Team Supervision
Teams are groups of individuals collaborating to achieve a specific goal. Whenever people come together to cooperate, human dynamics come into play. Inevitably, character differences and group dynamics can create issues that hinder or paralyze teamwork.
Team supervision helps resolve and overcome these issues.
In an institution, the mission statement is changed by the governing body. To enforce this change, a new leader is appointed to an established team. This new leader attempts to assert authority from the outset and terminates employees who resist the new direction. The remaining employees solidarize with those who were fired, and the team atmosphere hits rock bottom.
Team supervision could have prevented this situation if it had been utilized before implementing the new mission statement. The goal now was to rebuild trust. The new team leader and the team had to learn to openly and objectively express their differences and find compromises. The supervisor created a warm atmosphere where difficult emotions could be voiced and constructive solutions found. The unproductive power struggle was brought to an end.
The management team of a renowned hotel seeks supervision because internal disputes and emotional conflicts are affecting and paralyzing their daily work. The supervisor conducts several discussions with the involved parties to determine whether the issues are more related to communication or the structural aspects of the company. Once it becomes clear that the company’s structure is sound, but there are significant conflicts within the leadership team, the supervision sessions provide a safe space to openly discuss the long-standing conflicts among the management members. Different value systems and personality differences are addressed. It is clarified whether continued collaboration is possible or if resignations are inevitable.
After the parties agree to continue working together, the group undergoes a team-building process where each member opens up, a new foundation of trust is established, and the individual differences are acknowledged and understood.
Open discussions, collective reflection, and understanding group dynamics are core elements of any successful team supervision. As a coach, I strive to encourage team members to engage in a learning process and enhance the quality of their teamwork through my warm yet confrontational approach.
As a well-established psychoanalyst and psychotherapist, in addition to team supervision, I also offer individual supervision, case supervision, business coaching, leadership coaching, and employee coaching.
Supervision is useful for all specialists in “people professions” who want to learn how to relate to their clients/patients, understand them better and work with them more successfully.
If you have any further questions, I would be happy to advise you on the English-speaking supervision in Zurich that I offer.
Supervision uses the psychoanalytical knowledge and method to support and guide the Supervisee in how to better understand the unconscious dynamics of the relationship with his clients, to recognize and overcome the clients’ and his own blind spots. For this purpose, the Supervisee describes conversations and relational situations with his clients as part of the Supervision session.
The Supervisor points out facts and feelings that the Supervisee has not perceived or not taken into account, thus helping him to break free from communication barriers and dead ends. I also show the Supervisee alternatives on how to deal with clients. The goal is always to enhance to professional capacities of the Supervisee, the focus is not or only partly on the Supervisee’s own personal problems.
I consider myself to be an engaged and warm cooperation partner, an experienced colleague, helping the Supervisee to realize his professional potential, making him stronger in his capabilities and interventions. My role is that of a teacher in guiding his disciples to think more freely and creatively, to act strategically and tactically, and to intervene courageously.
In Psychotherapy and Psychoanalysis, the focus is on the personal problems and conflicts of the clients/patients. In Supervision, the focus is on client- or patient-related requests of the Supervisee. Sometimes, personal questions or problems of the Supervisee also emerge in Supervision. Of course, these can be discussed as well, and, where obstructive, worked on and overcome.