100-Day Challenges for Team coaches

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Your role as a Team Coach

100-Day Challenges for Team coaches Week minus 2 – Getting Everyone Ready for the Start-Up Workshop Your role as a Team Coach

The Team Coach Role

The Team Coach is the guide during the 100-Day Challenge race. Like all good guides, the more they support a team in a race, the more helpful they become to other athletes they guide. They know the tricky spots where runners can slip, what gear to bring, and when to take a break or slow down and take a breath. 

The Team Coach will support both the Team Leader and the Challenge Strategist in the relay race.

What Exactly does the Team Coach do?

Guiding the 100-Day Team

Facilitate the Start–up Workshop with the 100-Day team to set the 100-Day Goal, and develop their work plan and team agreement.

Work with the Challenge Strategist to support the Team during the 100-day race.

Facilitate the Refresh and Scale-up Workshops.

Support the Team during their weekly team meetings: tracking progress and keeping them engaged and motivated.

Apart from these specific task-oriented activities, Team Coaches play an important and subtle role throughout the 100-Day Challenge. They keep everyone engaged and feeling upbeat and motivated. They do this in various ways:

  • They encourage, acknowledge, and congratulate Team members at every occasion possible. 
  • They sense the mood in the room during workshops and liven things up with creative exercises and facilitation techniques.
  • They provide a “golden thread” during workshops, creating seamless transitions between sessions, tying different sessions to previous work and the bigger picture, and adjusting facilitation plans if participants get confused or frustrated. 

What Skills do Team Coaches Practice During your 100-Day Challenge?

There are three critical skills Team Coaches use in 100-Day Challenges:

Facilitation

Coaching

Communication

Some team coaches may already be very skilled in these three areas. In the Learning Deep Dives, there will be content to sharpen skills with useful frameworks, tools and exercises. There is no substitute, though, for practising and getting feedback from peers, clients and experienced practitioners. 

Additionally, Team Coaches will practice project support skills, including:

  • Supporting the Team in gathering data related to the 100-Day Goal that the Team sets
  • Supporting Team Leaders in preparing action item notes after team meetings
  • Preparing the logistics of workshops and team meetings 
  • Sending out reminder emails, encouragement emails, and doing whatever is needed to keep the team motivated, organised, and purposefully moving forward.

How Does Team Coaches Know They are Doing a Good Job?

At the End of the 100 Days

  • The focus area the team was working on was significantly improved.
  • The 100-Day Team and the leaders who commissioned it are proud of the achievements they made during the Challenge period.
  • The 100-Day team feels good about their experience during the Challenge: they recommend it to others and are excited about having similar experiences in the future.
  • Leaders have ideas and insights on what needs to be done to sustain and scale this higher performance, and they are ready and excited to act on these ideas. 

Interim Indicators During the 100 Days

  • Appropriate individuals are part of the 100-Day team.
  • Quality of the 100-Day Goal and commitment of the team to achieve it.
  • Quality of the 100-Day Plan and Team Agreement and the commitment of the team to implement it.
  • Engagement and motivation of the 100-Day Team at the Start-up Workshop and throughout the 100-Day race.
  • Progress towards the 100-Day Goal during the 100 day race.
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Thought starter reflection questions

Jot down thoughts on these questions – to the extent they are relevant to your experience at the session:
  • When did the mood in the event shift from “why are we here?” to “this could be interesting – I am excited to be part of this.” What triggered this shift? 
  • When did you have to go “off script” on the agenda or to change the agenda? What triggered this? What did you adjust? How did it go?
  • What was most surprising to you at the event?
  • What new insights did you gain about the issue at hand, and about the way leaders in the system interacted with each other?
  • Where did the conversation get stuck? What got it unstuck?
  • How would you characterise the level of trust among participants in the meeting? To what extent did this shift as the meeting progressed? To what do you attribute this shift, if indeed it happened?

Thought starter...

Reflection Questions 

Jot down thoughts on these questions – to the extent they are relevant to your experience at the session:

  • When did the mood in the event shift from “why are we here?” to “this could be interesting – I am excited to be part of this.” What triggered this shift? 
  • When did you have to go “off script” on the agenda or to change the agenda? What triggered this? What did you adjust? How did it go?
  • What was most surprising to you at the event?
  • What new insights did you gain about the issue at hand, and about the way leaders in the system interacted with each other?
  • Where did the conversation get stuck? What got it unstuck?
These are 100-Day Challenge Mentors. 

They did some work before you received the Challenge Note. This included:

  • Writing the Challenge Note, and making sure that the leaders of all the organisations represented on the team are comfortable with it – and committed to supporting the work of the team
  • Helping the leaders of these organisation recruit you and your colleagues to the team
  • Gathering some baseline data and other information that will help you and your teammates set your 100-Day goal and develop your plan.
  • Making sure all the preparations are made for a successful Lift-Off workshop, when you and your teammates will meet and get your 100-Day Challenge started. This includes venue, facilitation support, food, swags, comms, travel arrangements and whatever else is needed.

 

Mentors will participate in all or part of the Lift-Off Workshop, mostly at the start to provide context and answer questions, and at the end to give you and your teammates feedback about the goal and plan you develop.

During the 100 days following the Lift-Off Workshop, here’s what the Mentors will do:  

  • They will check in every two weeks with the team leaders to see how the team is doing and what support they and the team need.
  • They will keep other organisational leaders informed and engaged during the 100 days, and pull them in to help as needed.
  • They will participate in the last part of the Refuelling Workshop, halfway through the 100 days, to see what additional support the team needs, and to begin to plan with the team for sustainability and scale-up.
  • They will work with the team at the Sustainability Workshop to finalise recommendations on sustaining the results and building on the work of the team.