⁉️ What on earth is a team of teams

I had someone edit my writing a few years ago (back before AI was a thing) and the term “team of teams” was highlighted as a typo.

It wasn’t a typo! I was talking about organisations being interconnected teams. McChrystal published a book about it arguing that traditional organisations are too slow and siloed to deal effectively with our VUCA world. He suggested interconnected smaller teams are more agile, responsive, innovative and hence more effective.

That was back in 2004. I would say that since then our world has become even more VUCA!

Teams of teams aligns perfectly with team coaching. Professor Peter Hawkins describes it as “An integrated approach for developing organisations into adaptive, networked systems. It builds upon the foundations of Systemic Team Coaching but expands the focus from a single team to the entire organisational ecosystem.”

And I’ve worked in this space myself. I coached several teams within the same organisation in parallel. The result – observable changes in culture, ways or working and ultimately performance. The impacts rippled through the organisation far and wide.

If you’d like to learn more about team coaching approach as the catalyst for organisational change, please get in touch. I’d love to have a chat.

Or, if you’re a member of the New Zealand Team Coaches Connect Group - we have a session this Friday at 9am on the topic – see you there!