coaching in groups

Recently I've been having fun coaching groups.

These small groups are people who work together and want to understand more about a topic but don't want a typical workshop with input and handouts and the like. They believe, and I agree, that in most cases if you get the right people together and ask the right questions someone will come up with an answer they've never considered before and it will help someone else in the group.

So I use the same model for these workshops as I do for indivual coaching sessions; first we agree on the issue and exactly what we want to know more about. I try to formulate this into a question to ask or a problem to solve.

The next stage is for everyone to consider what they have tried in terms of this question/ problem and what seems to be inhibiting their progress. I don't ask why they haven't tried these things before as that can make people feel defensive but i do ask what needs to be moved out of the way to allow for change.

Then we begin to use various exercises and techniques to create new solutions or answers, some huge , some tiny, some completely unreasonable and some very useful. The coaching here is to help people free up their ideas and not hold back "just in case its not a good idea" All ideas are good here.

and then comes the tough part. From all of the suggestions, which ones seem most helpful and from that short list which ones will the group go away to put into practice. The coaching jargon is "agreed actions" but sometimes i call this the "so what" stage.

For me this is a very exciting part of these workshops as people choose to put ideas into practice and elave inspired to make changes. Its what coaching is all about really and I love it.