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)