Introduction to Relational Team Coaching

The introduction to this book observes how team coaching has grown out of the need of decision-making teams to remain effective, agile and innovative in the face of ever-increasing challenges to do with pace, globalisation, volatility and complexity. From this origin of team coaching, it is argued that it is vital for team coaches to nurture and deepen reflection in the team. Many studies have shown that the team’s ability to reflect and meta-reflect is related to the team’s ability to stay resilient, to overcome adversity, and to innovate. Moreover, good reflection takes more relevant views on board and therefore arguably leads to better decisions by teams. For teams to reflect better, it is argued that coaches need to be able to work relationally, using the here-and-now of the reflective process between all partners within and around the team. Finally, the Introduction provides an overview of the substantive variety of chapters in the book, that offer both theoretical and practical tools for team coaches, demonstrated in realistic cases from our own practice. The structure of the book in three parts is also discussed.