In this interview, we talk with Jennifer Britton about her article, "State of the Union ~ Team and Group Coaching 3.0".
In a 2018 article for choice Magazine, titled “The Landscape of Coaching Many,” Jennifer wrote: “Against the backdrop of ongoing change and digital disconnection, team and group coaching is likely to continue its expansion, given their relevance of support for topics including virtualization, teaming, and cross-cultural issues.”
Since then, group and team coaching have continued to grow in popularity, defining their place in the spectrum of coaching approaches. The last few years have further etched out space for these two sub-disciplines of the coaching profession.
The expansion and relevance of group and team coaching continues to grow, making these coaching modalities mainstream, rather than a fringe of the coaching profession. This podcast (and article) explores nine evolutions in the group and team
coaching space.
Known for her writing and thought leadership in the areas of group and team coaching, especially the virtual and evolving workspace, Jennifer Britton is the CEO and founder of Potentials Realized, an award-winning coaching, training and consulting company who delivers ICF-CCE programming.
Potentials Realized is a one-stop shop for all things group and team coaching, from ICF-CCE training on team coaching and group coaching, to books, card decks, and even dice to bring into your conversations!
You can find Jennifer and her team at GroupCoachingEssentials.ca.
Join us as we explore with Jennifer these nine evolutions in the group and team coaching space.
Watch the full interview by clicking here.
Find the full article here: https://bit.ly/btp-jenBritton
Learn more about Jennifer here.
To take the 2 minute Coaching Superpower quiz , click here.
Grab your free issue of choice Magazine here - https://choice-online.com/
In this episode, I talk with Jennifer about her article published in our December 2022 issue.
In this interview, we talk with Jennifer Britton about her article, "State of the Union ~ Team and Group Coaching 3.0".
In a 2018 article for choice Magazine, titled “The Landscape of Coaching Many,” Jennifer wrote: “Against the backdrop of ongoing change and digital disconnection, team and group coaching is likely to continue its expansion, given their relevance of support for topics including virtualization, teaming, and cross-cultural issues.”
Since then, group and team coaching have continued to grow in popularity, defining their place in the spectrum of coaching approaches. The last few years have further etched out space for these two sub-disciplines of the coaching profession.
The expansion and relevance of group and team coaching continues to grow, making these coaching modalities mainstream, rather than a fringe of the coaching profession. This podcast (and article) explores nine evolutions in the group and team
coaching space.
Known for her writing and thought leadership in the areas of group and team coaching, especially the virtual and evolving workspace, Jennifer Britton is the CEO and founder of Potentials Realized, an award-winning coaching, training and consulting company who delivers ICF-CCE programming.
Potentials Realized is a one-stop shop for all things group and team coaching, from ICF-CCE training on team coaching and group coaching, to books, card decks, and even dice to bring into your conversations!
You can find Jennifer and her team at GroupCoachingEssentials.ca.
Join us as we explore with Jennifer these nine evolutions in the group and team coaching space.
Watch the full interview by clicking here.
Find the full article here: https://bit.ly/btp-jenBritton
Learn more about Jennifer here.
To take the 2 minute Coaching Superpower quiz , click here.
Grab your free issue of choice Magazine here - https://choice-online.com/
In this episode, I talk with Jennifer about her article published in our December 2022 issue.
Hi everyone, it's Garry Schleifer and this is Beyond the Page brought to you by choice, The Magazine of Professional Coaching. Choice is more than a magazine. It's a community of people who use and share coaching tools, tips, and techniques to add value to their businesses, and of course impact their clients. It's an institution of learning built over the course of 20 years, yes publishing for 20 years, dedicated to improving the lives of our coaches and their clients. In today's episode, I'm speaking with team and group coach Jennifer Britton, who is the author of an article in our latest issue entitled State of the Union: Team and Group Coaching 3.0. Known for her writing and thought leadership in the area of group and team coaching, especially the virtual and evolving workspace, if you remember from a previous call. Jennifer Britton is the CEO and founder of Potentials Realized, an award-winning coaching, training and consulting company who delivers ICF CCE programming. Potentials Realized is a one-stop shop for all things group and team coaching from ICF CCE training on team and group coaching to books, card decks, and even, yes, dice, have to know about that one, to bring into our conversations. And of course, you can find Jennifer and her team at a very simple place, groupcoachingessentials.ca. Welcome, Jen. Thanks so much for joining me today and thanks for coming back.
Speaker 2:I'm excited. It's our third conversation in a little over a year. And first of all, congrats 20 years as a publisher. In today's world, I think that's like a very big milestone.
Speaker 1:I know. Where's my award, okay people? Hello universe. I'm open to being awarded.
Speaker 2:You know, on behalf of all of us as readers, thank you for your dedication. I'm sure it has not always been a straight road. I don't know if I shared this on our last time we were together, but I remember being a very young coach. Yes, I was a young coach at one time and he was standing up at an ICF Toronto meeting saying, Hey, I'm Garry and I have this magazine called choice. I was like, wow, I've got to become a subscriber.
Speaker 1:Oh, and you have been ever since.
Speaker 2:I have a couple years. I have them over here in my bookcase and they will be traveling with me when I downsize in 2023.
Speaker 1:Thank you. That's lovely. Well it is coincidental, you wrote 3.0, this is your third time at the podium. Thank you. Thank you. Speaking of tools, tips, techniques, you've got a world of them over at your groupcoachingessentials.ca. Okay. What are the dice all about?
Speaker 2:You know what, I'm going to bring them. I will let you talk at one point, but I want to bring them. They're called the Reconnecting Workspaces Dice Set. They're actually based on that whole body of work. Last year I published a book called 90 Day Guide, which is 90 days and 90 Ways for Groups and Teams. That's my new book for 2023 coming out. So it's an actual dice set, it's an experiential tool for coaches, facilitators, and leaders to use. It's been in the works now for like three and a half years, so we're still in a prototype version. Okay. But teams, groups, people love touching stuff, right when we had to go virtual, we just couldn't do that. The dice set really didn't work digitally and so now we're just sourcing at really a producer at a cost because of course post pandemic supply chain issues are an issue. But it's been a really fun tool to be piloting with in teams and groups here in the Toronto area.
Speaker 1:Yay. Coming soon as they say. A book and dice in 2023.
Speaker 2:Yeah. Well, you know, me, and some people who know my work, right. I started off as an experiential educator. I'm all about photos and visuals and metaphors. Metaphors are so important in our work and dice are just another iteration of metaphors because of course they have icons.
Speaker 1:Exactly. Well, thank you. You know, it's no surprise that I'm speaking with you today. When I thought of doing a team and group coaching issue, because we haven't done one in a while, you were the first person that came to mind. You've written numerous books on the topic. You just are, in my world, the go-to person about group and team coaching. So thank you very much for everything that you do for our profession in that area and for helping me with an article and also guiding me on what and who to contact to make this a fabulous issue.
Speaker 2:Well, thank you. It's always a pleasure to collaborate behind the scenes and I think this is a really amazing addition. So yeah, kudos to you, but I think it's super exciting time in our profession, right? There's a lot of things on the go and so I hope that we can touch on that in our conversation. But I think more and more coaches are realizing this is the next wave or another wave for them in their work. I'm going to let you lead the conversation, Garry.
Speaker 1:Well, it's just a conversation, there's no leading. You are the subject matter expert though. So let's get to the meat of it, the heart of it. You know, your article explores six influences which have impacted the realm of group and team coaching. So tell us what they are and which one or two are the most important to you from your perspective.
Speaker 2:Yeah. Well this is, I think, probably my third or fourth article around team coaching and group coaching for choice. I remember very vividly writing one in a hotel room probably about five years ago, right? It was just before the holidays and I was like, oh, I've got to get Garry this article. So as I wrote this one, I was thinking about where we were five years ago to where we are now, which led me to say what are some of those factors that have really precipitated us to where we are as we step into 2023. So this is at a wider level, we'll talk a little bit more about where we are with the profession, but as I share in this feature article, six influences that have really jettisoned the need for group and team coaching, collaborative partnerships, namely number one, and write these down if you have a pen, we'll touch on some of them.
:Two, systems approaches. Three, the need and yearning and really basic human need of belonging. Four, what I call the triad of trust, safety, and connection. Five, teaming and then number six, adaptive and emerging models. So obviously we could spend an hour and a half on this. The podcast is not that long. It is so important for people to pick up this article because I really like the way, not only I wrote it, but you also framed it in the publication because I go into a little bit more depth around each of these six areas, plus the implications for group and team coaches. Right. So to your question of which one or two are most important from my perspective? Well, they're all important, but I would say a couple of things that we're seeing right now.
Speaker 2:Number one, five teaming, right? Amy Edmundson coined this term a decade ago. For Amy and her research, it really is about the fact that teams are ever shaping and forming. And if we look at current events, whether it's geopolitical pressures, whether it's disruption in sectors like technology that we're seeing, whether it is economic pressures, the composition of teams is ever changing. So how do teams keep running at breakneck speed, um, to do the work that they need to do. Teams exist for a reason. They exist to get results. The value of the team coach is we can come alongside them, hopefully running at the same speed, which is sometimes really fast to help them do their work better. So I really think this is an area for team coaches to be thinking about and looking at and communicating about. We're in a different space than 10 years ago where the gold standard was six months of work as a team coach beside a team. Yes, that might work in some instances but not in all. So how can we also provide moments of ongoing conversation touchpoints to help the team really keep running? That may mean redesigning constantly their agreements and how they operate and what's helping them, what their team composition is, and what the gaps are. So there's a lot. You can hear my volume here because it's a busy place right now for teams. Many of them are really struggling after a few years of all virtual and remote work to now not only come back together perhaps in the hybrid, which is what I've been writing and speaking about. But now we have these pressures, which means that the team composition is changing. And that's always been there and it's always been a part of our work as team coaches, but now it's at a speed, which I think for many, teams are finding it really challenging, but it's an opportunity.
Speaker 1:Things are changing so rapidly. I was speaking with Janet Harvey the other day in a podcast, and she referenced that human knowledge used to double every 12 years. It now doubles every 12 hours.
Speaker 2:Yes.
Speaker 1:So when you talk about speed, keeping up with a team or getting a team up to speed, and then as that's happening, you've got this other horse in the race going change, change, change, change and that horse comes right across everything. So how do you keep up? So yeah, I can't even imagine
Speaker 2:Just a few weeks ago here in Toronto, and I should have invited you. So at Metro Hall, which used to be our ICF meeting space actually, I did a TED Talk live in the Rotunda.
Speaker 1:Wow.
Speaker 2:So it'll be available in the new year, but it's about coaching teams through chaos and part of the chaos is because of this ongoing disruption and change. So how do we address that? What do we do? So not to say don't go watch the TED Talk, but very much it's about really bringing it back to the simplest form? How do we get into those ingredients that teams need? You know, I've referenced Amy, but certainly in my own work, I've been developing methodologies that help teams do this fast because in my former work, I was with teams every, might be three month team life cycle and that's very different than working with a team that's together for three years.
Speaker 1:About your TED talk. So when that's all wrapped up, please send it to me. I do a weekly recap and I would love to have people see that. My recap goes out on Fridays and I try to put in things that are good marshals for the weekend. So send t hat a long.
Speaker 2:I'd be happy to pass that one on because it's a little different than the first TED talk that I did.
Speaker 1:I'd like to ask you about one of these becauseone of them really pops for me for the work that I do in DEI and B, diversity, equity, inclusion and belonging. So what I'm gravitating to is hearing more about the need for belonging because, as we know, that whole hybrid situation in COVID, I mean, we have aging parents, having them isolated, the need for belonging was huge, huge, huge. We really had to do what we could.
Speaker 2:Absolutely. Well I'm still doing it in my world.
Speaker 1:Yeah, same.
Speaker 2:I'm goring to go to the article actually, because I think the whole umbrella of belonging has been so central to all of our work. Right now not just to my work, but everyone's work as a group coach and a team coach and this is where we see sort of that overarching. hat does belonging mean to each of us? We have seen studies, I referenced this in my first TED talk, of the cost of loneliness. They found in the UK years ago that the cost of loneliness was more than smoking half a pack of cigarettes a day. That's extreme. So even to look at a personal anecdotal level, like seeing the decline of both my parents during the pandemic when they were still in their own home and seeing the rebound effect now. They've been in our home for the last year, and while that poses some interesting days, from a socialization standpoint, it's been so important for them. As I wrote in my article for choice, one of the challenges of the last few years has been a weakening of the social fabric of life and relationships. Months of remote work and social distancing have challenged individuals in the area of belonging. With much of the world finding ways to come together after the pandemic distancing, group and team coaching both provide a vehicle for a greater sense of community. It's likely that the fundamental human need of belonging will continue to drive clients to turn to collaborative conversation spaces of group and team coaching providing our clients with an enhanced sense of belonging and understanding that we are not alone on our journey, even if our pathway is unique. So to the whole conversation around DE and I, I think this is a really exciting one and we could, again, like from my former global work but also from a family level of a multicultural, multiracial family experience as well. I think, yeah, we are on unique pathways and we are different and yet what are those nexus points of just humanity? I think this is really the joy and what keeps me doing the work that I do with such energy because every hour is different with a group and a team. I think for most in 2022, as we look back, this will be the year where people were like, oh, it's so good to be together again, even if we're together virtually, but like really be in community with each other.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, exactly. Wow. Yeah. I can't say more about that. Belonging is huge. They say that people don't leave companies, they leave their bosses and even more so, I can't even imagine a leader, well I can because I am in a couple of areas, but it's so difficult to keep all the balls going now. There's DE&I, there's engagement, there's one-on-ones and, one of the other articles in the issues speaks about the need for the younger generations. They want more face-to-face time, not less.
Speaker 2:Yeah. The first one that I led from in this article is the need for paradigm shifts and I've been saying it a long time, even pre pandemic. One great benefit I think of the remote by need, necessity, experience was that we had to really look at leading differently. Now people are snapping back. That's human nature. We will revert to our sort of homeostatic point unless we have to sustain change and change is not a slow process. So even after two years, like what change is being sustained and is that the change people want or is that the change that people are being forced back into? Interesting question. But paradigm shifts really, I think and I'm seeing this a lot with younger leaders right now, they are coming back to the workplace saying we want something different. And in countries like Canada where so many people, you know, 10 years my senior left the workforce, I think there's a real opportunity to really create some new ways of working. If we look at our statistics this week, two things came out through the Toronto papers. One, foot traffic is still down 46% in our downtown core. That's very interesting. So what implications does that have? And that goes tandem with Toronto, no surprise, coming up in the top three of the longest commute times in North America.
Speaker 1:No kidding. For folks that are listening, we don't call it rush hour up here. We call it rush day.
Speaker 2:A whole day.
Speaker 1:It just never ends.
Speaker 2:You could be on the highway at 5:00 AM and it's like lots of people are out.
Speaker 1:When I go to visit my mom in Balvo, which is about two hours east of Toronto, if I leave any later than five to six in the morning, I will inevitably hit traffic where I have to stop. Don't get me wrong, it's already full, but at least there's enough so we can keep up to the regular speed without having to slow down, but yeah, crazy.
Speaker 2:So, from a human built experience, this is a piece of context in the built environment, how are we going to engage with that? How are we creating workspaces, physical, virtual, digital, hybrid that really help people do their best work? I think we're seeing in cities like Toronto, which is going to be different from other cities, people are really wanting different ways of operating. So to operate within that complexity of hybrid long term, how do we ensure we're having the spaces of conversation where people can co-create shared agreements on how they want to work and how they're going to resolve differences and how they're going to work through conflict to bring it back to coaching. This is now really the landscape of the team coach. So I think there's just a lot of factors that are coming together which say, Hey, we've got to do this differently. A one-off team building, yeah, you're going to have like a nice day. It's awesome. It's not going to sustain. This is what drew me to coaching 20 years ago. The one off just doesn't cut it in a world of ongoing change.
Speaker 1:Let me tell you, what I'm seeing now is the newest evolution in this space of team coaching. What should coaches be aware of? I mean, I just saw the other day something from ICF. Tell us more.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think the good news is we now have the advanced credential in team coaching. So I think on our last podcast I was talking about the evolution of the new team coaching competencies. If you have not heard about them yet, ICF embarked on a two year journey to create streamlined team coaching competency frame, which is very aligned. It is grounded in the ICF competencies. That happened 2020, 2021. Those were launched about a year ago. And then they embarked on the first of, what I believe is going to be many, some specializations in the credentialing world. So, ICF has just introduced this specialization, which will sit on top of your ACC, PCC, MCC. So it is not a replacement, it's almost like a badge to say, Hey, I'm specialized in team coaching. What's neat about it is it's grounded not only in knowledge but practice. So as a practitioner, as a person who embraces practice, I have a bias here because team coaching, we can learn and read all we want, but it's only when we're in the room, in the space with those teams that we really learn. So the new ACTC has just been actually announced this last week. There was a pilot year where 136 of us went through the actual pilot process. Some of us were involved in helping to design this and it's going include multiple things. So there is of course a knowledge component. There is additional training of 60 hours of training in team coaching on top of what you've done already and then team coaches will work with a coaching supervisor like myself and others who specialize in team coaching. Because the complexity factor of this work really requires that we step back and pause and look at it.
Speaker 1:From what I've been reading about it, it's similar to what I was mentioning about leaders. A team coach has a lot of balls in the air. I can't even go into all of them. It takes skill and I'm thankful that our profession has taken it upon themselves to rise up to the occasion of what's needed for team and group coaching or team coaching in this perspective. By the way, that does that kind of leave group coaching out in cold?
Speaker 2:So it does in some respects, but it's not out in a cold. It's just not covered yet. So I think again, the mindset was if you really look at the arcing of a professional's journey, we start one-on-one and that we get to master. Many coaches will then sort of bring groups of individuals together for that shared purpose, still leveraging the ICF competencies. But the next layer of exponential challenge really is team coaching. So ICF took the decision, back in 2020 to really, let's start with team coaching because of complexity and focus an amount like volume. So I think very much it's not out in the cold by any means.
:But it leads to an interesting question of, so what about coaches who coach many, coach both groups and teams? So this is an advanced credential in team coaching, not group coaching. So we've been really busy at Potentials Realized really looking for the last year at sort of our learning pathway because we've trained team and group coaches since 2006. It's only been the last five years that I've uncoupled group coaching from team coaching in terms of learning pathways. But we now have a 70 hour and 125 hour additional training for coaches who really want to go deep because, I'm sure people are gathering in this conversation, there's the surface level, but then there's the what do you really need to be good in right when you're in the room because there's no textbook. Well, there are few.
Speaker 1:We're getting there. You've got them, you've written them.
Speaker 2:I own the textbook.They're probably David Cutterbuck, but what does it mean practically when you are there holding the space for a team?
Speaker 1:Yeah, exactly. And remind our audience again briefly, what's the difference between team and group coaching?
Speaker 2:So team coaching, we're working with the entire team to create alignment around their results and what they're there to do. Teams exist for a common purpose. We are a marketing team or we are the team that is responsible for onboarding new employees in this organization. We share a common purpose and a common mission and a common mandate. So when I'm going in as a team coach, I'm there to help that team create alignment. I'm also, as I share my TED talk, looking at the what and who, what do we need to do and who are we? Who are we and all our hopefully our diversity. So back to DE& I, we want to help teams actually like really dig into the diversity that exists within the team and learn how to work effectively across differences. Teams that are strong are different. They are not all the same and this is a bit of a fallacy that most people are like,"Really? I thought teams had to be the same." It's like, no.
Speaker 1:Can't imagine that they did the same.
Speaker 2:Yeah. So we're creating blind spots if we're all the same. It's about alignment and it's about really helping the team understand the results and their relationships within the context of their work. So stakeholders and context, et cetera. Groups, on the other hand, of course, we bring people together for shared interests, but we don't have that same reporting relationship. We may not even have a geographic anything in common other than, Hey, I'm a business owner, I want to grow my business or I'm a mom of blah, blah blah, or I'm a caretaker. Many times it's an identity issue or I have a passion for this and I want to learn more. But groups have a very defined start and end usually, unlike teams. Teams are ongoing and ever changing and team coaches coming in and leaving the system again.
Speaker 1:Thank you.
Speaker 2:Apples and oranges.
Speaker 1:Good definition though and it's always good to have that reminder. It just seemed like the right thing right now. One more big question. What would you like our audience to do as a result of this article and this conversation?
Speaker 2:So one of my creative projects of 2022, because I have one every year, has been to create a quiz. It's called the Team and Group Coaching Superpower Quiz because one of the issues that really percolates up beyond the theories and how do you do this is, who are you as a coach? So our presence becomes really critical and most importantly, our ability to expand our range to hold the space for a real diversity of clients becomes one of, I think, the core issues that defines good group coaches from amazing group coaches. So I created this quiz that people can do on their phone. Hope that I could share the link right now.
Speaker 1:Of course. Yeah, we are going to share the link for that and the article.
Speaker 2:If people want to check out this two minute quiz that you can do on your phone, you'll find out which of the five team and group coaching superpowers you are. You can head on over to bit.ly/gtcoachingsuperpower for group team coaching superpower.
Speaker 1:Of course
Speaker 2:Bit. ly/gtcoachingsuperpower. As people take that, they're going to get, of course, a report of which of the five superpowers that they are. If people are interested in learning more, definitely book a call. They'll see the link on where they can book a call or we now have a 14 CCE course called Activate Your Group and Team Coaching Superpower which I run and I love because it's all about presence and who we are as coaches, as well as coaching for creativity and innovation in this disrupted time.
Speaker 1:Oh my gosh and which we spoke about last time. Thank you again so much for joining us. You're a fountain of wisdom in a lot of things, not just team and group, but we kept in the lane today. Again, a reminder, you can reach Jen at Groupcoachingessentials.ca. Thank you very, very much, Jen. I really appreciate having you with us and in our profession. You are one of our superpowers.
Speaker 2:Oh, well thank you and I'm here to activate others. So thank you Garry, for all that you do in providing a voice for the conversation because I suspect that if we were to sit down this time next year, maybe we will again, to talk about lots on the go.
Speaker 1:Maybe.
Speaker 2:With that, have a great year everyone, and I hope to hear from you and maybe have a conversation.
:That's it for this episode of Beyond the Page. For more episodes, subscribe to via your favorite podcast app. We know the big ones are Apple and Spotify, so you'll find us there. Just type choice Magazine. And don't forget, while you're on our site to sign up for your free digital issue of choice Magazine by going to click on the Signup Now button. I'm Garry Schleifer, enjoy your journey to mastery.