Q: What is the difference between team and group coaching? And how is team coaching fundamentally different from team building?

Team coaching is coaching a team of people together; group coaching is coaching a group of people together. A group may or may not be a team, whereas a team is a group of people.

Team coaching generally consists of a coach working with a team toward specific goals, on a regular basis. For example, let’s say a team wants to effectively manage internal conflict. The coach would then meet with the team to discuss what type of conflict occurs within the team, the impact the conflict has on the team and small steps to mitigate the conflict. The team would agree to practice new behaviors for 1-2 weeks; the coach would then meet with the team again to discuss the challenges and successes of the new behaviors.

Team building is a way of strengthening a team through various activities, such as ropes courses, cooking meals and athletics. A team building activity could be used as part of the team coaching. For example, if the team wanted to build team trust, the team could do a trust building activity; the lessons learned from that activity would then be discussed in a team coaching session.