Building Your Group and Team Coaching Toolkit - Change (18)

At times it may feel like change may be the only constant for employees. Coaching has often been

turned to as a series of conversations to support employees across the change cycle.

Given that change has been so interlinked with change, in this week’s blog post exploring different ways coaches may work with groups and teams, I thought I’d take a different focus. Let’s get you to think about the many different ways your clients approach change. My guess is that there may be a number of different elements including:

·       Readiness for change – How ready are people for the change process? Are they ready to take action or are they simply contemplating it? Have they even entered the pre-contemplation stages?

·       Pace at which they want to move through change – thinking back to Rogers work in Diffusion of Innovations – are they an early adopter or a laggard? Check out this blog post in which I go more into pace of change.

·       Clarity around what change needs to happen.

·       Exploring the behaviors, habits and processes that are going to help support change.

·       Going beneath the waterline into assumptions, values, beliefs, mindsets, habits and how this impacts our behaviors during times of change, and across the change process itself.

·       Markers for change – Helping people identify where they are in the change process. Having metrics around where they started and where they want to go.

As a team, change may be particularly challenging as different people across the team are impacted by change in different way. As with other topics we’ve explored, there may be need for individuals to self-explore their approaches, and readiness for change, prior to entering into a discussion around alignment of change with others on the team. 

What are the tools you have in your toolkit around change? What’s going to help support teams to explore the topics listed above?

Questions to explore with your teams and groups:

1.       How do you naturally approach change? How are you approaching change as it relates to this topic?

2.       What pace are you comfortable approaching the change?

3.       What’s going to support you as you move through the change process?

4.       What might get in the way?

5.       Where and when do you want to pause to take stock of how the change is going?

6.       What else needs to be communicated?

For more on this topic, you may want to check out:

The recent Coaching for Change HBR article from Boytazis, Smith and Van Oosten  - read it at https://hbr.org/2019/09/coaching-for-change (September 2019)

The Immunity to Change body of work from Kegan and Lahey.

Just in case you didn't know, I host a short Facebook Live on each of these weekly topics. They are short 5- 7 minute videos in which I share this week's topic. You can check this week's presentation over at https://www.facebook.com/EffectiveGroupCoaching. Enjoy!

Enjoy your week,

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), Advanced Group and Team Coaching Practicum ( 10 CCEs) or the Certified Facilitator Program (24 CCEs) for PlanDoTrack and the Coaching Business Builder starting this coming week.