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

Five Posts on Coaching Goals

Welcome back to another top five series, where I'm pulling together some past posts from the last 12

years as we look at different coaching competencies of the International Coach Federation.

Planning and Goal Setting is one of the eleven core coaching competencies of the International Coach Federation. You can view the ICF competencies here.

ICF defines Planning and Goal Setting as "the ability to develop and maintain an effective coaching plan with the client".

 Consider what you do to support your clients in goal setting and focus. My guess is that it looks a little different whether you are focusing on individual coaching, group coaching, and team coaching.

At the core of my work across these three modalities, is the One Page Plan. Providing clients (individuals, groups and teams) with the opportunity to write out their top 3-5 goals during our work together and keeping them visible in one page is key for success with many of my clients. From the One Page Plan I have people creating MindMaps or using Post Its or Index Cards. Within a team context people may have their own individual plan as well as a collective one.

What are your best practices around goal setting and suppport? As always, please feel free to comment below.

Here are five past posts from the Group Coaching Ins and Outs blog which explore this foundational topic area:

From March 2016: Six Coaching Questions Around Goals. Click here to read.

Goal Setting at Multiple Levels in Group and Team Coaching - Click here to read this 2014 post.

Core Coaching Competency - Goal Setting - Click here to read this 2013 post.

A reminder of the 1% rule to business development - Click here to read this 2012 post.

The Power of a One Page Plan. Click here to read this 2015 post. 

What resources do you recommend as a coach? Please feel free to share these with others in comments or over at the Effective Group Coaching Facebook page. 

Best wishes,
Jennifer


Jennifer Britton, MES, PCC, CPCC, CPT
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)
(416)996-8326
Goal setting is something we explore in the Mentor Coaching Group for ACC Renewals and ACC/ PCC portfolio - next group starts Thursday June 2nd at 915 am ET. Runs to September 8th.

We'll also be exploring goal setting in the context of group and team coaching during the 6th Annual Group and Team Coaching Intensive which will run in person on July 14-15 in beautiful Muskoka Canada. Early bird savings on until May 30th.

Three Core Elements of Any Group Coaching Process

Group coaching processes continue to be very diverse - ranging from one month programs, to one year programs, with support to business owners, mid-level managers to stay-at-home moms. What is similar

Photo copyright of DollarPhotoClub

across these are common elements, making them coaching and not training, facilitation or something else.

Fist, goals. Every coaching process is grounded in goals. Part of what you will want to do at the start, or before the start of the program/process, is have individual group members identify their key goals for your work together. This will help the group identify common theme areas, as well as create the iniital baseline and traction for individual group members to participate. What are you doing to create opportunities for your group members to articulate and share their goals?

Group coaching is also a sustained conversation space. As I have written many times, "it's an intimate conversation space" (From One to Many: Best Practices for Team and Group Coaching). our focus on support for accountability, action and awareness is key. For a group to be considered a coaching gorup as part of an ICF coaching log there can be no more than 15 members. As we add more members to the group it becomes more a facilitated discussion, than coaching space. What are you doing to maximize the impact of these regular touch points? What numbers are optimal for your work?

Peer involvement is another essential condition for any group coaching process. Group members tend get as much out of the process from their interactions with each other, as they do with the coach. Consider how you can maximize peer interaction in a way that works well for your group, whether it's through breakouts in virtual calls, learning partners throughout a program, or linkages through journalling or other tech platforms. What approaches do you want to use in fostering peer connection?

As you move into your own programming and/or planning this fall with groups, what other elements do you see as foundational?

Have a great 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)

Prefer in person learning? Join us in Toronto the weekend of November 7-8 for the Group and Team Coaching Intensive (19 CCEs). Six spots still open. Register with a colleague and each receive a discount on your registration.

The Power of a One -Page Plan

Supporting our clients with goal setting is a critical part of any coaching conversation, whether we are working with individuals, teams or groups. Support for goal setting at both the macro- or Meta levels (the big picture of our life and work) as well as at the micro- or more immediate level, can serve as the frame for our conversations

Over the years whether I have been coaching professionals and leaders individually or in groups, I've become quite fond of getting my clients to develop a one-page plan. I should preface this with the fact that many of my clients operate in data and file overload and that anything we add on should serve to simplify, rather than expand. This makes the popularity of a one-page plan quite consistent whether I am working with emerging leaders, new business owners or authors.

Prior to the start of our first coahing  onversation (whether it's a first group coaching call, or an individual intake session) I ask clients what are their top 3-5 goals for our work toether. This usually gets people thinking. I get them to elaborate on this fruther in our first conversation, and usually ask them to complete the first draft of their One Page plan (see photo above) between session 1 and 2.

Part of our focus in a second group coaching call is usually a sharing of these one page plans amongst group members. I ask group members to bring this with them to each of our group coaching conversations and will often ask them to make reference to how they are proceeding with their plans specifically at the start of each session. Having group members share their plans (in the confidential forum) can be very empowering and it can add onto the peer accountability mechanism as well.

Questions to consider:
What do you do to support individual goal setting and tracking in your coaching work?
What frameworks do your clients enjoy?
How do your clients track their progress?
What tools would you recommend to others?

As always, please feel free to comment below and let us know your thoughts.

Have a great week, What's your most important goal this week?

Best wishes,
Jennifer

Jennifer Britton, MES, PCC, CPCC, CPT
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)
(416)996-8326
Goal setting is something we explore in the Mentor Coaching Group for ACC Renewals and ACC/ PCC portfolio - next group starts Monday April 20th at 10:30 am ET. 3 spots still open.

Guest Article on Goal Setting

Today was back to work and school for many of us in the Northern Hemisphere.  As coaches a large

part of our work focuses on supporting our clients around goal setting. Here's a link to a recent article I wrote for the Coaching Tools Company Newsletter - Dive back into work and school with these five key goal setting elements - click here to read the article.

Enjoy!

What's your favorite moment from today as you got back to work or school? As comfortable routine rich with learning and community settled in here at our home and at the office, I could almost hear a sigh from everyone!

Jennifer

Jennifer Britton, MES, PCC, CPCC
GroupCoachingEssentials.com | Potentials Realized
 Author of Effective Group Coaching (Wiley, 2010) and From One to Many: Best Practices for Team and Group Coaching (Jossey-Bass, 2013)
(416)996-8326

Goal Setting At Mulitple Levels: Group and Team Coaching

Goal setting is a critical part of the coaching process. As team and group coaches it is also important to look at goals from a number of levels. These levels can be different when working with groups versus working with teams.

Whether you are working with a group of individuals or an intact team who works together every day, a foundation part of the coaching process is on goal setting. In coaching, those being coached get to set their own goals.

Some of our clients may automatically think about setting SMART goals and start working away at them. For those that might not be familiar with SMART Goals, we want to make sure that they are specific, can be measured, are achievable, realistic and have some time indicators as well. I usually add an E on to include Exciting. If goals are not exciting to the person which created them it is unlikely that they will be followed through.

When working with teams, it can be useful to have team members consider goals at the individual, team and organizational level. What do these goals look like at each level? How are they similar? Where might they be in conflict? Building space in to the coaching conversation for a team using these questions can often raise some interesting insights for team members.

Another rich area to explore is to have people look at goals at what many coaching models call the META view - or big picture view, as well as the granular MICRO VIEW. One of my favorite questions to ask is what you see in today's selected Conversation Sparker Card(TM) here:

What's the 30,000 foot view? What's the view from the weeds?

When looking at issues from the 30,000 foot view it connects us to our passions, strengths, vision, values and the bigger picture. It can also be important to look at it from the weeds, or the ground level, where we can ZOOM into the specifics.

Notice where the individuals you work with naturally go around goals - the 30,000 foot or the grains of sand? Having them look at their goals from another perspective can be very insightful.

What focus do you want to put around goals with your clients?

Have a great weekend,
Jennifer

Jennifer Britton, PCC, CPCC
GroupCoachingEssentials.com
Author of Effective Group Coaching (Wiley, 2010) and From One to Many: Best Practices for Team and Group Coaching (Jossey-Bass, 2013)
(416)996-TEAM (8326)

 

Core Coaching Competency - Goal Setting

Goal setting, along with the focus on accountability, awareness, and action are all defining features of any

coaching model. How are you working with goals with your clients?

Most of us are familiar with the SMART goal framework:
S - Specific
M - Measurable - this may involve percentages, numbers or other measures so we can see how progress is being made
A - Achievable - is this goal achievable with stretch?
R - Realistic
T - timebound - what are the specific timeframes in which the goals will take place


In working with goals it is always useful to consider the overall time orientation - what are the key goals in the short term, medium term and long term?

John Whitmore poses a couple of other goal frameworks in his book - Coaching for Performance - including PURE (positively stated, understood, relevant and eithical) and CLEAR (Challenging , Legal, Environemntally Sound, Appropriate, Recorded) (Whitore, Coaching For Performance, 2003, pp 61).
 
This week as you move through your coaching conversations notice how you are working with goals with your clients. What approaches are supporting them most? Which time orientation are you looking at?

Have a terrific week.

Best wishes,
Jennifer

Jennifer Britton, PCC, CPCC
Potentials Realized | GroupCoachingEssentials 
Author of Effective Group Coaching and From One to Many: Best Practices for Team and Group Coaching (Jossey-Bass, 2013)
Join us for an upcoming program - Group Coaching Essentials (6.75 CCEs) - starts June 4th (Tues/Thurs 10-11:15 am ET) or The Mentor Coaching Group (For ACC Renewals, ACC/PCC portfolio route) - sessions start May 17 (Fridays 9-10amET) and June 13 (Thursdays 1-2 pm ET)

Coaching Business Builder - Build Momentum Around Your Most Important Goals

What momentum are you creating in your business this year? As coaches build and expand their businesses, momentum can take on a life of it's own.

Over the years I've seen a lot of coaches fall into the over-planning, analysis-paralysis place, where "I'm just not ready" or "I don't have enough information" takes over. What are you clear on with your business? What are the steps you want to be taking on a regular basis?

At the end of last year during my year end BizSuccess Virtual Retreat, I asked coaches to consider:
1. What are your most important goals for 2012?
2. What's going to help you get there?
3. What might get in the way?
4. What are the regular steps you want to be undertaking to support your action?

Consider these questions for yourself. Remember that consistent action over time, adds up, and creates a momentum of their own.

As we look into the month of February, what are the one or two focus areas that you really want to take action on? What makes these goals so important? In achieving them, what will this create?.

Make these goals visible and make sure time is scheduled for them.

Have a great start to the week!

Warm regards,
Jennifer

Jennifer Britton, PCC, CPCC
Group Coaching Essentials - Next teleseminar starts Feb 16th (Thurs 10:30 - 11:45 am ET: Feb 16, 23, Mar 1, 15 and 22)
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Check Point - Taking Stock as We Get Back to Fall

As we move into the fall of the year in the northern Hemisphere, thoughts shift to "getting back to work". It's often useful to build in some time to pause and take stock as to where you are, what you have at your fingertips, and where you are going. Those of you who have read my book, Effective Group Coaching, or who are subscribers of my newsletter would know that I encourage coaches to take stock at regular points of the year - quarterly or at major transition points.

Here are a few questions borrowed in part from Effective Group Coaching (lots more checkpoints included there!) are:
- I am really pleased that I have accomplished the following this summer/last quarter/since the start of the year
- The major projects I want to complete are....
- The new projects I want to start are....
- The opportunities facing me right now are....
- The challenges facing me right now are....
- I want to keep the following on my radar screen for the remainder of the year
- I want to put more attention on ______ for the next few months
- My next steps are...
- I will be accountable to....

Have a great start to September!

Warm regards,
Jennifer

PS - Some of the programs we have starting this month to keep you on track are:
Group Coaching Essentials - starts September 16th (Thursdays at 10:30 am ET)
90 Day BizSuccess Program for Coaches - Fridays from 11-12 noon ET starting September 10
Mentor Coaching Group for ACC Renewals - Fridays from 2-3 pm ET starting September 10
Advanced Group Coaching - Fridays from 12 - 1:15 pm ET starting September 17th