Coaching for teams.

When I have been asked to coach a number of people from the same team the question has arisen about whether and when to work with them as a group as opposed to working with them as individuals. The focus of my coaching work has always been centred around working 1 to 1 with individuals, in order to concentrate on them, their issues and agenda without the distraction or complication of other people being involved. This also applies to the responsibility of the coachee to focus on themselves and their own agenda, issues and objectives rather than this attention being diffused or diluted by other people being involved. This 1 to 1 relationship and these coaching conversations also acts to protect the coachee’s confidentiality and allows them to talk more freely and openly than would otherwise be possible. It does not guarantee confidentiality however – this is still down to the integrity and actions of the coach!

However over the years I have often been involved in executive coaching a number of individuals from the same team, often helping them to achieve a shared team goal and in these circumstances I feel that it is appropriate to bring them all together at key stages of this work. I do this to help them both as individuals and as a team to achieve their overall team goal and to add value to the individual 1 to 1 coaching process. The sort of team goals that I refer to could be about improving team understanding, roles, responsibilities, efficiency and effectiveness, or improving communication and relationships. With one recent coaching assignment I have been coaching eight managers in an engineering team with the overall goal of improving the culture and performance of their business. In this case I have a 1 to 1 coaching session with each person each month, focusing on their role, issues and agenda and I have held two group sessions with them as follows:-
An introductory session where I brief all of the potential coachees together in one group about the approach that I plan to take to their coaching, the process that we will be going through and I describe the COACH model that I am using. This also provides all of us with the opportunity to understand the shared goals for the team and to discuss how these individual coaching sessions can contribute towards this goal achievement. It also provides the opportunity to talk about the broader scope of this coaching and what else it can potentially offer to the coachee in exploring and working on their own personal agenda. If the line manager, team leader and sponsor of this coaching work is present, which I regard as essential, then it gives us all the opportunity to discuss and explain the confidentiality required and for this to be aired clearly and explicitly with all participants.

The second group coaching session that have then held has been approximately half way through this 9 month coaching assignment when the coachees have been fully immersed in the coaching sessions and have also made some progress in taking their actions to improve culture and performance. This has given us all the chance to check on the teams progress towards its goal, to remind participants about any key learning points that are important and to encourage them to share their learning, insights and any questions or issues about the overall process with each other.

Towards the end of this assignment I plan to hold a further group session to check on the overall success of the work and to help the participants to make the transition from coachee and learner to independent and effective performer. I sometimes do this by encouraging the team members to peer coach each other and to have one or two practice sessions to experience this.

The other situation where it could be important and beneficial to hold a group coaching session would be when something is going wrong with the overall project process or relationships or where something radical has changed in the scope, environment or goal for the work. In this circumstance it could be very helpful to get a clear understanding for everyone about the changing reality and to gain shared commitment from individuals to play their part in working to improve things.