Building Your Group and Team Coaching Toolkit - Strategic Issues (20)

Many teams and group members will want to build in a focus around strategic issues into their

coaching process. Strategic issues are important as they usually take us to the 30,000 foot view, or macro view of our work, context and landscape.

While strategic years ago meant 10 – 20 years, in today’s super-charged world of work, strategic now may mean 3-5 years down the road.

There are a variety of excellent strategic planning tools we may incorporate into our work as coaches, as we help individual group members and teams identify what is important to them. 

Three tools you may want to explore are the:

SWOT – one of the more traditional strategic planning tools which explore strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats

PESTE – an environmental scan which explores the political, economic, social, technological and environmental layers

Strategic Issues Mapping

I often will incorporate one or more of these into a team coaching conversation, or as pre-work for a group coaching conversation. The insights gleaned around our context (the SWOT and PESTE), or what we see in our landscape (Strategic Issues Mapping) can be a great spark for a conversation.

For a description of what Strategic Issues Mapping is all about, take a look at my 2014 Teams365 blog post here: https://www.potentialsrealized.com/teams-365-blog/teams-365-85-strategic-planning-tool-2-strategic-issues-mapping

 

You can read more about the SWOT here: https://www.potentialsrealized.com/teams-365-blog/teams-365-84-strategic-planning-tool-swot

As previously mentioned, I will often have teams or group members create their own SWOT prior to a coaching conversation. You could also get group members to work in breakouts (Virtual or in-person) to explore one or more of the SWOT categories, presenting it back and then sparking a deeper conversation with the team.

Six questions you might explore as you coach around strategic issues:

1.       What are the strengths and weaknesses?

2.       Looking to our external environment, what threats and opportunities exist?

3.       As we move to the 30,000 view, what’s important to notice?

4.       Keeping in mind our strategic priorities, what do we need to say YES to? What do we need to say NO to?

5.       3-5 years from now, how will we know we have been successful? (Ask this on an individual level if group coaching, or team level if team coaching)

6.       If _____ ($/resources/ etc) were not a priority, what would we do?

Enjoy your conversations,

Jennifer

Jennifer Britton, CPCC, PCC – Potentials Realized 
Leadership | Teamwork | Business Success
Author of Effective Virtual Conversations (2017), Coaching Business Builder Workbook and Planner (2018) and From One to Many: Best Practices for Team and Group Coaching (2013)
Follow along with the #90DaysPlanDoTrack series over at Instagram @CoachingBizBuilder 
Join the conversation at the Conversation Sparker Zone - our online community where you can explore virtual and team issues, coaching, productivity and business development)

Join us for an upcoming ICF CCE approved program - Group Coaching Essentials (8.75 CCEs, starts Monday October 21 at 9 am ET), Advanced Group and Team Coaching Practicum ( 10 CCEs starts Monday October 28 at 3 pm ET) or the PlanDoTrack Certified Facilitator Program (24 CCEs) starting November 15th.

Expanding Your Group and Team Coaching Toolkit - Strengths (9)

It’s week 9 of Expanding Your Group and Team Coaching Toolkit. This week we are going to explore one of my favorite areas to coach around – Strengths. 

Why are strengths important?

Gallup has undertaken decades of research on the topic of strengths and has found:

Individuals and teams that are able to lead more by strengths, are:

•       6x more engaged

•       3 x more likely to report having excellent quality of life

•       8.9% greater profitability

•       Teams which focus on strengths have 12.5% greater productivity

(Gallup Strengths Center)

As teams we work collectively and understanding our strengths can make a big difference in terms of communication, triggers, stress, prioritization and flow. As team coaches you may be working with a blend of individual and team strengths.

Questions around strengths : Teams

1.       What do you notice about your strengths collectively?

2.       What strengths can you rely on?

3.       What do you notice about roles in the team and strengths?

4.       What strengths are missing across the team?

5.       What is the blindspot created by over-relying on your strength?

6.       What strengths do you need to collaborate with, or bring in?

As group coaches the primary focus will likely be on individual strengths and how people are capitalzing on these in their own worlds. There may, or may not, be any intersect between individual group members in between the sessions.  

Looking to your own self around strengths consider these questions I posed here at the blog in 2012:

As you consider your strengths ask yourself:

1.       How are you using your strengths on a regular basis?
2.       Which ones are not being used?
3.       Which ones are being overused, and may be creating a blind-spot?
4.       Which, if any, were you surprised to see?
5.       Which one would you like to place some focus around and use more in your work or life in the next month or quarter? What changes would this entail?

For more on this topic check out StengthsFinder 2.0 by Tom Rath, Strengths Based Leadership by Tom Rath and Barry Conchie, or Go, Put Your Strengths to Work by Marcus Buckingham. If you prefer to work around Signature Strengths with the VIA Character Strengths Survey Check out The Power of Character Strengths: Appreciate and Ignite Your Positive Personality by Drs. Ryan Niemiec and Robert McGrath

Enjoy the conversation,

Jennifer

Jennifer Britton, CPCC, PCC – Potentials Realized 
Leadership | Teamwork | Business Success
Author of Effective Virtual Conversations (2017), Coaching Business Builder Workbook and Planner (2018) and From One to Many: Best Practices for Team and Group Coaching (2013)
Follow along with the #90DaysPlanDoTrack series over at Instagram @CoachingBizBuilder 
Join the conversation at the Conversation Sparker Zone - our online community where you can explore virtual and team issues, coaching, productivity and business development)

Join us for an upcoming ICF CCE approved program - Group Coaching Essentials (starts Friday June 7th - 8.75 CCEs), or the Virtual Facilitation Essentials(starts Monday June 3rd at 1:30 pm ET - 4 spots open - 8.5 CCEs)