Team Interventions

that Stick

This page provides some background information and free resources to accompany the workshop “Team Interventions that Stick”.

The main purpose

of a Team Coach

As a Team Coach or Scrum Master, your main purpose is usually to improve one or more capabilities of the team. I call this Team Development. Such Team Development goals could be phrased as “Make the Team more autonomous”, “Become High Performing”, or could be a more specific purpose.

For me, the starting point should be a conversation between the Team Coach and the Team, and optionally with the Team Manager. The results of this conversation could be called a Team Contract, and it typically includes the Team Development Goals, and the responsibilities of all involved parties (e.g. the Team, the Team Manager, and the Team Coach).

Below is some information and some tips. This is based on my own experience, as well as on several books, meetups, conferences and conversations I’ve had.

However, the main source of inspiration for this page is material from the Dutch book

“Beheers je!” by Jobbeke de Jong.

Survival Strategies

Teams and organizations are systems. These systems have a strong self-preservation force. This force can make an appeal on the Team Coach to do interventions that seem useful but that ultimately preserve the status quo, rather than help to make the team reach their development goals.

These can pull the Team Coach into one of three generic positions: Above (the expert), Below (the adapter), or Dissociated. You may recognize the fight, flight or freeze response in these positions.

The above-position is more common, because assigning a Team Coach implies that the team needs external help, which in turn puts expectations on the Team Coach.

5 common survival strategies

In her book, Jobbeke de Jong describes 5 common survival strategies. You could also call them stances or roles. There is nothing inherently wrong with these, but as a Team Coach we sometimes use them too much, or when they no longer serve the team. They could be your go-to approach, which you are good at or which you find convenient and comfortable. They sometimes also give the illusion of speed. But for a team to really develop, the Team Coach often needs to endure the slowness and messiness that the system needs to learn and grow.

Below is a very short description of the 5 survival strategies.

Superhero

Help us, we can’t manage on our own
Working hard, thinking, acting, solving
The team remains helpless / dependent on the coach
Your need for external approval. Facing up to what you find scary.

Consultant

Give us explanation and direction
Taking charge, explaining, advising
Isolation from real issues, no learning
Feeling of not knowing the solution; chaos of unproductive collaboration

Trainer

Fix the individuals in the system
Teaching knowledge and skills
Unawareness of systemic patterns; quick fall-back
Discomfort, messiness & slowness of systemic change

Nurse

Keep us safe
Making sure it stays safe and fun, attention to individual’s needs
No awareness of which patterns disrupt the feeling of safety;
no focus on “safe enough to do the task in hand”
Your own vulnerability; having to deal with negative emotions of others

Magician

Enchant us, magically transform us
High abstraction, magical language, high above the rest
Continued helplessness and dependency of the system
Your insecurity, fear of failure, need for admiration

Intervention Triangle

As a Team Coach, a better approach is to use the Intervention Triangle. Using this intervention helps the team become more aware of unhelpful interaction patterns themselves.

You can start the Intervention Triangle at any of the 3 points. Here I’ll only explain it by starting at the “Here & Now” point.

Here & Now: When you notice something, you can share your observation with the team. For example: “I notice we’ve been talking about this for 10 minutes without coming to a conclusion.”. You can optionally check with the team if they’ve noticed this as well, or if they recognize what you said (particularly if you shared a feeling).
Pattern: The next step is to check if this is a pattern, for example by asking: “Does this happen more often?”
Effect: If the team agrees that this happens more often, you can move on to the effect: “How does that impact our work?” or “What does that mean for the meetings you have?” From there you can help the team to come to a decision or action if needed.

You could also start by naming the pattern, e.g. “This is the 5th time that Robert starts to say something but is interrupted by somebody.” You can follow up in various ways, for example by checking if this is a more common pattern: “Does this happen in other meetings?“ or “Who else regularly gets interrupted?” Alternatively, you could move on to the effect: “What could be the impact if some people aren’t heard?“ or “How does this affect team morale?”

And you start from the effect, for example: “We are out of time yet we don’t have a decision, which means we can’t start the next phase.“. One way to follow up could be to check if this is a pattern: “How often does this happen here?”