Case Study: Team Coaching in Banking
The Challenge
The Head of Financial Crime at an international, off-shore bank approached Organisational Coaching Hub (OCH) for help with team coaching interventions. She had read about our work with Extra-Dependent Teams and thought this may be the root cause of dysfunction with her team of financial crime officers. The team were working in silos and it was clear there was a lack of trust between the team members and also the team leader.
This case study looks at how we delivered our professional team coaching in banking following the 4Cs of organisational coaching; Connect, Consider, Change, Close.
Connecting: Establishing a Process
Our team coach initially connected with the team leader to understand and appreciate the team challenge. It was clear that the lack of trust within the team would make connecting difficult and it would take time to build confidence in the process.
After an initial call with the team group to create a contract, the team coach then met each team member individually. At OCH our confidentiality agreement with the team creates a space for transparent discussions, both as a whole group and in 1:1s. By establishing this agreement, the coach cultivated a clear trust with all team members and provided the vital first step in the process, including demonstrating that trust was possible within the team.
Consideration of Team Coaching in Banking
To confirm the working assumption that the team was Extra-Dependent, we used an early version of our Team Dependency Diagnostic. It was established that each team member reported to a separate banking branch and that they didn’t actually work together. Rather, they were required to work intimately within their respective banking branches as a member of an interdependent, multi-disciplinary team. Their loyalty was stronger with these branch teams than with their Extra-Dependent team.
This consideration phase also identified the cause of their mistrust for each other. Our research has shown that when people of similar roles and skills work in the same team, unproductive competitiveness is easily encouraged as team members compare themselves against each other. This was the case with this team.
Our team coach recognised that reporting processes and accountabilities, which might typically form the agenda for interdependent teams, antagonised competitiveness in the Extra-Dependent team. Instead of competing with each other, what was missing was the opportunity to share working practices through learning together.
Change: Key Outcomes
There were two key things that really helped to make a change. We worked with the team to shift their meeting agendas from accountabilities and coordination of work to a time for sharing practice. The team coach started gently with the team members by exploring “loyalties and expectations” between themselves and others they interacted with. Immediately this legitimised their local teaming with jurisdictions, as well as encouraging each person start to share their own experience. We then moved onto sharing successes and then onto their mistakes.
Sharing successes made an immediate impression as this helped each team member disclose some element of their practice. Because it was a success, it was easier to tell the team about it. Nevertheless, the team coach had to work hard to draw out the specific details of what made the success.
What makes this process work is the practice of sharing, when everyone benefits. The same goes for sharing mistakes, but because of the credibility risk, time is needed to build trust. In this case several team meetings carried out over several months to get to the stage where they were able to share.
"Team members developed voices that they didn’t have before."
One-to-One Coaching
The second thing that made the change was the 1:1 team coaching. This helped prepare the team members to speak up, to rehearse what they wanted to say, or indeed to talk directly to specific individuals.
The 1:1 coaching of the team leader was no different, but more frequent. There was a lot of work for them to do within the team and there were many assumptions and decisions they had made that needed careful exploration. The team coach worked closely with the team leader to help them position the meetings, their message and the process of each meeting, enabling them to move their strategy forward.
Close
By the time we closed the coaching process the team leader had affirmed that the team were, “sharing experiences with each other that was unheard of compared to the start” and that, “team members developed voices that they didn’t have before.” The team was much more trusting and consistent and was more able and willing to change to meet new needs from the bank and its stakeholders.
