Expanding your group and team coaching toolkit - Assessments (7)

As coaches, assessments provide data for clients to create their own story. Assessments can be a valuable starting point for the coaching conversation. As coaches we want to use assessments as a springboard for awareness, action and insight.

There are many different assessments coaches may think about including into a group or team coaching process including:

Strengths – Individual strengths work using StengthsFinder or VIA Strengths.  or collective strengths like the Team Diagnostic

Styles – MBTI, Disc

Values – Barrett

Roles -Belbin

Leadership – Leadership Circle Inventory, Leadership 363

A great starting place is to ask your client what assessments they have used in the past, and what could be of value to them. What is it that they are trying to measure?

Another consideration with assessments is – What is the focus? Is it collective (across the entire team) OR is it to explore the individual level and then scale up to the team level? 

Team assessments such a Team Coaching International’s Team Diagnostic Survey is unique in that it maps a teams strengths as a system, rather than providing a collation of the snapshots of individual team members.

Six questions:

1. What is important to explore more fully?
2. What do you want to measure?
3. Is it important to explore it on an individual or collective level?
4. What is the story the team is making up about the item?
5. Looking at where you are now, where do you want to go?
6. What will success look like?

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

Essential Coaching Questions - Fall and Q 4

Several years ago I ran a series here at the Group Coaching Ins and Outs blog entitled "Six Coaching

Questions" where I did a series of posts on potential coaching questions you might incorporate into the coaching conversation when working with:
Goals
Action
Awareness
Accountability

You can read those posts here.

 As I wrote in From One to Many: Best Practices for Team and Group Coaching "Questions form the backbone to the coaching conversation).

Tomorrow, Thursday September 20th, I'm hosting the first of three separate fall business planning virtual retreats. Fall officially arrives on Friday/Saturday, and it's a great opportunity to pause, and take stock of where you are at.

Given the popularity of the past questions series, I thought that it would be useful to share with you a series of questions you can incorporate into your own work with clients, or  your own business, as you step into fall.

Here are some of the questions I have been asking my clients this week:
As you reflect back on the last quarter/summer:

1.  What has worked? What hasn't?
2. What's been your greatest success?
3. What's been your greatest learning?
4. How is your work/business different today, than it was on June 20th?
5. What habits have helped you? hindered you?
6. What relationships have been critical for success?

As you look ahead to the fall (or spring if you are in the Southern Hemisphere) or Q4:
1. What are your top 3-5 priorities?
2. What will "wild success" look like at the end of the year around these priorities?
3. What do you need to say "no to" in order to focus?
4. What resources and partnerships will help you with these priorties?
5. What strengths can you lean into?
6. What blindspots do you want to avoid?
7.  What milestones do you want to plan (and schedule) to check in around your progress?

I hope that these are useful questions for you, and your clients. They can be useful journaling questions, peer partner questions, or incorporated into any quarterly check-in meetings you facilitate.

I'm hosting three separate fall virtual business planning retreats in the next few weeks and am looking forward to them. They are at 3 separate times to try and catch a variety of time zones. We'll be using my latest book - The Coaching Business Builder Workbook and Planner as a foundation - but if you don't have a copy yet, and it won't arrive in time, I'll set you up with the pages you need.

Cost for this 4 hour virtual program $97 US.

We meet the first 10 - 15 minutes of every hour online and then you'll have activities to undertake for
the rest of each hour.

During the program you'll take stock of your past quarters successes, do some planning for the quarter ahead, set some marketing goals and GET THINGS DONE - take some action on one of your projects.

I'm offering three separate time zones -  you can register for the one that's most convenient:
Thursday September 20 - 1 - 5 pm ET
Saturday September 22 - 10 - 2 pm Eastern
Wednesday September 26 - 12- 4 p ET

Check out this business development program and other offerings at the Upcoming Events page at the new Coaching Business Builder site. These are separate from the GroupCoachingEssentials.com offerings but in the coming months you should see more integration of registration options.

Can't find the link to register? Email me directly at info@potentialsrealized.com, and I'll send you a direct invoice.

If you are on Instagram, I hope that you'll follow along with the regular posts and videos I am doing at https://www.instagram.com/coachingbizbuilder (specific to Coaching Business Development) as well as https://www.instagram.com/jenn.britton (focus on the wider coaching and leadership conversation).

Let us know how you enjoy using the 12 questions I've included here!

Best wishes,
Jennifer

With best wishes,
Jennifer

Jennifer Britton
Potentials Realized | /GroupCoachingEssentials
Email: info@potentialsrealized.com
Phone: 416-996-8326
Group Coaching Essentials - All things group coaching
Effective Virtual Conversations.com - All things virtual
Coaching Business Builder.com- All things business related (for coaches)  

Six Coaching Questions Around Goals

Last year I did a series which included coaching questions around different areas we explore as coaches with our clients. You can view them here.

At the core of any coaching process - whether we are working with individuals, groups or teams - is goal setting. Along with support to action and awareness, and creating an environment where there is ongoing focus and accountability, goals are another key focus area for any coaching conversation.

Today's post includes six questions you may want to explore with clients when working on goals. Once a person has articulated the goal some areas  you can explore with them include:

1. What's important about this goal? (it may be framed in the big picture? Short term? Long term?)
2. What will success look like?
3. What outcomes do you want?
4. What might get in the way? (or what could be a roadblock?)
5. What resources do you need to be successful? (OR What will help you be successful?)
6. When you are successful with this, what's possible?

What are some of your favorite goal questions?

In addition to using questions, it's also important to recognize that there are a variety of ways we can be working with goals, dependent on the styles and preferences of our clients. There is of course the SMART goal framework where we help clients articulate goals that are Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic and Time bound. We can also support clients on what John Whitmore terms in his book Coaching for Performance - CLEAR  goals - Challenging, Legal, Environmentally Sound, Appropriate and Recorded.

For an alternative view on CLEAR Goals check out Peter Economy's INC article on "Forget SMART Goals - Try CLEAR Goals Instead. You can read it here.

How do you work with clients around goals? What questions will support them this week.

Have a great start to your week,
Jennifer

Jennifer Britton, MES, CPT, PCC
Group Coaching Essentials | Potentials Realized  
Author of Effective Group Coaching (Wiley, 2010) and From One to Many: Best Practices for Team and Group Coaching (Jossey-Bass, 2013)
Upcoming programs include: Mentor Coaching Group for ACC Renewals and ACC/PCC portfolio (Fridays 12 noon ET  which started on Sept 9 or Mondays at 9 am Eastern/New York - starting September 26), the Advanced Group Coaching Practicum (Fridays 1:15 - 2:30pm ET 10 CCEs) and the Group Coaching Essentials teleseminar starting Thursdays 12 - 1:15 pm ET on September 22 (8.75 CCEs)
Join us in Toronto on November 5-6 for the Group and Team Coaching Intensive (19 CCEs) - a 2 day deep dive into group and team coaching theory and practice - 5 spots open
Contact us by phone: (416)996-8326

Group and Team Coaching: Three Essential Items for your Toolkit

While Group and Team Coaching is primarily conversationally based, and our standard coaching

tools are our best ally, there can be some additional resources you will want to have on hand, to support your team and group coaching conversations.

1. Visual Cards - Visual Cards such as Points of You, the JICT Deck, the Conversation Sparker(TM) deck or Visual Explorer, are a great way to get people in dialogue. Whether you are working on creating a vision, exploring values, or mining for strengths, visual cards can be used in a myriad of ways for both individual and collective coaching conversations with groups and teams.
As in any coaching process, when we bring in additional resources we want to place the most emphasis on using these external tools in support of goal setting, action and awareness.
If you are curious as to how to work with visual cards, please check out my 40 Ways to Work with Visual Cards E-manual (which can be bundled with the Conversation Sparker cards) or view this 30 minute blab I hosted last fall on working with visual cards

2. Post it notes - Now coming in a variety of colors, shapes and sizes, post its are a great way to get all voices at the table or on the wall. take a look back at the 2007 post I wrote on different ways to use post its and index cards. Some ideas of where you may want to incorporate post its:
1. As a way to mine for coaching topics or agenda items
2. As a feedback/evaluation mechanism at the end of the session
3. To look at enablers and derailers for a team (there are some neat red and green arrow post cards available for this - check your local dollar store or office supply store to see if they have these on file)4. To explore different perspectives around an issue
5. To get different priorities on the table


3. Questions - While it's fun to bring in lots of different tools, it's important to remember that questions are the one thing which  helps clients explore and move into action. Questions can be used to open up conversations, expand awareness, focus choices, and move people into action. What are some of your favorite coaching questions?
Over the years I've focused quite a bit on the topic of using questions in team and group coaching. Please check out these related posts here:
Core Coaching Competency - Powerful Questions - read this 2012 post here
Powerful Group Coaching Questions - What? So What? Now What? - read this 2011 post here
Six Powerful Questions to Close a Group Coaching Session - read this 2015 post here
Six Questions to Focus - Read this 2016 post here.
Six Coaching Questions to Strengthen Connection in Groups and Teams - read this post here

What would you put as your top 3 most important tools in your coaching toolkit?

Have a great start to your week,
Jennifer

Jennifer Britton, MES, CPT, PCCGroup Coaching Essentials | Potentials Realized  
Author of Effective Group Coaching (Wiley, 2010) and From One to Many: Best Practices for Team and Group Coaching (Jossey-Bass, 2013)
Upcoming programs include: Mentor Coaching Group for ACC Renewals and ACC/PCC portfolio (Fridays 12 noon ET  which started on Sept 9 or Mondays at 9 am Eastern/New York - starting September 26), the Advanced Group Coaching Practicum (Fridays 1:15 - 2:30pm ET 10 CCEs) and the Group Coaching Essentials teleseminar starting Thursdays 12 - 1:15 pm ET on September 22 (8.75 CCEs)
Contact us by phone: (416)996-8326

Six Coaching Questions - Focus

Coaching as an approach may be one of ony a few pause points in the course of a week for an

individual, team or group. Today's blog post includes a few more than six coaching questions you may want to be asking the people you are supporting:

1. What's important to you right now?
2. What does success look like?
3 Who can help you focus on this?
4. What do you need to say NO to order to be successful?
5. What could get in the way of your focus?
6. if you look at the big picture/or 30,000 foot view, what's in focus? What's not?
7. If there was one thing you could add or take away to help with your focus, what would it be?

If you enjoyed this post on coaching questions for focus, you may want to check out these other Six Questions posts including:
Six powerful questions to deepen awareness in groups - read it here.
Six coaching questions to strengthen connection in groups and teams - read it here
Six coaching questions for business building - read it here.
Six coaching questions around priorities and time management - read it here

Have a great start to your week!

With best wishes,
Jennifer

Jennifer Britton, MES, CPT, PCC
GroupCoachingEssentials.com | Potentials Realized
Author of Effective Group Coaching (Wiley, 2009) and From One to Many: Best Practices for Team and Group Coaching (Jossey-Bass, 2013)
Phone: 416-996-8326

Join us for a 2016 program including:
The Learning Lab and Design Studio Coaching Group - join us for six or twelve months at the LLDS - group calls, facilitation lab and dozens of hours of audios, videos and templates to support you in your work! Click here to learn more. Calls are held on Fridays at either 12 noon ET or 8 am ET.  Cost $250 US/month. Join us for a year and get 2 months free!

Virtual Facilitation Skills Intensive - want to lead more powerful webinars, teleclasses and virtual retreats? Join us for this online train-the-trainer.  Jump in with us in week 2 this Thursday at 12 noon ET.

Six Coaching Questions to Strengthen Connection in Groups and Teams

Creating deeeper levels of connection amongst team and group members in a team or group coaching process is key to opening the doorway into greater levels of trust between members. Greater levels of trust often translate into greater levels of safety, vulnerability (or openness to each other), and performance.

Today's post provides you with six potential coaching questons you may ask groups or teams to help them become more aware of their connections

1. What does each one of us bring that's unique to this team?
2. What strengths do we bring individually? Collectively? Where do they overlap? What gaps exist? (Consider providing the team or group with a strengths based profile as pre-work such as VIA Strengths or StrengthsFinder2.0).
3. What is the common connection that binds each of us together?
4. What is important about our shared values?
5. How do we have each others' backs?
6. What do we each need from each other?

What other questions do you like to ask when helping groups and teams strengthen their connection, whether they are just coming together, or they have been working together for a while?

Best
Jennifer

Jennifer Britton, MES, CPT, PCC
Group Coaching Essentials | Potentials Realized  
Author of Effective Group Coaching (Wiley, 2010) and From One to Many: Best Practices for Team and Group Coaching (Jossey-Bass, 2013)
Upcoming programs include: Mentor Coaching Group for ACC Renewals and ACC/PCC portfolio (Fridays 9 and 12 noon ET on September 11th), the Advanced Group Coaching Practicum (Fridays 10:15 - 1130 am ET starting September 11 - 10 CCEs) and the Group Coaching Essentials teleseminar startingTuesdays 9:15 - 10:30 am ET September 15 - October 13 (8.75 CCEs)
Contact us by phone: (416)996-8326

6 Coaching Questions for Business Building

It's the start of a new week and a new month. For some of us we have another five weeks before kids are

back in school and summer holidays end for most of the workforce, and for others they return to school this month. For those coaches who work with business owners of any stripe, today's series on Six Coaching Questions is for you. For those of you who also run a business, consider these questions in the context of your business right now:

1. What's the biggest opportunity facing your business right now? What would it take to maximize this?
2. What's your number #1 priority this month? This quarter?
3. If you knew you would succeed, where would you place more attention and resources?
4. What's your biggest challenge right now? What do you need to say no to?
5. The one project on your to-do list which needs to be completed this month is....? The one project on your to do list which really needs to come off the list (because perhaps it's been carried over and carried over....)
6. I want to be putting more attention around x this month...

As a bonus, circle back to question #3 about "If you knew you would succeed, where would you place more attention and resources?". What's interesting about your response there? Whats important about that?

Have a great start to the week,
Jennifer

Jennifer Britton, MES, CPT, PCC
Group Coaching Essentials | Potentials Realized  
Author of Effective Group Coaching (Wiley, 2010) and From One to Many: Best Practices for Team and Group Coaching (Jossey-Bass, 2013)
Upcoming programs include: Mentor Coaching Group for ACC Renewals and ACC/PCC portfolio (Fridays 9 and 12 noon ET on September 11th) and the Group Coaching Essentials teleseminar starting
Thursday August 6 at 1015 am ET by phone (8.75 CCEs)
Contact us by phone: (416)996-8326

Six Coaching Questions around Priorities and Time Management

Time Management can be a key issue facing many of our coaching clients - individuals and teams.

Whether it is balancing work life issues, juggling too many things on the plate, time management may be a theme which creeps into many coaching session. Continuing on with our 6 Coaching Questions a day, today's post is about supporting enhanced awareness and action around prioritization with your clients.

Consider these questions:

1. What are your top 3-5 priorities?
2. What's really important right now?
3. What's the low hanging fruit?
4. What, if left unaddressed, could create a significant impact?
5. What's the quickest thing to get off your plate and clear up sapce?
6. When you clear this issue, what will be avaialble to you?
7. What do you ned to say NO to right now?
8. What are your next steps around this issue?

What other questions do you like to ask around prioritization? As always, please feel free to comment below!

Best wishes,
Jennifer

Jennifer Britton, MES, CPT, PCC
GroupCoachingEssentials.com | Potentials Realized
Author of Effective Group Coaching (Wiley, 2009) and From One to Many: Best Practices for Team and Group Coaching (Jossey-Bass, 2013)
Phone: 416-996-8326

Join us this summer for the Advanced Group Coaching Practicum starting July 14th (Tuesdays and Thursdays 1:15-2:30 pm ET - 10 CCEs with the ICF)