Group Coaching Core Essentials - #11 of 18 - Learning Styles

 This week's blog is written by Evana Valle, our Team Lead for Group Coaching. Evana has

been leading many of our Group Coaching Essentials cohorts this year, after shadowing with me, being an alumni and an amazing group coach herself. 

One of the things that gets pronounced in a group is the different ways people connect in with the coaching process. While there's still debate about the "validity of different learning styles" in the academic world, as a practitioner I see this play out every day in conversations - in person and virtually.

Here's our 11th in the 18 series:

This week focuses on the value and benefit of intentionally considering and including various learning styles in your group programs. For example, approximately 60% of adults in North America have a preference for visual learning. Surprised? Likely not; however, what about the remaining forty percent?

In group programs, various learning styles are likely to be present, and you want to be mindful of who’s in your room (virtual or in-person) and how you can keep everyone learning, engaged, and moving towards their goals in a meaningful way. Here’s a table to help you:

 

Learning Style	Preferences	Possible questions by learning style?
Visual- learn by seeing.	Video over phone call Appreciate PowerPoint presentations and visual images	1.What does that look like? 2. What impact do you envision?
Auditory- learn by hearing.	Prefer conference calls and enjoy supplementary programs through Ted Talks, audios, Podcasts and peer dialogue	1. What does it sound like?
Kinesthetic – learn by engaging with the world.	Love to try things out. Can be challenged in virtual reality IF no hands-on, active exercises are included	1.What does it feel like? 2. What would you do?

*Source: Effective Virtual Conversations by Jennifer Britton

 

Consider how you can integrate learning styles throughout the various elements of your overall program, including marketing and sales (to maximize interest and buyers), session design, in-between session interaction, and fieldwork. 

 

Principle – Consider the four core learning styles (visual, auditory, reading and writing, and kinesthetic). 

 

Action: Create your programs to include all or a combination throughout each session to support maximum learning and embodiment.

 

 

This week, consider reviewing various aspects of your program (design, marketing, sales copy) to ensure the different learning styles are included. 

Consider the following ideas/ questions: 

 

* How do you ensure all learning styles are incorporated into your programs and marketing? 

 

* How can you leverage technology to support your participants to lean into their natural learning style?

 

*What further learning/development would benefit you as a coach to support you in identifying your participant’s preferred learning style? 

 

*How can you integrate the learning styles in pre-work? 

 

*How can you diversify your marketing and sales copy to include the various learning styles? 

 

*How might you use learning styles to deepen participant awareness? Forward their Actions? Goal-setting? And accountability? 

Enjoy the conversation and exploration,

Evana

What is your unique style as a coach? Take 2-minutes to complete the NEW Group and Team Coaching Superpower Quiz. You can find it at https://bit.ly/gtcoachingsuperpower. Share your style using the comments below and/or follow along on Instagram at our CoachingBizBuilder site.

Join us for an upcoming program including: 

Group Coaching Essentials - Tuesdays 830 - 945 am ET starting Tuesday September 27 - running for 5 weeks to end of October (8.75 CCEs). Best practices for design, marketing and implementing group coaching.

Virtual Facilitation Essentials - One Day Offering - Wednesday October 5 - 830 - 430 pm ET (8.5 CCEs). Come build your confidence and skills with Virtual Facilitation (yes, there still is more to learn about zoom, Teams and the virtual world!)

Coaching the 5 (Hybrid) Work Styles (based on our Hybrid Work Styes Quiz) - Tuesdays 1230- 230 pm ET - September 27 - end of October (currently being reviewed for 14 CCEs). Geared for coaches who are looking for a quick, (and free!), framework to use with teams as a conversation sparker around different styles, approaches and teamwork.

Happy Holidays - Catch up on the 17th Annual Year End Group and Team Programs Call

 Happy Holidays!

I hope that you are enjoying this year's holiday season and possibly finding new ways to celebrate.

Every year in December I host a year end call around group and team coaching issues. This year, in the spirit of creating more connection and community (two elements people are yearning for in these times), I hosted a special 4 hour year-end holiday party, with several other colleagues from the Stand Out Virtually Incubator joining me for the presentations and festivities. If you haven't had a chance to view it, I hope you will find some time to do so.

Here are some of the key highlights:

Start - Welcome and the 17th annual year-end group and team programs call (stay tuned for some of the key themes I highlighted this year)

30 minutes - Kathleen Vaughan - The Kaleidoscope of Teams

60 minutes  - Luisa Ferrario -Remote Leadership

90 Minutes - Lisa Hoashi - What were the opportunities of 2020 - Grab a pen for this one!

120 minutes - Paola Fiore - Authenticity and Sustainability

2 hours 30 minutes - PlanDoTrack Facilitators speaking about PlanDoTrack and how they are using it in their work with remote professionals and teams

3 hour 25 min (approximately) - grab a pen or our drawing activity of cars with trees

3 hour 30 min - Future Trends for 2021 Group and Team Programs

I hope that you will enjoy it and join me in the coming weeks as I host a number of additional events for kickstarting your business in 2021. Stay Tuned this week as I highlight several things. Also, be sure to check out the Boxing Weekend Specials with 2021 Lab pricing and the Amplify Virtually Mastermind Founders Rate.

And now...here's the 17th Annual Year End Group and Team Programs Call:

I look forward to continuing to support you in 2021 with programming around virtual group and team work - from coaching, to facilitation to team development and Standing Out Virtually. ICF CCE approved programs start again in January as does the 60 Day Coaching Business Builder Accelerator and Mentor Coaching Groups (for ACC/PCC).

Enjoy the rest of the holidays,

Jennifer

Jennifer Britton - Group Coaching Essentials | Effective Virtual Conversations | Potentials Realized
Instagram @Remote Pathways (for remote workers) and @CoachingBizBuilder (for coaches)
Author of Effective Group Coaching (2010), Coaching Business Builder (2018), Effective Virtual Conversations (2017) and From One to Many: Best Practices for Team and Group Coaching (2013). Check out my author page on Amazon for all publications.
Email: info@potentialsrealized.com

Phone: (416)996-8326

Join us on Friday January 8th for the start of Winter 2021 programming around Group and Team Coaching. Get ready to launch your 2021 programming Click here to learn more and reserve your spot in the Essentials program.

Expanding Your Group and Team Coaching Toolkit - Annotation (15)

In this week’s post we are zooming into the topic of annotation. In my mind this is an essential tool to shift the conversation from a training environment to one of coaching. There are many different ways we can incorporate annotation including what I shared in the 2018 newsletter on 8 Ways to Jazz up your next virtual call. You can read that at : https://conta.cc/2HYQdq0


For individual group members, it is likely that annotation can be useful in helping the group see the differences and common ground


Many virtual group coaches are now using annotation as a check in space, having the group notice for themselves what themes are emerging, Rather than going around the room verbally and hearing from everyone in a check in around what they want to focus on, you can also invite group members to turn to annotation and share the theme or question they want to explore. This then allows for a creative way of prioritizing and identifying where you are going to focus.


As a team, we can use annotation to create real time. You might consider asking the team questions like:

Draw your vision for the team – individually (on the slide) or Together, create your vision using this slide (coach steps back to let them do this)

Annotate the metaphor that comes to mind

Share on the screen “What you are known for” OR “the 3 adjectives that describe your team culture” or “what’s not being said”.


Your questioning can be as “risky” or “curious” as needed.




Six questions:

1.       What do you want the team or group to see more visually by using annotation?

2.       What’s your vision? Draw your vision for your work. (can be used for a group or team coaching focus - As a team, create your vision using the whiteboard. As a group, have people individually grab a piece of the screen to draw it out).

3.       What do you bring that’s unique to the group? Share with us the logo you are bringing to the group.

4.       Share the three words you’d use to describe ____ (team culture, work-life, your current priorities etc)

5.       Use the whiteboard to share what you want coaching around today. Use this and have people notice the connections

6.       What’s not present?

For resources on this topic check out

My 2017 book – Effective Virtual Conversations (444 pages) – pick up a copy at Amazon (almost all of the 13 chapters of the book have relevance to this topic, including part 3 which is geared to supporting virtual team development)
Check out the EVC Calls I host on a monthly basis. They can be found at my YouTube channel.

Expanding Your Group and Team Coaching Toolkit - Visual Anchors (14)

Visual anchors are an important part of our work in the virtual space. They are a way to help our

coaching clients access new learning and insights.

In the May 2019 Effective Virtual Conversations newsletter I shared an article which explored 3 different ways to use visual anchors for engagement and retention. You can access it at: https://conta.cc/2HpiQMN.

Here’s what I wrote in that article:

Visual Anchors for Engagement and Retention: 3 Ideas

Over the last few years I have spoken a lot about the importance of "visual anchors" in creating greater impact, focus and retention. These are all key issues for relationships, results and business success. Several studies are finding that retention, or what we recall, in the digital age is shrinking.

What can we do to create more memorable calls? Consider enhancing the visual anchors in your sessions. Here are 3 ideas:

1. Incorporating more impactful visuals. We are in a visual Instagram era and our phones provide a wonderful vehicle for building our own stock imagery. Take a look at some of the photos I've captured on Instagram through my JennBritton (personal) Instagram feed, or the CoachingBizBuilder feed where images have come from Unsplash and AdobeStock.

2. Making visuals more tactile and hands-on. As many of you know, I have an affinity for using visual cards of all types. Back in 2014, I launched my own card deck, Conversation Sparker, a set of 72 photo and question cards. These are now available in digital format, so that practitioners can incorporate them into their virtual programs. Pick up a copy of the Conversation Sparker bundle where you get hard copy cards, digital cards and a copy of the 40 Ways to Work with Visual Cards e-book (Facilitated Instructions to 40 different ways you can work with visual cards)

Here's an example of me walking through the Conversation Sparker website using the Loom Video extension  I mentioned last month: View this walk-though video here (3 minutes)

3. Consider how you can convert text rich slides to more icon based slides. Much of this can be done in PowerPoint. Here's an example of the translation of the 5 Faux Pas for Virtual Meetings from Chapter 9 of Effective Virtual Conversations. Which one stands out more for you? Stay tuned for a future post on more details around slide redesign but key to this was  - using SmartArt, adding color and using icons.

For more on the topic of Engagement check out:

4 Ways to Move the Needle on Engagement - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=szZYILv5O3Q  (30 minute video)

This month's Effective Virtual Conversations Call - 6 Keys for Engagement (32 minutes)

What can you do to create more impactful visuals in your work? We'll be covering this topic and a lot more in the June 2019 Virtual Facilitation Essentials program that will be held on Mondays from 1:30 - 3 pm ET June 3 - July 8 (no call 7/1).

A new newsletter comes out each month related to Effective Virtual Conversations. I hope that you’ll join the list – https://bit.ly/letstalkvirtual.

Six Questions

What’s the photo that represents…

n  Where you are now? Where you want to be six months from now? One year?

n  What you bring to the group?

n  What’s possible for ____(the team/the organization/your work….)?

n  How you can embrace change?

n  What’s another way of looking at it (your biggest challenge/opportunity)?

n  Your strengths/the team’s strengths?

Resources

Unsplash

Check out a commercial subscription at AdobeStock

What else?


With best wishes,
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 (starts Friday June 7 - 8.75 CCEs), Advanced Group and Team Coaching Practicum (starts Monday July 8: 10 CCEs) or the Certified Facilitator Program for PlanDoTrack and the Coaching Business Builder starting this week.

Expanding Your Group and Team Coaching Toolkit - Somatic and Kinesthetic Approaches (10)

This week in the Building Your Team and Group Coaching Toolkit I want you to think about how you

are incorporating somatic and kinesthetic approaches for working with groups and teams. While coaching is a verbal modality, incorporating somatic and kinesthetic approaches provide an opportunity to gain new insight from a different perspective.

What do I mean with somatic and kinesthetic approaches? These approaches incorporate movement, doing and physical action. It may also reconnect people with their body. With this in mind, there is a wide variety of different approaches we might incorporate into our work as group and team coaching including (and not limited to):

• Making things more tactile and physical. Instead of doing a Wheel of Life on paper, what about doing it on the floor? Instead of just talking about strengths, is there a way you can make them more visual? Instead of talking about values, is there a way people can body them.
• Using annotation: In the virtual space we often are focused on dialogue. It is possible to get people more active during the call using annotation. Annotation in most virtual platforms allows us to draw, write and even map things out visually.
• With teams, consider getting them to undertake something hands on. With my own roots originally in the experiential education sector, I find I still incorporate several hands-on activities including building things, or solving problems together with materials. Essential to this approach is giving hem time at the end to not only debrief what happened during the exercise, but to consider how these behaviors, values, beliefs are showing up in their own work.

• Building in reflective walks – For many years I ran multiple summer programs in rustic settings up north. Providing space for reflective walks always created multiple layers of learning. 
• Creating models- Getting clients active with creation is another opportunity to create expanded awareness and insight.  Consider giving the space for people to create a model – whether it’s out of aluminum foil, clay or other materials. IT’s not only the process of creation but the value a structure provides in the coaching process.

For resources around more experiential and kinesthetic approaches you may want to consider exploring:

·         Marlena Field’s work around Body-Centered Coaching

·         Project Adventure’s experiential resources from the 80s onwards

·         What your virtual platform allows you to do. Can you use annotation? Breakouts?

·         Is there something you can send in advance of your next virtual call to make it more kinesthetic?

Note: always ensure people have identified hazards in their own areas before moving around. This holds true for streaming and movement.

Six Questions around kinesthetic approaches: As you consider incorporating more kinesthetic approaches consider these questions

1.       From this exercise, what do you notice?

2.       Accessing your head, heart and guts – what does each one of them say?

3.       What is transferable from this exercise to our everyday experience?

4.       What helped? What got in the way?

5.       Where do you sense this?

6.       What’s going to keep this visible?

Enjoy the conversation,

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 (starts Friday June 7 - 8.75 CCEs), Advanced Group and Team Coaching Practicum (starts Monday July 8: 10 CCEs) or the Virtual Facilitation Essentials(starts Monday June 3rd  - 4 spots open - 8.5 CCEs)