Jose leans across the gray cafeteria table, looks both ways to see if anyone is within ear shot, and stage whispers to me: “They’re all burnt out. I get multiple emails every week. I don’t know how long we can keep it together.” He grimaces and shrugs, before taking a long swig of coffee.

I met up with my friend and former colleague Jose for a good old fashioned catch up lunch but, as conversations with old co-workers tend to do, things eventually turned towards work. And how the entire C-suite at his company is exhausted, frustrated, and threatening to leave.

What do you do when this happens - when an entire group of people are dissatisfied? Do you do a workshop? Implement a group coaching program? Bring in a consultant? Hire more people?

Here’s how to decide if you should book a workshop or a group coaching program for your team:

Workshops answer the question “How?”
Group coaching answers the question “Why?”

A workshop could answer questions like:

“How do I effectively communicate with our clients who are from a different culture and have a different first language?”

“How do we make sure we’re interviewing from a diverse pool of job applicants?”

“How do we encourage our employees to address their issues with each other before making HR complaints?”

A group coaching program could answer questions like:

“Why do I feel so triggered when parents request time off?”

“Why do I struggle to delegate?”

“Why do we keep hiring fun, likable people who aren’t actually qualified for the role?”

When your team needs a workshop

Of course, workshops can vary in length and depth, but they work best in situations where a group needs help with one very specific aspect of their job. Workshops teach topic-specific tools, models, and skills that participants learn and even practice.

Leadership workshop topic examples:

  • Understanding why we struggle to delegate

  • Recognizing our bias and blind spots

  • Having difficult conversations

  • Navigating our own power and privilege and that of others

  • How do we give feedback in a way that will actually lead to change

When your team needs group coaching

Group coaching is a great follow up to a workshop, to support your team in applying and integrating the things they’ve learned or working through hurdles they encounter.

Group coaching is an intimate conversation space, where we focus on goal setting, awareness-building, and accountability. I like to work with groups of 6 - 8 people, because it allows for the collective wisdom of the group to be shared.

Though we’re working in a group, the focus is on the development of the individual within the group context. We explore synergies that exist and find points of similarity; often participants say “Wow, I didn't realize how common this issue is!” and feel less alone.

Worried group coaching will be too much of a time commitment for your already-busy team? My group coaching is just 90 minutes, once a month. But even with this small time commitment, the results can be transformative. 

Topics commonly covered during a six-month group coaching leadership program:

  • Witness others in their journey and offer compassion and empathy

  • Recognize their own personal triggers

  • Glean collective wisdom and learnings from the group

  • Creates an internal community to lean on as allies 

In my humble (and professional) opinion, workshops and group coaching work best when they go hand in hand. And a good facilitator weaves a bit of group coaching into a workshop - making time to process, integrate, and share stories.

Once your team has taken a specific, skills-based workshop, tune in to how they’re doing. Where are they still struggling and getting stuck? Where do they want to go deeper?

Then use group coaching to address the issues that are coming up as your team applies the knowledge they learned in the workshop. With outside insights, you can finally identify the barriers in your own system that are holding you back.

It’s also worth noting that group coaching is extraordinarily cost-effective - it’s often a tenth of the price of 1-on-1 coaching! If your organization is small, running on a tight budget, or you’re an NGO, group coaching could be a great fit.

Still not sure where to start but know that your team needs support and development? I’d love to chat and help you outline a workshop or group coaching plan!