, perform over 100% at a rate of 112%, while employees that were de-motivated but effective were performing at a 50% and the de-motivated and ineffective employees were performing at 37%.

- WK 1 WK2 WK3 WK 4

Motivated Ineffective (New to job)

- - -

Motivated Effective (High Energy High Creativity) (1.12) 2 2 3 3

De-Motivated Effective (Coasting) (.50) 6 3 2 2

De-Motivated Ineffective (Wanting Out) (.37)

1 1 1

Yearly Avg Emp Salary $64,000 -176,640 -120,960 -81,280 -81,280

Yearly Avg Billing $106,000 -292,600 -200,380 -134,620 -134,620

You can see that what started out as a 9-person team ended up with 6 people finishing the coaching. Two people transferred from the team and 1 person chose not to participate after the first session. You can also see that the greatest shift and cost savings was between weeks 2 and 3 where the loss was reduced by $65,760! This is the timeframe where people were practicing their 'right actions' and achieving results.

Referring back to DEMING 5 FACTORS you can see the cost savings due to effective coaching in a short time in just one factor - that of Individual Effort.

At the end of the coaching period feedback about the coaching experience was solicited from the team members. They were asked to describe how the coaching interaction had affected them personally or professionally and if they had an issue they wanted to continue working on. They were also asked if they would be interested in participating in a group activity of some sort where they could learn more about each other's relationship and communicating styles. It was a unanimous YES! Their detailed feedback is below.

Team Feedback on Coaching Experience:

* Makes you feel better that someone else recognizes the problems and you can get them off your chest * Nice to get feedback without effecting the relationship with the boss - creates a safe environment * The open conversation reminds me that I need to be professional and respect the space we all have * We need to keep our personal space even in a group setting * Coaching was invaluable, now I have balance in knowing that I have boundaries both professionally and personally * Everyone is more cordial & professional with each other, more open honest communication, more respect between team members * Good to talk things out to verbalize big picture - helped me bring my thoughts together * Forced me to structure thoughts and move to prioritize and resolve problem - it's easy to hide behind day to day operations and not focus on how I can make things better * Helped me decide to move forward with open issues

If the ROI for coaching high performers in only one of DEMING 5 FACTORS is over $65,000 per year imagine what the ROI would be if leaders were working with performers to line up the other factors and creating an environment of High Energy and High Creativity! What would the ROI be then? Can you afford not to do it?

What would the ROI be for coaching high performing teams and leaders in your organization?



Cindy Ritter is a Certified Internal Corporate Coach (CICC) and a Certified Business Coach She can be reached by e-mailing her at cindy@embracingchange.org. The website is http://www.embracingchange.org



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