"Team is the energy between a group of people"
Gordon Walker, Dame Lisa Carrington's Coach
Team Coaching for Leaders & Doers
For Leadership Teams
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Dismantle roadblocks and that siloed thinking blocking business growth
For Functional Teams
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Grow a high performing, cohesive team, equipped to be the best
You can't perform when you're a fractured team
Too much siloed thinking
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Everybody looks out for themselves, focusing on their own stuff. People don’t consider the impact of their actions on the whole team.
Disharmony and high turnover​​
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Your staff lack leadership so they feel undervalued. frustrated, and unhappy. They’re pessimistic about positive change so they leave.
Finding it hard to grow
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Without big picture thinking, it’s hard to move towards your long-term vision. People aren’t working as a team, and that slows your growth.
Losing Market Share​​
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Customer service isn’t running smoothly. Customers pick up on your discontent. Competitors come in and take over your market position.
Two red flags showing your team needs support...
1. Everyone gets on, yet performance is poor
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You’re cruising but everyone’s too nice. You’re avoiding conflict and courageous conversations. People don’t speak up when they feel frustrated or have different opinions because they don't want to rock the boat.
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2. Things feel toxic and no-one collaborates
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Your team has fractured into factions. There’s disharmony and friction. People protect their own turf, and bitch behind each other's backs. Staff are pessimistic about the organisation ever being able to change.
“I’ve had other coaches before but Nikki really stood out. Her style of questioning uncovered strengths that I thought I had made the most of. Untrue. Nikki took me to a whole new level. She inspired self-growth and a new level of excitement in my job as General Manager. Highly recommend.”
LeAnne, Regional Manager
So many teams are struggling right now...
With so much change, everybody's fighting to stay afloat. Add to that the fact that very few leaders have leadership training. If you're good at your job, people assume you can lead. But leadership is hard at the best of times. It’s no wonder if teams and their leaders are out of their depth right now.
Pizza lunches and team building days aren’t enough
These things are fun, but they don’t get to the root of the problem. Real change requires people to look inside themselves and learn to trust each other. That takes time. You can't grow a great team in one day.
Here’s how team coaching can turn things around
Transform your fractured team​​
You’re leading a dysfunctional group of individuals who need to come together and work as a united team.
Lead your team through change​​
You’re changing direction and need to upskill and energise your team to take on the new challenge and win.
Develop a strong new direction​​
You need support to write a team strategy and help your team get clear on their vision and their action plan.
“Working with Nikki has been an incredibly transformative experience … she took the time to understand my goals, my challenges, and my leadership style, and helped me to refine and strengthen it in ways I never expected. Thanks to Nikki, I’ve gained clarity, confidence, and a deeper understanding of how to lead with purpose and authenticity.”
Hasaru
Team Coaching Process
Four steps to a strong, high-performing team
Step 1: Discovery
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We’ll sit down together and flesh out your key challenges. Then I schedule one-on-one discussions with your team to understand what's happening for them. Be prepared for your team to see problems differently to you.
These conversations help me pull together a proposal for a programme of workshops and coaching. Your minimum commitment is nine months.
Before we begin, we do a team pulse survey to assess team culture. This helps you understand how your staff see your organisation, feel about work, and identify any red flags. We do this survey at the beginning and at the end of coaching, so you can see how things have improved over time.
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Step 2: Core workshops
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Team coaching starts with two half-day workshops.
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1: Communication
You and your team start by completing a psychometric test to give you insights into your strengths, blind spots, and preferred communication styles.
We talk through the results in your first workshop to help you understand each other more. The goal is to improve team communication by understanding how your people are wired.
2: Team charter
Next we workshop your team charter. We talk through how you want to work together and how you need to work to achieve your goals. For example, if you’re changing strategy, the way you work together may need to shift.
We also define your team values. I encourage you to come up with your own meaningful terminology. What do values really mean to you? How do your values translate into behaviour? How will you hold each other to account?
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Step 3: Strategic workshops
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I can design workshops to support your team in areas where they need to up their game or upskill them in important areas that support growth.
Popular workshop topics include:
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Better communication and influencing others.
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Having courageous conversations and debating ideas with respect.
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How to listen properly to each other and hear what’s being said.
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Creating clear visions and leading change.
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Growing other leaders in your team.
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Step 4: Live team coaching
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I sit in on your team meetings, coach you to behave like a high performing team, hold you to account when it comes to practising your team charter, and encourage you to live your values every day.
Coaching might look like asking, “Is this how a high performing team would have this discussion?” It might look like encouraging you to consider other perspectives as you discuss ideas.
Teams usually alternate live coaching with workshops, month about. You might want more coaching or more workshops, depending on your goals.
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Check ins with you as team leader
I check in with you after every coaching session and workshop. We also have a formal progress meeting every three months.
“Having never undertaken any personal development training before, Nikki was fantastic at easing me into the journey and helping me to discover my strengths. She provided useful scenarios to reflect on so that I could learn new leadership techniques and skills.”​
Sara-Jayne Kingston
Give your team the tools to be the best they can be
Work more closely as a team
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Get on better and communicate more effectively because you understand each other’s strengths, blind spots, and preferences.
Move forward together
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Come up with new ideas to move you towards your goals and focus on what’s best for the organisation as opposed to your team.
Become top employers
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Become known as an organisation where people want to work because you’re strong leaders and role models who support people to grow.
Debate ideas more profoundly
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Have courageous conversations, challenge each other’s ideas respectfully, and really get to the bottom of things.
Your team coaching investment
​​Teams of up to six people​​
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Initial discovery with you.
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Team interviews.
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Workshop plan.
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2 x team pulse surveys.
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Psychometric testing.
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2 x core workshops.
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Designing and delivering strategic workshops to meet your needs.
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Live team coaching.
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Regular check ins with you.
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Upfront: $3,700 + GST
Per month: $2,250 + GST
Minimum engagement 9 months
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​​Teams of 7-10 people​​
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Initial discovery with you.
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Team interviews.
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Workshop plan.
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2 x team pulse surveys.
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Psychometric testing.
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2 x core workshops.
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Designing and delivering strategic workshops to meet your needs.
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Live team coaching.
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Regular check ins with you.
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Upfront: $5,000 + GST
Per month: $2,850 + GST
Minimum engagement 9 months
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“Nikki is an outstanding coach who through expert questioning makes you challenge your own thinking and processes while supporting with great suggestions to make you probe deeper into the issue at hand. I highly recommend her."​
Stephen Dallow
Hey I'm Nikki
I don’t do band aids... Hire me if you want change
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I’ve been leading teams for nearly 30 years and I know a high performing team can change the course of an organisation.
Growing your people so they work well together is key. Business success also comes down to disagreeing productively. In the highest functioning teams I’ve known, debating ideas was part of everyday life.​
My team coaching principles
Teaming on purpose​
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A team can achieve more than a group of individuals but becoming a team takes focus. You have to create space to come together and learn how to work as a team. People think teams come together naturally, but they don’t.
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Team is the energy between your people
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If your energy is wrong, you’ll struggle to build connection and trust. Be mindful of your team’s energy. And be intentional about defining the energy you need in the room to get the outcomes you want.
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It’s a leader’s role to model vulnerability
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When people open up and show who they truly are, they learn how to get the best out of each other. And everyone feels more comfortable when they realise everybody has the same inner critics and fears.
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Growth takes time
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Understanding each other and working more closely as a team takes time. You need time to teach people to open up, look inside themselves, and bond as a team. That’s why one-off workshops simply don’t work.
Coaching is about looking inside yourself. If you're not willing to look, coaching won’t work for you
Time is precious and life is short, so I only work with people who want change and who are committed to doing the work. Nor can I help people with a victim mentality. There’s a difference between knowing you’re going through tough times, and thinking, “Woe is me. This is my lot in life.”
“My experience with Nikki has been exceptional. I have really connected and achieved so much from these sessions … Now that I have completed the course I feel I am achieving a real turn around in my day to day thinking.”
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Tracey Preston, Branch Manager, Stonefields
Team coaching FAQs
​​Q: Will you do a one-off workshop for our leadership team?
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No. One-off workshops don't work if you want to develop your team. You don't have enough time to get people to open up, look inside themselves, and bond as a team. Understanding each other and working more closely together takes time.
You’re going to get more growth and more return on investment if we pace team coaching out over a longer period of nine to 12 months.
I’m happy to tackle particular topics as a part of a series of workshops, combined with live coaching for your team.
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Q: How long does team coaching take?
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Workshops are a half-day. Team coaching sessions happen at the same time as your regular team meetings. My minimum team coaching engagement is 9 months.
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Q: Why not just do a team building day?
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Team building days can be a lot of fun, but just like one-off workshops, they don’t create real change because people don’t have enough time to do the inner work and learn the skills they need to change.
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Q: How will my team feel about team coaching? Will all my team buy in?
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People can feel a bit nervous about team coaching.
People can worry about being singled out as a problem, or they may be afraid coaching will be uncomfortable and embarrassing. And while coaching can have an element of discomfort because we encourage people to look inside, I make sure coaching is a safe space. There is never finger pointing or blame.
Your team may have concerns around how safe it is having me in your team meetings from a confidentiality perspective. Of course, everything is completely confidential when you work with a leadership coach.
I can also support you to introduce coaching to your team. I can give you talking points on the benefits of coaching, or I can come and talk to your team. The one-on-one conversations I have with your team at the beginning of the project are also useful to answer any questions and put people at ease.
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Q: How will we know team coaching has worked?
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We can discuss your measurable goals and benchmark performance at the beginning of your engagement, then measure again at the end. These could be key KPIs like conversion rates, number of sales, staff turnover, and customer retention.
We can also set activity goals, for example, your leadership team may need coaching to write a team strategy. Goals could be that at the end of nine months your team are clear on their direction and have a roadmap with measurable goals.
We also do a team pulse survey before I start coaching your team and at the end of your engagement. This gives a good insight into how your team culture has evolved.
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Q: Where are you based? Are you happy to travel to coach our team?
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I’m based in Auckland, New Zealand, but happy to travel to meet you where you are at.
Great teams don’t happen by accident
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Let’s get to the bottom of any roadblocks holding you back. and give your team the tools they need to be the best they can be.