The more complex the system, the more complex the coaching needs to be.
Coaching a team alone means reducing a system to the perspective of a single person, and that is a real risk.
When I support a team, I am not supporting “a group of individuals in the same room.”
I am supporting a system.
A system is:
Relationships and roles, both explicit and implicit
Loyalties and unspoken truths*
Power dynamics and emotions circulating through the room
Habits that repeat themselves
And a form of “collective intelligence”… sometimes brilliant, sometimes defensive
And all of this is happening in real time.
That is why I believe in one very simple idea:
It takes a system to coach a system.
In other words, working in pairs, or with more than one coach, in team coaching is not a “nice-to-have.”
It is a necessity, and a truly professional approach.
Why?
Because a team is living complexity.
And one coach, however skilled, cannot hold everything at the same time:
The content and the process
What is being said and what is being avoided
Power dynamics and relational fragility
The frame… and emergence
With two coaches, something else becomes possible.
One coach can hold the structure while the other listens to the relational field.
One can intervene while the other observes the impact on the system.
One can name a pattern while the other regulates emotional safety.
And above all, it helps avoid a very common trap.
When there is only one coach facing a team, the team often, without intending to, tries to pull the coach into the system.
To seduce them, test them, recruit them, or even place them “on one side.”
With two coaches, the coaching system is better able to resist that.
Because the relationship between the coaches becomes an instrument.
A tool for perception, feedback and regulation.
For the client, the benefit is very concrete.
More safety, more nuance, more impact.
And quite simply, fewer blind spots.
And yes, this also asks something of the coaches.
Not just to “split the time,” but to build a genuine partnership.
To prepare together, speak honestly to one another, align, be supervised, and so on.
Because a coaching system that regulates itself becomes an implicit learning experience for the client system.
The team learns, by observing, how complexity can be held collectively, how disagreements can be worked through, and how alignment can be built in motion.
Without this work, the dynamic between the coaches can also enter the room.
And it will influence the team’s work, even if nobody consciously chose it.
In the end, “a system to coach a system” is also about this.
Co-responsibility and relational maturity.
On the coaches’ side AND on the team’s side.
Ultimately, the question is simple: how do you make sure that coaching does not become just one “point of view,” but a real mirror of the system?