This is the Australian launch of the book The Wise Team Coach, based on three years of meta-research into team effectiveness and team coaching. The book explores some of the most common contradictions and debates around the topic of team coaching and presents readers with a framework to enable them to explore this field for themselves, reflecting on their own experience and drawing their own conclusions. Team coaching in organisations is still a relatively new discipline, with industry associations having only recently defined their first attempts to frame team coaching in the form of standard skills and competencies. As a new discipline we still see multiple perspectives on what team coaching is, and how it should best be practiced. The literature abounds with paradox and contradictions.

Within this book Paul delves into these contradictions and debates, providing a framework to encourage readers to construct their own practice model. Covering both theory and practical application, this will be a useful guide for both experienced team coaches and those entering the field.

The launch will be an experiential event at which Paul will share some of the debates with the audience and ask the audience to engage in it own debate and dialogue in service of further refining each and everyone’s own personal team coaching model. Suitable for experienced team coaches and those just contemplating entering into the space.

Time: 6:30pm for a 7pm start. The 90-minute talk will be followed by networking.

Paul Lawrence
After completing a PhD in Psychology, Paul embarked upon a corporate career with BP plc, leading teams and businesses in the UK, Spain, Portugal, Australia and Japan. He played leadership roles in growing new retail businesses and turning round acquired businesses, culminating in the role of COO for a retail business in Japan. After fourteen years in line roles, Paul transitioned into leadership development roles, starting with a global role for BP leading their first-ever global leadership program, a program designed for 5,000 leaders across the world. Paul moved to Sydney in 2003 before starting his own business in 2007. He now has over 5,000 coaching hours working with individuals, groups and teams and works with organisations to build leading-edge leadership development programs tied to the strategic aspirations of the business. Paul has published more than a dozen academic articles and book chapters and has authored and co-authored six books: Leading Change: How Successful Leaders Approach Change Management, Coaching in Three Dimensions: Meeting the Challenges of a Complex World and The Tao of Dialogue, Coaching Systemically: Five Ways of Thinking About Systems, The Wise Leader and The Wise Team Coach Paul has taught coaching and leadership at the Sydney Business School, University of Wollongong and is an Honorary Research Associate at Oxford Brookes University.