Team and Group Coaching: Four Approaches To Consider

Activities to consider in your next group coaching process

Activities form the shape of any group coaching experience. Conversation is not the only way people learn, and acquire insights. I continue to enjoy bringing in a variety of activities into any group coaching process including:

1. Visual Decks - I’ve written and have spoken on bringing in decks for a number of years. This spring we launched the ConversationSparker Cards™ and they have started to be used by facitiators and coaches around the world. You can learn more about them here. I also recorded a video earlier this year showcasing three other visual decks I have used over the years with groups and teams - JICT, the Coaching Game, and Visual Explorer

2. Journalling - Journalling can be a very powerful process for group members, whether it is our traditional paper based journal process, or a newer approach with online journalling. In my latest book, From One to Many: Best Practices for team and Group Coaching I spotlight the work of Journal Engine, which takes journalling into the online domain. For coaches who are working with groups who are more digitally inclined, a tool such as JournalEngine is has many advantages and extends the coaching conversation.

3. Experiential Processes - As someone who started out originally as an experiential educator more than 25 years ago, I continue to see great value in creating experiential processes for our group members to step into. For creative sparks to get the juices flowing about what this may look like, I will usually turn to sites such as Wilderdom.com (check out their Toolkit of Group games) and Business Balls.com (for corporate group and team programs)

4. Assessments can also be an invaluable tool in our coaching work, and in fact, utilization of an assessment such as the Five Behaviors of a Cohesive Team or the Team Diagnostic from Team Coaching International may point to the focus areas of our work.

There are a wide range of assessments you may wish to be certified or credentialed in, depending on your clients needs , including:

At the individual level:

* MBTI

* DiSC - select from the Everything DiSC series of tools (which I use (and am a provider for coaches who want to offer this to their clients) due to the robust nature of the reports and variety of customized assessments such as the DiSC Workplace, DiSC Management, Work of Leaders, DiSC Sales), the Extended DiSC or one of many other Disc

* EQ I 2.0 - for those interested in, and exploring, Emotional Intelligence

* The Leadership Circle

At the team level:

* Team Diagnostic from Team Coaching International

*The Five Behaviors of a Team from Everything DiSC (based on the work of Patrick Lencioni)
What assessments do your clients find useful in the work you do?

Have a great week,
Jennifer

Jennifer Britton, MES, PCC, CPCC
Author of Effective Group Coaching (Wiley, 2010) and From One to Many: Best Practices for Team and Group Coaching (Jossey-Bass, 2013)
GroupCoachingEssentials.com - Join us for an upcoming program including the Group Coaching Essentials teleseminar (6.75 CCEs) starting July 17 or the Mentor Coaching Group - starting July 14
(416)996-8326