The Power of the Check-In: Building a Team That Connects
With Georgina Woudstra and Allard de Jong
Episode 27 of the Teams Transformed Podcast
About Teams Transformed
Teams Transformed is the podcast for courageous coaches, curious leaders, and anyone passionate about unlocking the true power of teams. Hosted by TCS Founder and Senior Faculty Georgina Woudstra and Allard De Jong, listen to explore transformational insights on how to coach teams with presence, depth, and emergence, diving into not just the tools, but the art of team coaching itself.
About this episode
In this episode of Teams Transformed, Georgina Woudstra and Allard de Jong take listeners into the first proper team coaching session with the executive team of ACME Inc., a composite team created from many of their real-world coaching experiences. Rather than presenting a polished case study or a predetermined sequence of interventions, they explore what actually happens when coaches stay close to what is emerging in the room.
Across two days of team coaching, Georgina and Allard reflect on the importance of creating a strong container for deeper team work, beginning with something as seemingly simple as a check-in. They explore how a check-in can do far more than serve as an icebreaker: it can make the invisible visible, bring the team's current reality into the room, and help members make contact with themselves and each other. As the team's check-ins become richer, the coaches notice moments of tension and impatience, and use these moments as opportunities to help the team recognise that the check-in itself is part of the work.
The coaches also discuss how their own presence and willingness to model vulnerability shapes what becomes possible for the team. By going first and sharing openly, they create permission for team members to take greater risks in their own sharing. This becomes particularly important as the team begins to explore individual development goals and how those goals can serve greater team effectiveness.
A central theme throughout the episode is the ever-evolving “what is”. Georgina and Allard reflect on why team coaching cannot be treated like diagnosing a machine: teams and their contexts are constantly changing, and what emerges in one conversation may be very different from what becomes visible later. Previous diagnostics, interviews, and team assessments provide useful orientation, but they must be held lightly. As psychological safety and contact develop, deeper aspects of the team's work can emerge.
The episode follows the coaches as they use a range of interventions, including a fishbowl, individual coaching in front of the team, and invitations for team members to give one another developmental feedback. These interventions reveal important patterns, including the team's tendency to focus on operational and strategic matters at the expense of relational development. Georgina and Allard explore the polarity between the strategic and the relational, and how teams can become more effective when they develop their capacity to attend to both.
The conversation also highlights the distinction between content and process. While team members naturally discuss tasks, reports, goals, and operational matters, the coaches pay attention to what is happening in the space between people: frustration, withholding, people-pleasing, unmet expectations, and the team's growing capacity to address difficult issues with care. As the team begins to have more courageous conversations with one another, Georgina and Allard notice that they themselves are becoming less central to the work.
One of the most significant shifts comes when the coaches begin handing responsibility for the agenda back to the team. Instead of telling the team what should happen next, they step out and observe how the group moves from many individual perspectives towards a shared direction. When the team struggles to move from “I” to “we”, this itself becomes the next developmental opportunity. Rather than immediately solving the problem for them, the coaches invite an experiment that allows the team to practise finding a collective way forward.
Throughout the episode, Georgina and Allard emphasise that team coaching is a journey rather than a series of isolated interventions. Some developmental themes may take many sessions to work through, and meaningful change must eventually translate into new behaviours in the team's everyday meeting room. The coaches describe their growing intention to “hand the baton over” as the team becomes more capable of noticing what matters, deciding where to focus, and working with emergence without needing the coaches to provide all the answers.
This episode offers an honest glimpse into the unfolding reality of team coaching: the moments of uncertainty, the unexpected shifts, the courage required to go deeper, and the gradual process of helping a team become increasingly able to coach and develop itself.
Key Themes Explored in this episode
The Check-In Makes the Invisible Visible
Georgina and Allard explore why a meaningful check-in is much more than an icebreaker or a quick round of updates. It brings the voices, emotions, tensions, and experiences present in the room into awareness, helping the team make contact with what is real for them in the here and now.
The Team's “What Is” Is Always Evolving
The coaches emphasise that a team cannot be treated like a machine that can simply be diagnosed and repaired. Teams and their contexts are constantly changing. What was true a month ago may no longer be true today, which means coaches must continually track what is emerging rather than relying too heavily on previous assessments or plans.
Coaches Must Model the Depth They Ask For
The episode highlights the importance of coaches going first. When coaches are willing to share openly and show something of themselves, they create greater permission for team members to take risks and move beyond surface-level responses.
The Container Creates the Conditions for Deeper Work
Psychological safety and a strong relational container allow teams to explore difficult issues with greater honesty. The coaches discuss how the depth of sharing depends partly on the level of safety and contact that has been established within the team.
Individual Development Serves Team Effectiveness
The session focuses on individual development goals, but always in service of the team. Team members explore their own patterns, learning edges, and developmental needs while receiving feedback from colleagues about how these affect the collective.
Strategic and Relational Work Need Balance
The coaches explore the polarity between strategic and relational work. While teams need clarity, action, productivity, and results, relational dynamics, misunderstandings, conflict, and lack of contact can become a drag on progress when they are not addressed.
Content and Process Are Both Part of the Work
Team members inevitably discuss content: tasks, reports, goals, deadlines, and operational issues. But the coaches also pay attention to process: how people relate, what is happening between them, what remains unsaid, and how the team makes contact with itself and others.
Courageous Conversations Can Happen in the Right Container
As team members share their individual development goals and ask for feedback, they begin to demonstrate that they can work with challenging material. The episode shows how difficult feedback can be offered with care when the conditions are right.
From Many to One
A significant moment occurs when the coaches step out and invite the team to determine where to go next. With multiple perspectives in the room, the team has to practise moving from “I” to “we” and finding a shared direction rather than waiting for the leader or coaches to decide.
The Coach Gradually Hands the Baton to the Team
One measure of progress is that the coaches become less necessary for structuring and directing the work. As the team's capacity grows, responsibility can increasingly move back to the team itself, allowing members to notice what matters and determine how they want to work with it.
Key Takeaways
🌱 A check-in is not simply an icebreaker; it can reveal what is really happening in the team.
👂 Coaches need to stay connected to the team's evolving “what is” rather than relying rigidly on previous assessments.
🤝 Coaches create stronger containers when they model the openness and vulnerability they ask of others.
🧩 Individual development can become powerful when it is explicitly connected to team effectiveness.
⚖️ Teams need to balance strategic focus with relational attention.
💬 Content tells us what a team is discussing; process reveals how the team is working together.
🔥 With the right conditions, teams can engage in challenging conversations with care and courage.
🔄 Team coaching is a journey, and developmental themes may take many sessions to translate into lasting behavioural change.
🛤 Coaches can gradually step back as teams become more capable of creating their own direction.
✨ Moving from “I” to “we” is an important developmental practice for teams.
🌍 Emergent team coaching means staying present to what is most relevant and important in the here and now.
Why listen?
This episode offers a rare behind-the-scenes look at what happens inside a real team coaching journey. Georgina Woudstra and Allard de Jong invite listeners into the conversations, observations, tensions, and moments of discovery that shape their work with teams.
Rather than presenting team coaching as a neatly packaged workshop, they demonstrate how experienced coaches continually observe, reflect, intervene, and adjust in response to what emerges. From the deceptively simple practice of checking in to the more challenging work of giving and receiving developmental feedback, the episode reveals how seemingly small moments can become significant opportunities for team transformation.
Listeners will gain insight into how to create the conditions for deeper team work, how to recognise the difference between content and process, and how to work with the strategic and relational dimensions of team life. The conversation also explores what happens when coaches begin to step back and transfer responsibility to the team itself.
Whether you are a team coach, organisational leader, facilitator, or simply curious about how teams develop, this episode offers a grounded perspective on the reality of emergent team coaching. It is an invitation to stay close to what is happening, resist the temptation to have all the answers, and trust the team's capacity to discover what needs to emerge next.
About your hosts
Georgina Woudstra is the Founder and Senior Faculty of Team Coaching Studio, an ICF Master Certified Coach (MCC) with over 20 years of experience. Georgina is recognised globally as one of the leading lights in team coaching and was among the first coaches to receive ICF's Advanced Certificate in Team Coaching.
Allard De Jong is a seasoned leadership development expert with two decades of experience solving organisational 'people problems' and accelerating leadership development. He brings a unique perspective on transformative inquiry and divergent thinking to team coaching practice.
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