It’s a familiar story:  Someone starts a new business with grand dreams and ambitions.  They get off the ground, they hire a few new people, and they expand.  But, sooner or later, things start to plateau.  The product is good, their staff is good, their management is good, but they’ve run into a brick wall.  Growth halts and they start treading in place – or even start losing ground – and it’s not even clear why.  

In situations like these, something needs to change quickly if the business will get back on a growth track.  One of the best possible options is to bring in a team building coach.  By bringing in new blood and ideas, your team can shake off that stagnation and find new strategies for forging ahead.

The right team building coach can be a shot in the arm for any business that’s lost its edge.  They can look at the teams and business practices to bring an objective outlook necessary for stimulating growth.  However, that’s dependent on finding the right team building coach.

It would be best if you had a coach on who you could rely on and genuinely trust.  In addition, they need to have enough experience that they’ll be able to contribute usefully.  Ideally, there should also be ways to hold them accountable, so they don’t simply coach and leave without getting results.  Just as a great team coach can make things better, a bad one could make things worse.

Today, we want to do an in-depth dive into the process of finding, hiring, and onboarding a team coach.  If you’re currently in a period of low growth, these tips can help you find the perfect coach to kick your business back into high gear.

Four Steps in Finding the Right Team Building Coach To Inspire Scaling And Growth

1 – What kind of coach should you hire?

Every team coach will have their style and approach to coaching, but they almost always fall into two basic categories.  Know the difference, and you can figure out which type will be best for your needs.

First, there are the complementary coaches.  The idea is that the coach brings in new skills or experiences that your business is deficient in or currently lacks.  In other words, they complement your existing business practices.

A complementary coach is the best option when you have an idea where your problems lie.  For example, if sales are stagnating, you might bring in a sales coach to help inspire and upgrade the skills of your sales staff. A tech coach enables you to modernize your technology and adopt newer digital approaches to business management.  Some complementary coaches specialize in pretty much every possible field and can help you upgrade those areas.

On the other hand, supplementary coaches add to or supplement the services you already have in place.  Use a supplementary coach when your workforce has become short or stretched too thin, such as in management.  A business owner who is overworked and overburdened might bring in a supplementary management coach to help take over some of those burdens or train subordinates to better assist in management.  They’re also helpful when you have multiple offices or where your business offers similar services directly to clients.

Also, along these lines, you’ll want to decide how these coaches will go about doing their business.  Will they be doing live in-person coaching?  Online Q&As and webinars?  Answering emails and chats?  Again, some people specialize in every area, and you’ll be best served by looking for coaches whose preferred method of work matches your needs.

2 –   Advertising, Applications, and Coach Selection

Once you have a good idea of what type of team building coach you’re looking for, it’s time to start attracting applicants and sorting through them.

Coach selection begins with a strong job description, which should clearly outline what you’re looking for and what sort of expectations will be in place.  This plan is called the “4R” approach.  The Rs are:

• Role: 

  What will the coach be doing, in a general sense?

• Requirements: 

  What educational background, training, certifications, or real-world experience do you require?

• Responsibilities:  

  What exactly will the coach be taking over control of, and how will they accomplish that?

• Results:  

  What are you expecting to get out of this coach, and how will you be measuring/evaluating their performance?  If at all possible, these should be data-based and objective, with clearly defined goals.  (i.e., not just “improve sales” but “boost sales by X% per quarter.”)

You might even find that by sitting down and writing these four Rs out, you’ll develop a better-focused idea of what sort of coach you seek.

When it comes to advertising the position or otherwise getting the word out, you have plenty of options, and you should make use of several to get a wide field of candidates.  Job sites and LinkedIn are a good starting place, but wannabes and pretenders may flood you.  Emphasize your requirements to discourage unqualified people from applying.

It’s better if you can get direct recommendations from peers who have also worked with coaches.  Put the word out in your social and business circles that you’re looking for good team coaches, and you’ll probably get some great recommendations.  You might even get direct referrals.

When screening candidates, we have a couple of recommendations beyond simply asking for their resume or CV.

First, ask for a short video (no more than five minutes) where they explain why they’re right for the role and showcase their talents.  Besides giving you a better idea of their capabilities, you can evaluate how well they work on camera – something increasingly important in global ecosystems that rely on videoconferencing.

Also, ask them to submit a personality profile, such as the DISC assessment, Myers-Briggs personality test or maybe even The Birkman Method with a little description and overview to help you understand it. These are an excellent shorthand for deciding what types of coaches will fit in with your business, or your clients, at a personal level.  A coach might be genuinely excellent on paper, but if their personality clashes with your own corporate culture, their effectiveness will probably be limited.

Finally, use a group interview if you have many qualified applicants to speed up the selection process.  Group interviews are great at seeing what these coaches are really like since the extra stress of the situation tends to bring out their true colors, as it were.  You’ll also get to see how they interact with other people and potentially spot issues with their personality, which wouldn’t be noticeable or covered up in a one-on-one interview.

3 – Onboarding Your New Coach

No team building coach can walk in off the street and get to work.  In many ways, onboarding is the most critical part of the process, and much of it is on you.  The coach will only be as good as the training and onboarding you provide, and this is your opportunity to ensure that they shine once they get to work.

Before they even begin to perform their job, they should get a detailed breakdown of the situation: Where you’re at, what deficiencies you perceive in your (or your clients’) business practices, and how you’d like to see the situation resolved.  Be sure to bring up corporate culture and the sort of public image you’re looking to project.  These need to be upheld to integrate the coach into your business correctly.

A library of materials they can access, such as an in-house wiki or knowledge base, is beneficial.  The more information you can provide to them, the easier it will be to perform their job according to your standards.  Also, be sure to give proper access to any secured systems they’ll need to do their jobs.

Early on, it’s a good idea to let them shadow an experienced member of your group, particularly for supplementary coaches.  If this isn’t an option (such as hiring a complementary coach), we recommend daily meetings with them for the first couple of weeks to address any questions or concerns.

During this onboarding period, you also want feedback from the people they coach.  Weekly meetings where both the coach and their team speak up are a good way of ensuring that everyone is on the same page.

Finally, be sure to occasionally record (audio or video) your coaches at work, especially early on in the project.  Recording allows you to review what they’re doing directly and can be excellent for coaching them in any areas where you see improvement.  A good team building coach should always be receptive to coaching to improve their performance!

4 – Management and Results Tracking

Once onboarding is over and your team building coach is empowered to do their job without so much direct oversight, you don’t want to turn them loose.  For one thing, they’re still going to need periodic feedback on their performance, and again, a good coach will crave opportunities to improve their work.

Also, you want to keep track of them to maintain a connection with the teams or clients they’re overseeing.  Your team building coach isn’t going to be there forever, so you want to keep tabs on the areas of your business for which they’re responsible.  Generally speaking, monthly meetings are typically good enough unless you have reason to keep a closer eye on a situation.

Plus, again, be sure to occasionally get feedback from those coached to make sure you’re getting a complete picture of what the coach is doing.

You’ll want to track their results, as well.  So having clearly defined and measurable metrics for the work that they’re providing is essential.  Hard data-based metrics work for both you and the coach.  You get an easy way to measure their success while giving explicit goals to reach quickly.  Be sure to review your metrics regularly to see if everything is on track.

That said, be willing to listen to the coach if they think there’s an issue with the metrics or have good reason to believe certain expectations are unrealistic.  Some problems can be ‘powered through’ with enough effort, but sometimes expectations or goals need to be revised.  Your coach should be an expert, and their opinions on these matters are well worth considering.

In considering all these ideas, you should be able to see a lot of benefit from your team building coach – and hopefully jump-start your business!

Grow Beyond Your Limitations With Career Upside

We have more than twenty years of success in providing coaching services to people and businesses worldwide.  From coaching students to make the most of their college careers to helping globally recognized institutions scale and grow, we have the experience and the highly trained network of coaches to push you towards the success you crave!

Click here to schedule a consultation on your goals and needs so that we can match you to the perfect coach for your situation.