Part IV: Using the Results

Coaching Fundamentals

Using the Strengths-Based and Model Approaches with Groups

The strategies presented so far pertain primarily to one-on-one coaching. There are times, however, when you might be in a situation where you need to coach groups of people on specific development areas. For example, if you are working with a senior team who, as a group, need to be strong in certain subscales or composite areas, you can work with them as a group on their development plans. What do they need to do as a team to ensure they are leveraging those skills they feel are important?

Setting the Stage

Here are some guidelines to keep in mind when planning a group coaching session:

1. Set ground rules at the beginning. What is confidential? What isn’t? How will we handle conflict when it comes up? How do we ensure everyone is engaged and participating in the discussions and action plans? These are just some of the questions that need to be addressed and agreed to at the beginning of the session in order to set it up for success.
   
2. Ensure there is trust on the team. There will be some fairly candid and open discussions, so people need to be comfortable with each other in order to open up and share information
3. Get agreement on what’s important. The group needs to agree on which composite scales or subscales are important to their roles. You can facilitate this process at the beginning if they don’t already have something in place. If you are given the information, you need to validate it with the team at the beginning of your session. That way you ensure there is buy-in right from the start.
4. Clarify your role. You are a facilitator of the process, and you will provide expertise in emotional intelligence and the EQ-i 2.0. You cannot tell them what to do and how to do it. Each group is different and they will know what works for them much more than you will. Allowing them to take the lead will increase the chance that they will follow through on what they have commit to.
5. Structure activities but be flexible. As with facilitating a workshop, process facilitation requires clear instructions around what you expect them to accomplish and how much time they have in order to accomplish it. Where it differs is that with process facilitation the team may decide that they want to spend more or less time on a particular activity than you had planned for. When this happens your role is to raise the issue (e.g., “There’s great discussion going on right now and I sense you want to continue talking this through. The downside is that we won’t get to X by this afternoon as we previously discussed. Is everyone okay with that?”). Once you get agreement from the team on the direction they want to go in, you can proceed.

Structuring the Group Coaching Session

Prior to conducting a group session, each individual should have one-on-one feedback debriefs on their EQ-i 2.0 results. Giving them personal feedback does a few things: it helps them understand where they are at personally and where they want to develop, it gives them an understanding of what emotional intelligence is and what the different subscales mean, and it starts them thinking about their team and where they are as a group.

Here are some ideas on how to structure your group coaching session:

Opening the session

• Open with high level objectives and confirm them with the group. This approach ensures a shared understanding of what they are there to accomplish.
• Show the agenda so participants are aware of how much time they can spend on any given piece of the session. This agenda can be flexible, but refer back to it when need to determine with the group whether or not to spend more time on a topic than previously allocated. It also shows the importance of each area; the areas you spend more time on should be the ones that are the most important.
• Go over group protocols. Set your protocols for the group up front so that everyone knows what is expected of them and they can hold each other accountable.

The middle of the session

• Review the EQ-i 2.0 and quickly go over the model and definitions. This review should be a refresher since they each had a one-on-one debrief. Ensure everyone understands the foundation of the session.
• Review the group subscales that you will be focusing on in the coaching session. The group subscale results should have been given out prior to the session. You need to ensure everyone is on the same page with which subscales are the ones pquired for themrimarily re to be successful.

When results are shared

• Create smaller groups to work on strategies that they can employ as a team to increase and develop in each area that identified as important to their success. The teams should consist of no fewer than three people and they should be relatively high in that subscale. For example, if they have identified Social Responsibility as a key area for them, one idea might be to create a culture of recognition. They do not need to decide the details for what that looks like or how they would implement it (or what the budget might be). This stage is just about brainstorming ideas. For smaller groups, you would work on all the strategies together as one group.
• Each team comes up with as many ideas as they can on their one or two subscales and then reports back to the larger team.
  During this debrief, participants listen, take notes, and ask clarifying questions. No one is allowed to shoot down any ideas at this point. You want as many ideas on the table as possible.
• Next you can put them in groups where they are relatively low in a particular subscale. This group needs to look at the ideas and determine which ones they can realistically commit to. By having the lower group determine what strategies they will implement, you have a greater chance of obtaining buy-in and commitment.
• Once the second round of group work is complete, have each team prepare an action plan for implementing their strategies. You can use the template provided in the report or use your own. Either way, ensure they come up with a concrete, realistic plan to start working on the subscales identified.
• Each team shares their action plans with the larger group, refining and adjusting the plan as required. Once the plan is in place, each person must commit to it and add it to their personal development plan.

Closing out the Group Coaching Session

• This coaching session will most likely take place over a number of sessions. Once the team has created their action plan, they need to identify checkpoints when they will review their progress as a team. They may have divided the development opportunities amongst the group, having subgroups each work on a few areas. They may have decided to all commit to working on everything. Whichever approach they take, they need to evaluate their progress along the way. Have them create a schedule of milestones:
  • How quickly can they start working on the identified areas?
  • Who will take the lead?
  • When can they expect to see changes taking place?
  • How will they hold themselves and each other accountable?
  • How will they reward themselves for progress?
• Remind them of the objectives of the session, and confirm whether they have met the objectives set out at the beginning.

Group Coaching Example

Susan is the V.P. of Human Resources at one of the largest banks in the U.S. She has completed an EQ-i 2.0 and has been given her personal feedback. She has twelve directors working for her whose teams provide human resources consulting services to the front line managers. While all of the subscales are important, Susan and her team have identified the following subscales as the most critical to their success as HR leaders and also as partners to their internal customers:

• Emotional Self-Awareness
• Emotional Expression
• Self-Actualization
• Empathy
• Social Responsibility
• Impulse Control
• Stress Tolerance
• Optimism

Her team is a high-performing team, winning several awards and recognition from their clients. Their employee survey results have been good overall, but there are some areas that come up year after year, specifically with regards to communication, workload, work/life balance, and providing advancement opportunities. The team has been together for at least 5 years, and they are generally a close and supportive team. They have developed a culture of openness and are eager to get some assistance in how to tackle the noted areas of the employee survey.

In the session, the EQ-i 2.0 consultant divided the group into four teams of three. Each group would take on a subscale  that was identified as important to success as HR managers. They brainstormed ideas on how to develop that subscale and presented their ideas back to the larger group. They then were divided again into four groups of three, again given a subscale that was deemed important to the team. Again they brainstormed ideas and presented them to the group. This process was repeated until all of the important subscales were covered. Everyone examined all brainstormed strategies. Their job was to determine which of these strategies was within their ability to implement, based on their ability to stretch outside of their comfort zone, but not so far out that they would not be able to accomplish it. Once these action plans were developed further and committed to, the group put timelines in place for review.

The group decided that for Self-Actualization, they would start up an informal mentoring program. This program would begin to address the perceived lack of advancement opportunities that the employees wanted to address, and was just a little outside of the comfort zone of those with the lowest self-actualization scores.