Strategic work with teams who want to perform at a higher level, develop a strong reputation, and work efficiently.
If you’re wanting your team to collaborate and communicate more effectively, act with purpose and intention, and be productive, let’s talk.
Working with great teams from:
Team coaching
In-depth work with your whole team over an extended period of time. Like individual coaching, team coaching is designed to help your team become more aware of how it’s operating and identify ways you could work more effectively together. As a team coach, I hold up a mirror, ask important questions, and push you to develop practices that not only help you do better work together, but also become happier and healthier.
Team offsites
Half-day to multi-day offsites with your team so you’re able to connect away from day-to-day work. I design custom agendas for teams based on what you’re currently experiencing and your goals, and then facilitate so everyone on your team is able to fully participate. This allows us to level the playing field and surface all perspectives so you make better decisions.
“I've led teams for the last several years of different sizes and scope, and recommend Elle to anyone looking for a partner to scale themselves and their organization, particularly if you're doing that in high growth, fast paced, and high ambiguity environments.”
— Brandon McGraw, OpenAI
Components of team coaching
There is no better way to create real, lasting change within a team than to work with a team coach. There are different ways to structure a team coaching engagement, but these are the typical components.
Intake and plan
I’ll conduct interviews with each member of the team to better understand each person’s perspective and surface themes. We may also choose to do a team health survey so we get a better sense of what’s going on.
I’ll interpret the results and create a report that enables you to see where the hot spots are.
From there, we can decide on a specific purpose for our work together and a set of concrete goals.
Offsites, retreats, and gatherings
Bringing the whole team together to spend focused time on longer-term or bigger-picture conversations is a great way to make sure you’re not only focused on what’s urgent, but also what’s truly important.
I design and facilitate offsites ranging from a half day to multiple days so you have a solid agenda and a masterful, external facilitator whose job it is to help you make progress and feel like your time was well spent.
Coaching in meetings
Seeing how you work and communicate together is the best way to get a sense of the team and make in-the-moment adjustments.
I’ll join a set of your team meetings as a partner and offer live, practical observations and different ways to approach your unique challenges so the team feels more resourced and unified.
In between meetings, I also send tools and frameworks so you’re able to keep learning.
Assessments, profiles, and team maps
Teams often want to know what they have in common, where they differ, and what their unique makeup of styles is.
Personality profiles like Birkman, CliftonStrengths, and Working Genius are a great way to develop shared language across the team, and can also serve as a shortcut for working better together.
More info about each of these is below in the Additional Tools section.
Additional tools
Depending on your goals, we can bring in specific assessments, tools, and team maps to help you understand yourselves and each other better, so you’re aware of the dynamics on the team and can find common ground with one another.
Birkman
APPROACHES, NEEDS, AND STRESS BEHAVIORS
Birkman is an in-depth personality profile that shows nuanced information about someone’s usual behavior at work, what they need and expect of others, and how they respond to stress. It also shows team dynamics across a variety of dimensions, such as decisiveness, directness, and incentives.
Clifton Strengths
UNIQUE STRENGTHS AND GAPS
Clifton Strengths (formally called StrengthsFinder) is a tool that’s been around for decades and measures talent across 34 themes, such as influence, relationship building, discipline, and communication. It’s a simple way to see where your team’s strengths are and where you might have gaps.
Working Genius
STYLES ACROSS A PROJECT LIFECYCLE
Working Genius is a newer assessment from the creators of 5 Dysfunctions of a Team that looks at where people derive the most joy and energy within a project lifecycle, from wondering and brainstorming, to persuasion and enrollment, to execution and follow-through.
Systemic Team 360
INPUT FROM STAKEHOLDERS (COMING SOON)
A team 360 is a great way to understand how your stakeholders see your team — what you’re strong in, how you could be a better partner to them, and what they want more of from you. It helps build team awareness and ensure you’re serving your stakeholders purposefully and thoughtfully.
What I believe
Work happens in teams, but we don’t always invest in them.
Most work within organizations is happening collaboratively, either within teams or across teams. There’s been increased investment in individual managers and leaders over the past several years, which is great! I believe it’s now time to also invest in the team as a unit, because strong, trusting teams that collaborate and communicate well are key to producing great work.
Teams that focus on sustainable workload and pace actually get more done.
With increased pressure to deliver, teams will often say yes to too much in an effort to appear competent and helpful. This almost always backfires, and the teams that deliver quality work over a long period of time are ones that prioritize well, learn how to say no, and respect each other’s personal time.
Teams are systems of people.
This might sound cold, but hear me out! Anytime you have a group of people working together and interacting on a regular basis, that’s a system. That system can be changed by external forces and it can be changed by someone joining or leaving the team. I like to work with the whole system by thinking about the type of organization you’re in, the people within your team, and the roles they occupy. This allows us to work in a much more customized and targeted way.
Common questions
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I love working with teams at all stages, from teams that are newly formed to teams that have gone through major changes, to teams that have been together for a long time but know there’s always room to improve and respond to shifting external forces.
Mostly, I want to work with teams who are curious, have good intentions for one another, and that (crucially) have a leader who is deeply committed to and invested in the work.
I’ve worked with teams across a variety of industries, including tech and software companies, nonprofits and foundations, and creative agencies and studios.
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It depends, but teams that are willing to invest in this work for 6-9 months are typically the most happy and successful.
Often new teams come to me wanting a facilitator for a team offsite, which can be a good place to start. From there, we can determine what the best cadence and pace is for our continued work together.
I want whatever we do to feel like it fits into the reality of your team’s situation and demands, and my goal when coaching teams is always to save them time by helping them become more efficient and effective.
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By gathering data! I like to do a baseline team survey and/or 360, and then check in with the same assessment at specific milestones to see how things have shifted.
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I have a Professional Coaching Certification from New Ventures West, one of the oldest and most reputable coaching certifications in the world.
I completed New Ventures West’s 10-week team coaching program in 2021, and am currently getting an additional, year-old certification in Systemic Team Coaching. I’m also a certified Scrum master.
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Yes! I’m based in San Francisco, California, which means it’s easy for me to get pretty much anywhere in the Bay Area.
I also fly within the US and internationally to facilitate for teams.