Thursday, April 26, 2007

Group Coaching - Best Practices Part 2

A couple of months ago I blogged on Best Practices for Group Coaching and looked at two best practices - Less Is More, and Recognizing that Participants Learn In Different Ways.

As part of an ongoing series, today I'm going to blog on another best practice to consider incorporating into your next group coaching program - Creating Accountability Structures.

Create Accountability Structures:
Copyright 2007 - Jennifer Britton. All Rights Reserved

The first best practice that I want to talk about in today's post is to create accountability structures in your group coaching programs. Just as in individual coaching, we have a number of tools to forward participant's learning. The same principle works in group coaching. Consider incorporating the following in your programs:

* Homework between sessions -- this can be one piece of homework for the entire group, or you can have participants individually identify their own homework for the time between the sessions;

*Create a structure for Action Planning:
Build time into the last section of your group coaching program for action planning - have participants identify one or more things that they are going to do as a result of the session. It may be useful to share with them the SMART Goals framework, and have them identify resource needed to accomplish this, timelines, and any other support structures.

The weekly action plans can be shared as part of the weekly closure as a group, or participants can be paired off with an accountabiblity partner.

Spend time at the start of the next session checking in with the group to see how their homework was achieved. What did they do? What did they learn? What challenges are showing up?

* Create learning or accountability partners within the group. Having participants buddy up throughout the program can be a very powerful process. Buddies can check in between sessions as well as work together during the program itself. With larger groups, triad groupings, rather than dyads, can also work.

* Create a Hybrid Coaching program: In several of my programs I offer a hybrid program of group coaching sessions twice a month interspersed with individual coaching once a month with each participant. Feedback from participants is that they really enjoy the combination of group and individual sessions each month.

What ideas do you have about creating accountability structures within your programs? What's worked well? What hasn't? Please feel free to comment below.

With best wishes,
Jennifer

Jennifer Britton, CPCC, CHRP, CPT
Potentials Realized
Group Coaching Essentials
Toll Free: 1-866-217-1960
Email: jennifer[at]potentialsrealized[dot]com

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