From One to Many

Best Practices for Team and Group Coaching

Jennifer J. Britton

• Publisher: Wiley
• Year: 2013
• ISBN:
  9781118549308
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Business
• Subtopic: Consulting
• Index: Business

"Jennifer Britton has penned another winner! With From One to Many, Jennifer not only gives us a bird's-eye-view perspective, but she also delves into the details we need to be successful as group and team coaches. I'm eager to incorporate this new material—not only into my course curriculum—but also into my own group coaching programs."
—Jory H. Fisher, JD, www.JoryFisher.com

"This remarkable resource gives coaches the necessary tools to expand their effectiveness and offer a group experience of connection and collaboration, providing an exceptional experience for many."
—Sandy Miller, MA, CPCC, ACC, www.revolutionizingdivorce.com

"From One to Many is a must-read for coaches, whether experienced or new to group and team coaching. Jennifer combines extensive research, personal and peer experiences, practical applications, and a comprehensive set of tools and resources to deliver another excellent book for professional coaches."
—Janice LaVore-Fletcher, MMC, BCC, President, Christian Coach Institute

Practical tips, tools, and insight on successful team and group coaching engagements

As professional development budgets at many organizations remain flat or even shrink due to financial pressures, coaches and human resources leaders are looking for new ways to do more with less funding. Team coaching—which may span intact teams, project teams and virtual teams—and group coaching—spanning both organizational and public contexts—offer a solution to this developmental puzzle. Unfortunately, there are few practical resources available that address the best practices for team and group coaching. From One to Many fills that gap for coaches, leaders, and human resources professionals. The book explains how to integrate the practice into an organization and how to maximize it to full effect.

• One of the only books on the market that explores in-depth the related topicsof team and group coaching
• Written by the founder of a performance improvement consultancy who is also a popular speaker on the subject
• Features new content specifically for practitioners in coaching, human resources, performance improvementand related fields

Part I

Team and Group Coaching Defined

As we will explore throughout the book, at first glance, team and group coaching may appear very similar as approaches. As we will discover in the following chapters, there are subtle and significant differences between team and group coaching. Chapter 1 explores the distinctions between team and group coaching, and Chapter 2 looks at the fusion of approaches needed for success in coaching many. Chapter 3 explores core skills for exceptional team and group coaching.

Chapter 1

Team and Group Coaching: Related Sisters

If you want to go fast, go alone; if you want to go far, go with others.

—African proverb

This chapter explores the following topics:

• Group and team coaching defined
• The context of team and group coaching
• The differences and similarities between team and group coaching
• Focus areas in team and group coaching
• Best practices when working with many (team and group coaching)
• Design principles for coaching many

What is group and team coaching? Consider these examples:

Example 1: An intact team in health care with a new leader engages two coaches to work with them, over a six-month period, to help them improve communication, strengthen relationships and results and become more effective working as a diverse team.

Example 2: A virtual team spread across three continents has been brought together after a merger and acquisition (M&A). The leader engages a team coach to help them “hit the ground running.”

Example 3: An international organization wants to equip its senior leaders and key personnel with enhanced coaching skills so they can start developing capacity at country levels. The organization engages two coaches to provide coaching skills training, followed by six months of group coaching calls to support the transfer of learning.

Example 4: A group of female leaders engages a coach to work with them over the span of several months to explore “doing more with less,” and the implications for their work and their lives.

Example 5: A group of parents work with a coach through the local PTA to explore what it means to be a better parent.

Example 6: A government-funded program for women in business engages a coach to work with two cohorts at the start of a nine-month business development program. The program coordinator is confident that the business leaders will be getting enough technical skills through their curriculum. A group coach is engaged to work with each cohort for the first two weeks of the program (half-day sessions) to explore the “softer” foundational side of creating a business vision, exploring values and strengths.

Team Coaching Defined

As examples one and two illustrate, team coaching can take many forms. There are several widely accepted definitions of team coaching, including:

• “Helping the team improve performance, and the processes by which performance is achieved, through reflection and dialogue.”¹
• “Coaching a team to achieve a common goal, paying attention to both individual performance and group collaboration and performance.”²

Key to these definitions is a focus on goals and performance, and the processes behind them. Throughout my work as a coach practitioner I define team coaching as “a sustained series of conversations, supported by core coaching skills. The focus is on goal setting, deepening awareness, supporting action and creating accountability. The focus of the coaching may be on the team as a system and/or strengthening individuals within the team. Team coaching links back to business goals, focusing on results and relationships.”

Team coaching is a sustained process of dialogue, reflection, learning and action, occurring over time. Chapter 5 addresses team coaching processes. A digital chapter illustrates Team Coaching in Action and provides several activities coaches may want to incorporate.

Group Coaching Defined

In my last book, Effective Group Coaching, I explored the width and depth of the group coaching field. Examples three through six (above) are snapshots of how group coaching work is occurring.

Group coaching is “the application of coaching principles to a small group for the purposes of personal or professional development, the achievement of goals, or greater self-awareness, along thematic or non-thematic lines.”³

Group coaching continues to expand in reach, with group coaching initiatives becoming more commonplace in organizations, as well as with individuals joining public groups. In her book Group Coaching: A Comprehensive Blueprint, Ginger Cockerham offers this definition of group coaching: “a facilitated group process led by a skilled professional coach and created with the intention of maximizing the combined energy, experience, and wisdom of individuals who choose to join in order to achieve organizational objectives or individual goals.”⁴

Many coaches are often surprised at how small group coaching work really is. The ICF placed a threshold of 15 persons as the maximum group size several years ago. Many coach practitioners may find that to really reap the benefits of coaching, group size needs to be much smaller, often in the four to eight range. This smaller grouping allows for more opportunities for individual group members to engage at a deeper level with the coaching process. Larger groups often become more training focused.

“Group coaching is an intimate conversation space, focused on goal setting, awareness building and accountability.”

—Jennifer J. Britton in Choice Magazine, March 2011

Chapter 5 explores the realm of group coaching, discussing the group coaching process. A digital chapter on Group Coaching in Action illustrates different ways that group coaching work is rolling out into the world through several case studies.

The Context of Team and Group Coaching

Team and group coaching are related sisters. They are separate sub-disciplines of the coaching profession. They share a common foundational skill set, and in many instances will utilize the same approaches in terms of design, marketing and implementation. What makes the two very different is the role of relationships, the role of leadership, the lifecycle of the grouping (team versus group), the stance (or position/philosophy) of the coach and also what may be at stake.

A key distinction between team and group coaching is the context in which the coaching takes place. Team coaching engagements take place in the context of an organization or collective body, which operates with a purpose and reason for being. Goals, vision and values will exist, and will be shared by all team members to differing degrees. In the team coaching context, coaches will be connecting the conversation and focus to three levels of impact: self/individual, team and organization. Team coaches need to be able to support teams as a whole system as well as a team of individual group members.

In group coaching, the focus is often more on the development of the individual within the group context, especially in the case of public groups where coaches may be bringing together groups of individuals. There may be no common goals, vision or values linking the group members. The context within which individual group members operate may be radically different, or it may be similar, such as in the case of the women leaders. A challenge for group coaches is to ensure that there are opportunities for individual group members to explore the synergies that do exist and to find points of commonality or similarity.

In a group coaching process, it is likely that the layers of context and impact are different for each group member. As we will see throughout the book, this leads to a different stance in our work. Whereas team coaches may be working with the team as a system, or supporting individual member development toward the team goals, in group coaching, by its nature, coaches are often putting the focus on individual development in the group context. One instance where this may not be the case is in the organizational context, where you may be working with groups of new managers who do not report to each other. In this context of offering group coaching within an organization, it is important for the group coach to support individual group members to reflect on the learning and insights as it relates to themselves, as well as the teams they are part of, and the overall organization they belong to.

The Role of Relationships

Teams usually have relationships that exist before, and will exist after, the coaching relationship. As we often say, teams exist to produce results, so the web of team relationships is a key focus in team coaching. This may not always be the case with group coaching. Members of groups that are to be coached may know one another, but hold disparate positions and levels of relationship. For example, if I am working with a group of new business owners, chances are that they may be meeting each other for the first time. Each owner's focus will likely be on strengthening their own businesses first, and getting to know each other second. It is still important to be aware of the team and group dynamics issues in both.

It is important to note that not every group coaching process takes place in an organizational context or even a shared one. Some coaches may find themselves working with groups of business owners or working with gr...