Group and Team Coaching: Three Essential Items for your Toolkit

While Group and Team Coaching is primarily conversationally based, and our standard coaching

tools are our best ally, there can be some additional resources you will want to have on hand, to support your team and group coaching conversations.

1. Visual Cards - Visual Cards such as Points of You, the JICT Deck, the Conversation Sparker(TM) deck or Visual Explorer, are a great way to get people in dialogue. Whether you are working on creating a vision, exploring values, or mining for strengths, visual cards can be used in a myriad of ways for both individual and collective coaching conversations with groups and teams.
As in any coaching process, when we bring in additional resources we want to place the most emphasis on using these external tools in support of goal setting, action and awareness.
If you are curious as to how to work with visual cards, please check out my 40 Ways to Work with Visual Cards E-manual (which can be bundled with the Conversation Sparker cards) or view this 30 minute blab I hosted last fall on working with visual cards

2. Post it notes - Now coming in a variety of colors, shapes and sizes, post its are a great way to get all voices at the table or on the wall. take a look back at the 2007 post I wrote on different ways to use post its and index cards. Some ideas of where you may want to incorporate post its:
1. As a way to mine for coaching topics or agenda items
2. As a feedback/evaluation mechanism at the end of the session
3. To look at enablers and derailers for a team (there are some neat red and green arrow post cards available for this - check your local dollar store or office supply store to see if they have these on file)4. To explore different perspectives around an issue
5. To get different priorities on the table


3. Questions - While it's fun to bring in lots of different tools, it's important to remember that questions are the one thing which  helps clients explore and move into action. Questions can be used to open up conversations, expand awareness, focus choices, and move people into action. What are some of your favorite coaching questions?
Over the years I've focused quite a bit on the topic of using questions in team and group coaching. Please check out these related posts here:
Core Coaching Competency - Powerful Questions - read this 2012 post here
Powerful Group Coaching Questions - What? So What? Now What? - read this 2011 post here
Six Powerful Questions to Close a Group Coaching Session - read this 2015 post here
Six Questions to Focus - Read this 2016 post here.
Six Coaching Questions to Strengthen Connection in Groups and Teams - read this post here

What would you put as your top 3 most important tools in your coaching toolkit?

Have a great start to your week,
Jennifer

Jennifer Britton, MES, CPT, PCCGroup Coaching Essentials | Potentials Realized  
Author of Effective Group Coaching (Wiley, 2010) and From One to Many: Best Practices for Team and Group Coaching (Jossey-Bass, 2013)
Upcoming programs include: Mentor Coaching Group for ACC Renewals and ACC/PCC portfolio (Fridays 12 noon ET  which started on Sept 9 or Mondays at 9 am Eastern/New York - starting September 26), the Advanced Group Coaching Practicum (Fridays 1:15 - 2:30pm ET 10 CCEs) and the Group Coaching Essentials teleseminar starting Thursdays 12 - 1:15 pm ET on September 22 (8.75 CCEs)
Contact us by phone: (416)996-8326