Are you an aspiring coach who is looking for ways how you can improve team performance? Look no further.
This article will equip you with the skills and insights needed to become a transformative coach who not only improves team performance but also unlocks individual potential. By integrating a strengths-based approach, exemplified by tools like the HIGH5 strengths assessment, you’ll learn how to inspire your team members to discover their best selves. Whether you’re a sports coach or an executive coach, understanding and leveraging individual strengths is the key to fostering a high-performing team that consistently achieves and exceeds its goals.
As a sports coach or executive coach, your goal is to improve your team’s performance. You wish to see your team succeed and discover the best version of themselves.
In addition, you want to instill in them the value of teamwork, perseverance, and discipline.
Whether you just started as a coach or have been coaching for some time, it never hurts to revisit the fundamentals of being a successful coach.
You can do several things to improve your team’s performance and support them in their development.
And we will be sharing 15 techniques that you can quickly incorporate to improve your team performance in this article.
As a bonus, we will also introduce you to visualization training that famous athletes worldwide use.
What is Team Performance?
Managing team performance is the act of consistently enhancing team performance. It is the process of assessing the whole team’s performance rather than one individual.
Team performance evaluation is carried out to see how effectively the team’s skills and personalities complement one another.
It includes guiding individual team members, encouraging them, and offering feedback sessions.
If the team’s performance is as expected or better than expected, the team will be rewarded or recognized for their achievement.
Rewards and recognition are only one of the many ways that can be used to encourage the team to continue to perform effectively.
Team performance management aims to ensure that each team member works together collectively to achieve the best possible result.
Team performance exercises feature consistent and regular settings, are repeatable, and are oriented toward strategic improvement techniques, which is particularly crucial for low-performing teams.
Why is Team Performance Important?
High performance in team sports or businesses requires effective teamwork. Teamwork is crucial as long as two or more individuals are working together.
Good teamwork indicates that individuals can work together to achieve a shared goal or purpose. They collaborate and share their different talents in complementary roles to achieve a common goal.
Organizations are significantly more inclined to thrive when their employees work well together. This is because teamwork promotes synergy.
Team synergy refers to the combined effect of the team exceeding the sum of individual efforts.
Exceptional teams leverage their diverse strengths, expertise, and perspectives to tackle complex challenges. By understanding and utilizing each member’s unique strengths, as identified through tools like the HIGH5 assessment, teams can generate innovative solutions that surpass individual capabilities.
This strengths-based approach not only enhances creativity but also boosts team synergy, allowing the collective to achieve outcomes far greater than the sum of individual efforts.
Pro Tip From HIGH5
Strengths Mapping for Team Synergy: Use the results from the HIGH5 strengths assessment to create a team strengths map. Visualize how different team members’ strengths complement each other and identify any gaps. This exercise can help you assign roles more effectively and foster a culture of appreciation for diverse talents within the team.
Benefits of Improved Team Performance
- Use a combination of different skills that go further than the capability of any single person to complete a difficult task
- Able to come up with out-of-the-box or innovative ideas
- Can address complex problems that may need more than one person to solve
- Ensure team members’ efforts contribute to the larger shared goal
- Enhance internal communication between team members
- Encourage team members to learn from each other and develop new skills
- Create a mutually supportive and collaborative culture
- Promote a sense of belonging
- Encourage commitment from each team member to contribute
15 Ways For Coaches To Improve Team Performance In Business or Sport
1. Focus on knowing each team member
An exceptional coach recognizes that each team member brings unique value to the collective. To truly understand your team, consider using the HIGH5 strengths assessment. This powerful tool helps you discover each member’s top strengths, allowing you to align tasks with natural talents and foster a strengths-based team culture. By investing time in uncovering these inherent capabilities, rather than focusing on weaknesses, you’ll be able to maximize each individual’s potential and create a more cohesive, high-performing team.
Make an effort to create a strong relationship based on trust and support with team members.
You need to create an environment where the team members can rely on you as a coach. When you push them, they believe that your intention is to make them better.
You should build your coaching relationship on trust, respect and encouragement. Your team looks up to you as a role model and mentor. Thus, you must demonstrate this.
Consider organizing team-building activities to build your rapport with your team. For example, bring them for a team dinner or go for a karaoke session.
2. Adopt a continuous learning mindset
As a coach, you should always keep abreast of the latest news or information. Dedicate some time every day to learning something new.
Learn about the strategies used by other coaches to improve success. Read up on topics such as personal development, motivation and leadership development.
You expect your team members to grow and keep pushing and improving daily. So, always share something educational that is interesting or new that you came across with the team.
This way, you are indirectly setting an example for them to follow and at the same time sharing something new you learned with them.
Continuous learning on topics such as emotional intelligence and goal-setting can assist you in providing relevant advice to your team members in managing themselves in high-stakes environments.
3. Look Back and Reflect
A competent coach will not get furious when the team makes a big mistake or loses a game. Instead, they will dedicate time to reflect on what went right and wrong.
Rather than pointing fingers and blaming, a good coach will identify the team’s key strengths and comment on how they can improve.
Then, they raise awareness among the team members on how to become better and not repeat the same mistakes.
Additionally, a competent coach will reflect on what happened after each session or meeting with the team.
They make it a habit of asking questions if they did an excellent job as a coach and reflect on what they can do better in that situation.
More importantly, a good coach does not stop after reflecting on what happened. Instead, they have a plan to put what they’ve learned into practice regularly.
Hence, it is essential for you to add reflection as a habit in your coaching practices.
4. Set SMART goals
When your team struggles to grasp or achieve set goals, consider implementing SMART goals infused with a strengths-based approach. By incorporating insights from the HIGH5 strengths assessment, you can create goals that are not only Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant, and Time-bound, but also aligned with each team member’s unique strengths.
This combination offers clear expectations, a sense of direction, and leverages individual talents for maximum effectiveness. SMART goals enhanced by strengths awareness satisfy the following criteria:
Specific: Be precise about the performance expectations and deadlines of team members.
Measurable: Utilise measurable and easily understandable metrics to set expectations.
Attainable: Set objectives within your team’s competency, not audacious or unattainable goals. Setting achievable goals allows you to stretch your team members and helps you evaluate their performance accurately.
Realistic and Relevant: While a performance review aims to quantify performance, the goals your team strives for the need to be relevant to the organization. Furthermore, you must ensure that the goals set are realistic to achieve within the agreed timeframe and based on your team members’ capabilities.
Time-bound: Ensure your goals are time-bound. Goals with deadlines can help team members focus and prioritize the critical tasks contributing to achieving the goals. In addition, it can give the team a sense of urgency and more motivation to achieve the goal.
5. Clarify goals
Set clear and actionable goals for evaluating team performance, regardless of team size. Clear and actionable goals include action steps that the team can use in their role.
Be supportive of your team members. If they are still unclear about the goals, spend time clarifying them and addressing any concerns they may have.
When team members clearly understand what is expected of them, you can evaluate their progress more effectively as a coach.
6. Be transparent
Being transparent is about being honest and upfront about team members’ goals, expectations, and current performance. As a coach, it is vital to maintain transparency with the team members to gain their trust.
Maintaining transparency about the team’s goals can significantly benefit your team. For example, communicating openly that your team is on the right track to achieving a goal will boost their morale.
You should also be honest and inform the team when they are not performing up to their expectation. Your team will appreciate you having that tough conversation with them.
The team will know you are there to support them in improving things. And when they are aware of their current performance level, they can work more effectively toward hitting their goals.
7. Share constructive feedback
Feedback can make or break a team’s performance. What has the team done well? What strategies have failed? What needs improvement?
Providing constructive feedback is a skill difficult to master but doable with constant practice.
Conveying negative feedback is unavoidable throughout your coaching journey, especially with underperforming team members. Be sincere and honest when offering negative feedback.
Be specific about the message you want to convey. Avoid being too critical or aggressive when sharing negative feedback.
As a coach, you should improve your feedback skills over time. Be receptive to input from others, which leads us to the next point.
8. Be receptive to feedback
The most effective and successful coaches are open-minded and coachable. Team meetings or one-on-one sessions should be two-way communication. It shouldn’t be just you offering feedback to others as a coach.
You should initiate and ask your team members for feedback about you. Only with feedback from peers can you develop yourself further as a coach.
You can also understand your team better and empower them in attaining the performance and goals you set together. Be flexible and maintain an open mind when conversing with others.
9. Be a role model
As a coach, you have significant influence over your team. A coach tends to act as a role model and example to others.
To maximize your team’s performance and potential, you should behave in ways your team members want to emulate.
Be empathetic, overcome any obstacles, and never stop learning. Be optimistic and supportive of your team members during the good and bad times.
Express your appreciation to your team members from time to time.
10. Celebrate success
One of the most effective coaching methods to maintain motivation and engagement among team members is celebrating key milestones and goals.
While you are celebrating small wins, make an effort to recognize the team and individual achievements. Acknowledge and celebrate everything from work anniversaries to personal or professional accomplishments.
This is an effective technique for raising individual performance and team spirit.
11. Manage inter-team disputes
Regardless of your ongoing efforts to develop a cohesive and collaborative team, disagreements or disputes are bound to happen within a team.
It doesn’t matter if the problem is a particular team member not contributing to the team or workplace bullying; it is your duty to keep a lookout for these conflicts.
When such situations happen, thoroughly understand the issue and ask questions for clarification. Then put in place a strategy for addressing the conflicts and preventing such problems.
12. Host regular meetings
Another strategy to improve team performance is to organize regular team meetings or check-ins. Frequent check-ins not only enable your team to reaffirm the goals but also allow you to monitor their progress more precisely.
Regular meetings can help you identify problems or roadblocks that are happening or may happen within the team.
Then you can work with the team to devise a plan to work around the issue, ensuring they can achieve their goals before the deadline.
13. Learn to Motivate
Look at how great speakers convey their message. Take note of their words and emotions. Pay attention to the intonation and flow of their talk. Then practice replicating it for your team.
Whenever your team struggles, the first person they will look for is you. Then, they will turn to you for direction and inspiration.
It’s your responsibility to reignite the fire within them and motivate them to win again. Your task is to continue pushing them against impossible odds and never throw in the towel.
You can watch Ted Talks for inspiration and observe how the presenters speak and present their ideas to the world.
You can consider rehearsing your speech with someone close to you. Then seek their feedback on where you can improve to give an impactful speech when your team most needs it.
14. Have encouraging team culture
Another strategy to encourage high team performance is cultivating a positive team culture. You can achieve this by recognizing team members who achieve their goals or awarding the whole team for outperforming their goals.
Doing so will foster a friendly competitive atmosphere amongst teams promoting high performance and increasing productivity.
15. Schedule training
Consider developing dedicated training for each team member based on their performance level and the information you collected.
If you realize that a team performs in one part of the project but not another, develop training programs for individual members or the entire team.
Such training programs can assist you in evaluating outcomes and determining the next steps for growth and development.
Training is also one of the most effective ways to improve performance. It empowers your team and builds their confidence by developing new skills and expertise.
Bonus Tip: What Is Visualization Training?
Visualization is a great skill anyone can take advantage of in any setting. It is beneficial for creative visualization and personal development.
Furthermore, it is a powerful technique used by successful individuals from all walks of life. For example, professional athletes practice visualization training to visualize their desired goal before a tournament.
Visualization, often known as visual imagery, is the capability to picture mental images of you achieving your goal in your mind.
Then, you mentally rehearse these visuals in your mind by utilizing your five senses. It involves imagining yourself as the main character who achieves a favorable outcome that you desire to attain.
For example, think about a significant event in your life. What did you feel, hear, see, and experience?
Recreating these similar feelings and associating them with future triumphs will help rewire your mind to perform in that manner again.
Pro Tip From HIGH5
Enhance your visualization training by incorporating insights from the HIGH5 strengths assessment. When guiding your team through visualization exercises, encourage them to imagine themselves leveraging their top strengths to overcome challenges and achieve their goals. For instance, if an athlete has “Believer” as a top strength, they could visualize themselves maintaining unwavering faith in their abilities during crucial moments of a competition. For a business team member with “Strategizer” as a key strength, they might visualize themselves crafting innovative solutions during a high-stakes project. By aligning visualization practices with individual strengths, you’re not only making the exercise more personalized and engaging but also reinforcing the connection between natural talents and peak performance. This strengths-based approach to visualization can significantly boost confidence, motivation, and ultimately, performance outcomes.
Frequently Asked Questions About Coaching a Team
How can coaches improve?
As a coach, you should always adopt a continuous learning mindset. Keep yourself abreast of the latest news or information. Dedicate some time every day to learning something new.
Learn about the strategies used by other coaches to improve success. Read up on topics such as personal development, motivation and leadership development.
How does coaching improve employee performance and productivity?
A coach helps team members become more self-aware by offering feedback on behaviors, habits, and the outcomes they create.
Team members may use the input as improvement opportunities to understand better how to accomplish their goals.
How can you use coaching to support your team?
If your team cannot understand or accomplish the goals you set for them, you can use coaching to develop SMART goals for the team.
SMART goals are easy to understand and achievable because they give the team clear expectations and a sense of direction.
In addition, If they are still unclear about the goals, a coach will spend time clarifying and addressing any concerns they may have.
What are the benefits of coaching?
Coaching helps in improving team performance. A good coach encourages a deeper level of learning and helps the individual develop skills and knowledge of their role and responsibilities.
They also create a mutually supportive and collaborative culture and help motivate employees. Finally, coaches are committed to developing talents with high potential within the organization.
