Coaching Virtually - Five Things to Keep in Mind

An increasing number of coaches are working virtually with individual clients as well as teams and

groups.

Here are five things to keep in mind as you navigate a call

1.       Create shared expectations – what can people expect from the call. How will this be different. What are you there to offer? What do they want out of the experience?

2.       Connect people early on – to what they want out of the call, and with each other. This might involve posting the question : What do you want to make sure you get out of the call today and having people share that in chat. To connect people, even at a surface level, have people annotate and dot where they are calling in form.

3.       Keep the pace moving – Don’t just talk at people. Involve them through slides, inserting ideas via chat and also by having them use annotation. Annotation is not naturally set up I all rooms but it does provide a more hands-on experience. Give people some practice and guidelines on how to use it.

4.       Provide pauses for people to do things along the way. While many virtual leaders hesitate from doing this, if you are streaming, you’ll see how valuable it is to provide a pause of a minute or two for people to do something practical and tactical. This might involve capturing what they have learned in a mindmap, or identifying their top 3 bullet points and writing it down some where, or identifying their next steps, or scheduling it in. What can you do to provide a pause point.

5.       Follow up – keep the conversation going. There many different platforms to build community. From closed Facebook groups, to shared virtual boards such as Mighty Networks, keep the conversation flowing by sharing resources related to your topic, inviting people to respond via polls, and get together for future calls or co-working sessions.

For more ideas check out these past blog posts I’ve written on virtual:

Watch out for these pitfalls - Five faux pas to avoid in virtual calls from the Teams365 blog https://www.potentialsrealized.com/teams-365-blog/teams365-742-virtual-facilitation-faux-pas

Virtual Facilitation – Creating Powerful Starts and Ends to Virtual Calls – We remember the start and end of things – how can you jazz things up to make your last call more memorable? https://www.potentialsrealized.com/teams-365-blog/teams365-560-virtual-facilitation-creating-powerful-starts-and-ends

Check out the Effective Virtual Conversations tips published each Monday at my Teams365 blog. These tips are based on my 2017 book – Effective Virtual Conversations. Pick up a copy at Amazon today.

Thanks for joining me - let us know what you put into practice and what impact it has!

With best wishes,

Jennifer

Jennifer Britton, MES, CPT, PCC, CPCC

 Author of Effective Group Coaching (2009), and From One to Many: Best Practices for Team and Group Coaching (2013), Effective Virtual Conversations (2017) and Coaching Business Builder - Workbook and Planner (2018)
Phone : 416-996-8326
Upcoming Spring 2019 programs include Group Coaching Essentials program (8.75 CCEs) which starts again mid-April and the  Advanced Group and Team Coaching Practicum (10 CCEs which focuses on the "practice" of group coaching). Advanced will start Friday May 3rd (6 weeks, 10 CCEs)

Group Coaching: 5 Things to Lean Into As a Group Coach

As I go to wrap up up with both the Group Coaching Essentials Winter session, and the Advanced

Group and Team Coaching Practicum later today, I always appreciate the questions I receive about WHAT NEXT and Where I am going to take my learning.

One of the questions I received in the last few days warranted a blog post given that it's been a while since offering up some of these top 10 or Top 5 lists.

For those that are exploring What's Next in the work and conversations as a group or team coach, I'd encourage you to explore some of these areas:

1. Continuing to leverage your coaching skills - As I was saying last week when presenting at this year's WBECS, group and team coaching is grounded in coaching. We need to continue leaning into our core coaching competencies, or else we run the risk of not coaching. What are the core skills you want to lean into as a coach? What are the skills you are working on sharpening this quarter?
Whether we have been coaching for 3 months or 15 years, there is always something to learn and sharpen. It's what keeps our work fresh, and also probably relevant.

What are the coaching skills you want to further refine as a group coach?

2. Leaning into business systems - Systems help us streamline and automate tasks that we undertake on a regular basis. From registration to accounting activities to designing worksheets or slides, systems can really help us cut down on time and allow us to focus on what's important --- HAVING the Conversation with clients!

What are the systems that are going to support you in your work?

3. Building Your Toolbox - Great group coaches continue to add onto their toolkit. They consider what can be woven together in service to their team or group client. Once your learning curve plateaus, consider adding something new each and every engagement (as long as it is in service to the group or team you are working with). It's easy to get in our own ruts...What are the tools you might want to explore?
Some of the tools and approaches we have been exploring this winter have been:

• Visual cards
• Body-centered geography or Somatic approaches, where we incorporate kinsethtic approaches or movement
• Using Metaphor
• Incorporating video (whether it's pre-work or post work or an energizer). This is an area we have been exploring at both the Coaching Biz Growth Lab and LLDS.

 What tools do you want to add?

4. Ensuing you continue to co-design what is needed in every engagement. I learned early on in my work as a coach trainer and speaker that saying "IT DEPENDS" so much , is not really useful. While there is not one model for group or team coaching, there very much are core principles and elements we ground our work in. otherwise, we probably aren't coaching. How are you grounding your work in core coaching principles, as well as a deep focus on Goals, Action, Awareness and Accountability.
What really is required in each and every engagement? What do you need to co-design?

5. Exploring related fields to bring even more to your clients. Organizational change and culture is embracing many different areas at present. While I flagged many of these as emerging trends back in 2013 and 2017 in both my From One to Many: Best Practices for Team and Group Coaching and Effective Virtual Conversations, these things are now part of organizational culture. They influence the context in which we operate. For example, Design Thinking and Agile.

 What are the elements that are going to support your continued work in your industry? What are the things that are going to be of service to not only your learning, but their performance?

As you consider your work in the coming weeks and months, what are the areas you wan to lean into? Where do you want to grow?

Enjoy your conversations,
Jennifer

 Warm regards,
Jennifer

Author of Effective Group Coaching (2009), and From One to Many: Best Practices for Team and Group Coaching (2013), Effective Virtual Conversations (2017) and Coaching Business Builder - Workbook and Planner (2018)
Phone : 416-996-TEAM (8326)

Upcoming Spring 2019 programs include Group Coaching Essentials program (8.75 CCEs) which starts Friday March 22 (10:15 am - 11:30 am  ET - 5 weeks no call 4/19) and the  Advanced Group and Team Coaching Practicum (10 CCEs which focuses on the "practice" of group coaching). Advanced will start Friday March 29th (1 - 2:15 pm Eastern - meeting for 6 weeks - no call 4/19)

Did you hear that I've just released a new on-demand course? If you have been enjoying the Coaching Business Builder Workbook and Planner, you may want to join me for my 19 Productivity Tips program which includes short-video based lessons AND bi-weekly live calls around productivity for the next 5 months. Kick off to the live calls are held bi-weekly on Fridays from 2:30- 2:55 pm ET. Check out the 19 Productivity Tips program here.