Provide Well-Timed Team Coaching

Collaborative Intelligence: Using Teams to Solve Hard Problems, is an eleven-chapter book written by J. Richard Hackman, the Edgar Pierce Professor of Social and Organizational Psychology at Harvard University, and published by Berrett-Koehler Publishers in May of 2011. Although based on the latest scholarly research, the book is written for both the experienced and novice team leader, and can be used as well in academic courses that examine groups and teams. The work comprises three sections. The first, "The Challenge and Potential of Teams," explains the general structural components of a team and the benefits and pitfalls of each. The second part, "Six Enabling Conditions," elaborates in detail on six environmental conditions that can help to produce successful team collaboration. The third part, "Implications for Team Leaders and Organizations," discusses specific methods leaders have adopted, or avoided, to foster collaboration and improve the quality of their teams' work, including what the author calls the 60-30-10 rule. Chapter 9 discusses the last of the six enabling conditions for effective teamwork: provide appropriate coaching. First the author examines the benefits of coaching a team simultaneously as opposed to its members individually. Next, he discusses the primary focus of coaching, arguing that the most effective coaching doesn't focus on managing interpersonal relationships but on the actual work the team is doing. He then discusses the importance of well-timed coaching sessions by drawing upon research mapping the life cycle of a team and identifying specific points where coaching is most effective. The chapter concludes with five brief guidelines for effective coaching.

• Organizational behavior
• Teams
• Fostering collaboration
• Business communication
• Corporate strategy
• Management