The Art of Teaming

1. The team as a learning tool

Our customers were on the verge of bellowing at my colleague and I in unison:

"We do everything ourselves. Enough is enough! What do you coaches actually do?"

Internally, I was very satisfied: the customer was realising the essentials of team coaching and coaching leadership. The learner is the customer, who must understand they are to take responsibility for their own learning.

Outwardly, the situation seemed very problematic when it came to the entire extended management team of the organisation, which is some twenty persons. Disgruntled customers may not be satisfied, even if they learn. I managed to calm the situation down by promising a little more structure for the next day. In team coaching, the customer creates their own structure around the themes they have raised. Team coaches only create a safe space for dialogue and experimentation. Now, in my haste, I promised to bring themes for the following day, while the customer was fully engaged in their own hierarchical leadership.

It was an overnight training session which finally ended up in the sauna. Purposefully, our days are long and include informal learning in agritourism companies. At least it happened tonight, I mused. In retrospect, I wondered if the decision was the correct one - should I have let the customer solve the situation themselves? On the other hand, I needed to create a safe environment, and I succeeded in that. I remembered the words of Brené Brown:

If you're comfortable, I'm not teaching and you're not learning. It's going to get uncomfortable in here and that's okay. It's normal and it's part of the process."

On the second day, the atmosphere was more sympathetic, but I am not sure if the participants are learning the correct things. It was a six-month process training, after which I admitted to the external client that I had not fully succeeded in this process. In spite of this, or precisely because of it, the client wanted to continue working with us. The client was actually satisfied with the learning process.

The customers also wanted to move away from the hierarchical management model. The model was developed during industrialisation in the early 1900s. At that time, only management had the knowledge needed for leadership, and only they had sufficient training for leadership. Nowadays, information is available to everyone. The artificial intelligence will make the knowledge available for everyone. Now, the employees of work communities are as educated or even more educated than managers. The hierarchical management model needs to be abandoned, and decision-making must be transferred to the members of the work community. Decision-making must take place in teams. Teams are the decision-making unit of future work communities.

I am a mechanical engineer by training. For the first fifteen years of my career, I worked in industry. And for the past fifteen years, I have coached work companies. I find it confusing how they have copied operating models from machine shops. Many communities are still run today just as Henry Ford ran his automobile factory in the early 1900s. In many companies, leadership is based on hierarchy and orders.

Unlearning the hierarchical leadership model does not mean chaos. This structure is pyramid-like, and the decision-making power lies with leaders. In the team-learning leadership model, the decision-making power sits with teams, in that it is structurally flat and thus equal. First, of course, the team and community must be of the right size to function: a maximum of 20-25 teachers or experts and 200-300 students. In a larger unit, people no longer know each other. The team of the community of experts should also be of the same size. One supervisor is able to lead and coach two teams. When the work community grows to the size of more than 25 employees, a new unit and team must be established.

I have read in several sources that a unit of 200-300 people is the maximum size for a community where everyone knows each other. My own observations support this. In Oulu in Finland, the Ritaharju School was built on this principle. The school has about 1400 pupils, but the school consists of a separate five units. Each unit with 200-300 pupils and about 25 teachers operate quite autonomously under the leadership of a team coach or a pair of team coaches. The management of Ritaharju School also works on the principle of pair management - the principal and the assistant principal run the school together. The correct structure is the starting point for building a culture of team learning.

In a team learning community, regular dialogue, i.e. genuine discussion, must be maximised. It is at the heart of the leadership model. Dialogue requires a lot of time, which is why teams need to reserve several hours a week for it. The third point is the common goal, i.e. a shared vision. A clear goal and rules for a team-learning work community must emerge from the work community. These form the structure of the work community. Moving from a hierarchical leadership model towards the power of teams enables team learning. In the same way, the teacher must relinquish their own power and transfer the responsibility for learning to the learners. It requires talent to build a team learning culture. When the learners and the team have responsibility, the team coach, i.e. the leader or teacher, must be careful about the correct type of learning culture.

The formation of the team and the development of its shared vision required leadership and team coaching. This is the reason behind the name of this book: The Art of Teaming. The Finnish translation of Teaming is Tiimistyminen which is a newly created word in the Finnish vernacular, which was developed during the process of book writing? In my own thoughts, the teaming means "A managed process of team formation, where learning, leadership, a shared vision of the team and the autonomy of the team are combined". In my opinion, team building is "team building that originates from the team, takes place without leadership and without a shared vision".

To create the correct kind of learning culture, you require:

1. 1) The correct team and community size.
2. 2) Regular sessions of dialogue.
3. 3) Shared vision.
4. 4) Interdependence of the team.

Team building requires team coaching expertise. A team needs a team coach who develops its self-management, or in fact, co-management. Team members guide and lead the team together. A team can also have a coaching leader, i.e. a team leader, just like a sports team has a coach and a captain. In a team, the individual learns faster than working individually, because the team acts as a learning mirror of the individual.

Team learning is considered to probably be the oldest form of learning among humans. Around campfires, deep in the past, hunter-gatherers would have shared their thoughts about the previous day's hunt and planned tactics for the next day's hunt. They learned co-operation through hunting and discussing their hunting. Back in those days no written information existed. Today, the amount of information is so vast that is it beyond the control of individuals. Different people have the necessary knowledge which when combined makes great wisdom in the team.

Greek philosophers developed a deeper word for campfire discussion which is dialogue. The word dialogue comprises of two Greek words dia and logos, which mean through, and the act of speaking, thus in total meaning through the act of speaking. The participants in a dialogue do not choose a side but think together with others. The dialogue and learner-based learning method of team learning is based on the fact that the team is a tool for individual learning. The team becomes a community of trust from which the learner receives feedback from their peers. An active learner acquires new skills and knowledge in interaction with team members, by reading theoretical information for their own needs and by experimenting with what they have learned. Team learning is a holistic learning method that combines action, feelings, sensory perceptions, bodily experiences, thinking together, reading and recording one's own goals. In a team, an individual learns many times faster and more efficiently than alone.

This book has varying perspectives, theories and stories that will provide you with inspiration for teamwork. Teamwork and learning exist in the middle ground between so many different human sciences that there is no single theory. Creative entrepreneurs of the modern era, such as Grace Beverley from England or Perttu Pölönen from Finland, are prime examples of this. They have the admirable courage of people in their young mid '20s to share a solid personal view of entrepreneurship, learning or the future. Their books are read by millions. Solid academic research, on the other hand, is often slow and cautious, and it does not provide a grip or help for the future. This book is based on my personal views, experienced theories and experiences. Team learning has been tested for more than thirty years, which means the slate is already well chalked.

We at Team Academy Global Ltd. (Tiimiakatemia Global Oy) have coached more than 2 000 team coaches in long-term coaching, with the method being applied in more than 20 countries.

In this book, I use the term team coach. A team coach has their own team or teams that they individually coach. A team coach can be a trainer, teacher, leader, director, manager, supervisor, expert, entrepreneur or even a coach. Ever...