Our recent Group Coach Summit, with Pelmorex (our spectacular hosts), was dedicated to cultivating group coaching capabilities with our Catalyst program alumni. The half-day event was spent connecting with other professionals, learning new skills, and taking our coaching skills to new heights!
“What I love most about Roundtable events are how generative they are – there is always open sharing of experience or new approaches and resources, and they practice experiential learning, so you always walk away with real focus on how you can be a little be better!” Group Coach Summit Participant
Top 3 Takeaways
Here are some of the common threads that emerged during the Summit.
1. Connection Before Content
Think about how you are consciously cultivating the connection of the group members so they can feel comfortable to put forth their best effort. If you want people truly engaged, they must feel safe doing so. We like to think about how a group climbs a ladder of trust together, you can’t speed up to the top rung, it’s one step at a time. In our case at the Group Coach summit we started with intention setting, paired reflection and then a group exercise all related to creating group agreements to ensure there was trust in this being a highly confidential and highly connected space.
2. Step Out of Your Comfort Zone
It’s easy to want to stay in the comfort zone especially when the world feels chaotic and ever-changing however there is value in micro-doses of stretch either meeting new people, trying new tools, or brushing off techniques that might feel a bit dusty and cobwebby. These challenges that keep us in the zone of stretch, but not total discomfort, deliver a positive feedback to our brains and can reignite inspiration and energy. We saw participants come out of some of the activities with bursts of insights, which would not have occurred had they not been willing to put themselves in a small space of stretch working with and practicing coaching with a new group. Do a comfort zone deep dive here!
3. Make It Fun
How can you inject a bit of levity and play into your work? We all do serious work but when we take ourselves too seriously, we lose sight of possibility and lock into the “right” way of doing things. Group coaching is all about generating insight and wisdom from others, so staying open and curious is critical. The Group Coach summit was peppered with a few fun tools to keep the conversation flowing and keep participants on their toes.
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