This is a great question to ask when you are looking at investing in the development of your team.
Both team building and teach coaching are relevant interventions BUT both have different uses and outcomes.
What is Team Building?
Team building focuses on improving the collaborative relationships between team members. So if you feel that team members could do better by knowing each other better and find ways to get along with each other this is the right option to go with.
Team building is especially useful when a new team is being formed or when there is a lot of churn in the membership of the team. This is also helpful when there are a lot of conflicts in a team which can be resolved by better relationship management in a team.
A typical team-building intervention generally consists of activities that are unrelated to work. It is a facilitative process that is led in a pre-planned structured manner by the trainer. It is a short term and stand-alone activity that can span from a couple of hours to a couple of days.
The outcomes of team-building are better camaraderie and understanding among team members.
What is Team Coaching?
Team coaching focuses on building the effectiveness and capability of a team to deliver on its performance goals. It is ideal for teams looking to improve on their delivery or developing their capacity for the future.
All activities are related to real-time work. Team coaching happens in a live environment while the team is working.
Team coaching is a reflective process where the coach encourages an open dialogue. The intention is to help the team reflect on its ways of operating and have conversations that they need to have to move forward more powerfully. Team coaching can also include team building as one of the activities generally at the start.
A team coaching intervention is long-term and is typically conducted over 8-12 months.
The outcomes of team coaching are better business results, higher value for stakeholders and a future-ready team.
So when it comes to deciding between team building and team coaching it depends on the outcomes you want to achieve.