Abstract

This case focuses on the senior management team of a global chemical enterprise in China. Following a series of organizational and business-structure adjustments, the team encountered significant challenges in integration and collaboration, resulting in fragmented cooperation and weakened collective effectiveness.

Through a systematic team coaching intervention—including assessment and diagnostics, a series of structured workshops, and in-depth follow-up coaching—the project substantially improved the team’s level of trust, accountability, and collaborative efficiency. These changes not only led to a sharp increase in team engagement, but also directly drove breakthrough growth in key business performance indicators.

Due to its far-reaching impact, the project earned global gold awards for both the General Manager and HR leadership.

Case Portrait: Reconstructing Amid Fragmentation: The Journey from Broken Collaboration to a Resonant Leadership Team

At the time of the project launch, the enterprise was undergoing global restructuring alongside regional integration. The overall organizational structure had not yet been fully established. Several critical functions—such as project management and customer service—were still not yet standardized, resulting in unclear responsibilities and a vacuum in management processes.

The team operated in a state best described as “people present, but minds dispersed.” The entire system resembled a vehicle being built while already in motion.

Team Status: Typical Symptoms of Collaborative Breakdown

The team covered multiple functions, including product development, customer service, sales, R&D, supply chain, marketing, and finance. A total of 18 functional leaders were jointly accountable for overall results. Most members were newly promoted or appointed. While they appeared “familiar” with one another, there was no deep relational connection.

Key challenges included:

• Uneven engagement and low ownership
Many members openly admitted at the beginning of the project that they “had no idea why they were here,” attending the coaching workshops mainly out of loyalty to leadership. “Giving the boss face” became the shared reason for participation.
• Distorted information and broken collaboration
The leader reflected: “I’ve tried countless approaches, but the team just can’t get going.” There was little confidence in achieving annual performance targets.
• Surface politeness masking real distance
A facade of “everyone is fine” concealed underlying issues. After sharing a story, one member asked a pivotal question: “Are we really okay?”—a moment that became a turning point for the entire group.
• Accumulated pain points blocking business progress
On the first day of the workshop, the team filled an entire wall with documented “pain points”—process bottlenecks, information breakdowns, unclear responsibilities, customer complaints—revealing deep systemic dysfunction in team operations.

At project launch, the organization stood at a crossroads. Without true activation, collaboration would not be sustainable.

Our Approach: Systematic Coaching Intervention

1. Team Diagnosis: Seeing Clearly Before Finding a Way Forward

At the outset, the team conducted a comprehensive assessment using the TDA Team Diagnostic tool. The results were unambiguous:

• The team scored merely 11% in trust
• Constructive interaction and accountability were extremely weak
• Overall state: clearly within the collaborative dysfunction zone

This “mirror-style” assessment became the time when each member had to confront their role, cognitive differences, and collaborative blind spots.

2. Kick-off Workshop: From “Why am I here?” to “I want to get to know my colleagues again”

The kick-off workshop began with a cold atmosphere. Many participants arrived with a task-completion mindset, subtle resistance and distance filled the room.

Through experiential facilitation, the coach quickly created a psychologically safe and open environment. The team gradually engaged, though early conversations still lingered at a surface level of polite harmony.

The turning point came when one leader asked: “Are we really that good? Do we truly have no problems?”

Like a stone breaking the surface of still water, this question disrupted the calm and opened the door to genuine dialogue. Team members began voicing truths long left unspoken—dissatisfaction, concerns, misunderstandings, and even historical emotional baggage.

This was not emotional venting, but deep collective reflection grounded in real business contexts. For the first time, the team confronted systemic collaboration issues using authentic language.

Observable changes after the workshop included:

• Members proactively driving action plans, with some voluntarily taking on coordination and integration roles

• Regular meetings shifting from one-way reporting to dialog-based collaboration, with clear gains in engagement and efficiency

• Increased emotional awareness, with members actively repairing relationships and adopting more mature, accountable communication

This phase marked the team’s transition from “participation out of politeness” to “genuine commitment,” laying the foundation for trust-building and cultural evolution.

3. Follow-up Workshops

Over the following months, four in-depth follow-up team coaching workshops were conducted, each focused on a core theme:

• Accountability

Before this intervention, long-standing unresolved issues were “sunken topics”—raised repeatedly but met with silence, no follow-up, and eventual abandonment. After the accountability workshop, a clear behavioral shift emerged. To the General Manager’s surprise and delight, some members proactively resurfaced long-pending issues and voluntarily took responsibility for resolving them. More importantly, this accountability no longer relied on assignment or pressure. It stemmed from genuine concern for collective outcomes and a growing sense of ownership. This shift not only strengthened execution, but also revived a culture of “if it’s said, it gets done; if it’s raised, it gets followed through.” Accountability moved from a stated value to tangible organizational action.

• Constructive Interaction

Through communication skills training, conflict simulations, and identification of “team toxins,” members built mechanisms for positive expression and open feedback—significantly improving psychological safety and communication efficiency.

• Alignment

At the end of the alignment workshop, the GM shared that “in the past, I often felt very alone—always the one communicating upward to Global, trying to explain China’s realities.” A member immediately responded: “from now on, any issue related to China’s business will be addressed at this team level. There will be responses and conclusions—no more pushing things around or leaving them unresolved.” This statement acted as a signal, triggering widespread resonance. The team engaged in substantive discussions on how alignment could truly be operationalized. Members increasingly expressed willingness to collaborate proactively—especially in global interface projects—by aligning information, sharing progress, and ensuring mutual clarity. This dialog-driven systemic force strengthened collective leadership and accountability, enabling the team to demonstrate greater coherence and integration amid external complexity.

Measurable Outcomes

Pre- and post-assessments using the TDA tool showed significant improvement: