If you’re someone who sees the value in professional development, you already know that there are a lot of ways to go about it. Degrees, certificates, seminars, self study, mentoring, and coaching, among others. Group coursework tends to offer the most value for knowledge transfer, like how to deliver an effective presentation.
When it comes to changing internal behavior, like how to feel more confident as a presenter, coaching or mentoring probably present better options. Those one-to-one formats offer the benefit of being tailored to individual needs, making them particularly strategic, efficient, and impactful. But, they also have limitations. Mentoring relies on the availability, willingness, and subject matter expertise of mentors. And coaching can be expensive and unscalable.
This is where group coaching comes in.
Combining the content richness of instructional learning with the individualized attention of coaching and mentoring, group coaching offers some unique benefits. The one-to-many model means less cost per person and the pre-designed format can be easily replicated.
But group coaching is more than an economic alternative to individual coaching. It can offer experiential learning in which participants grow from observing each other.
You know how it’s easier to spot problems and solutions when they’re about someone else? In a group coaching context, participants are given the opportunity to follow each others’ journeys of self reflection, discovery, and change. The collective wisdom of the group provides value in itself. Seeing other participants take risks, share struggles, and reach insights provides a layer of learning that doesn’t happen in one-to-one coaching.
Group coaching members also learn from watching the coach interact with fellow participants. The most important skills we as coaches offer are not only universally relevant, they are in areas where we all can improve: presence, listening, and asking questions.
Just as working individually with a coach can span leadership, career, business, or life coaching, there are variations of group coaching.
Program
It’s common for members of a program to join together in learning events. Integrating a coaching approach into such events provides an opportunity to resonate with adult learning styles and offer meta learning that can be applied in other areas of the participants’ work or personal lives.
Team
Small groups of people united by a shared goals, teams can be vertical, like a department, or horizontal, like an executive team. Team coaching varies from other types of group coaching in that, in additional to individual growth, it’s focused on the team unit and how it functions. Effective team development relies on the growth of each member and their interaction.
Community
Similar to a program, participants in a community are joined by common attributes or purpose. This makes group coaching a good fit because members are already part of a shared experience. That commonality makes it easier to identify relevant topics and establish a space that invites vulnerability. Next month I’m hosting a group coaching event for the Thea by Thrive℠ community. We’ll use an experiential learning model in which we’ll examine tools, coach someone’s challenges related to using them, and then debrief what we noticed in that exercise.
Public
If you are pursuing professional or personal development on your own, group coaching may still be an option. Look for learning opportunities that include this approach, and ask questions to understand and evaluate it. As I’ve shared before, “coaching” can serve as a catch-all for behaviors that are actually consulting, teaching, or mentoring.
Group coaching is a useful tool for any professional development toolbox. In addition to its scalability and unique learning opportunities, it offers a novel construct. It provides a reason to gather, connect, and share for mutual and collective benefit.
