Ep 24 - Group vs Team Coaching feat Dr Louise Kovacs
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[00:00:00] Welcome to the business of executive coaching. I'm Ellie Scarf, an ex lawyer turned executive coach. Over the last 17 years, I've coached in house, I've been an associate coach, and I've run executive coaching businesses with teams of coaches around the world. My clients have ranged from global brand names to boutiques, startups, and more.
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Ellie Scarf: Welcome to the business of executive coaching podcast. Now I'm very lucky today to have Dr. Louise Kovacs here in person with me in Perth to record this podcast. So for those of you who have listened to a previous, one of our most popular previous episodes, actually I spoke to Louise about her corporate to coach journey, and also a little bit about her strategy around personal coaching.
Ellie Scarf: Pricing and business building and what it means to be a coach. So today I'm going to dig a little deeper into some of her [00:02:00] expertise. And we're going to talk about the difference between group and team coaching and a few strategies for how you might commercialize both of those options. And, and we'll also talk about why it's important to differentiate them because they are in fact, very different.
Ellie Scarf: So firstly, by way of introduction, Louise has been a coach for over 20 years. She has an extensive professional background prior to becoming a coach in HR, sales management, corporate strategy and capability. She also has a very significant academic hat these days. So she holds a master's in organizational coaching from Sydney Uni.
Ellie Scarf: And a doctorate in executive coaching from Middlesex university. She is definitely an academic and a practitioner. She's extensively published on the practice of coaching and the practitioners of coaching, including her work on navigating complexity, reflective practice as a coach, anti fragility coach, self care.
Ellie Scarf: And so much more. And she does have a book in the works, which hopefully she will tell us a little bit more about. And that book [00:03:00] I believe does include a little snippet on group and team coaching. So she's giving a little extra insight and when that book's available, it'll definitely be a must read.
Ellie Scarf: Louise also has a lot of coaching experience. She's worked with senior leaders globally in coaching and facilitation capacities. She's successfully built coaching businesses that have engaged teams of coaches around the world to deliver coaching and facilitated programs. She's also a qualified supervisor.
Ellie Scarf: So if you're looking for supervision, she is your woman. And she does that in groups and individual supervision, but most significant to me, of course, which I think I shared on the previous episode is that Louise has been my mentor and my very good friend. For over 17 years now, and we still get to work together, so I'm very fortunate.
Ellie Scarf: And because we're here together, I absolutely had to make sure that we recorded a podcast together and there may even be more. So just, just warning you, Louise.
Louise Kovacs: Welcome. Welcome to me. Thank you. Thanks for the lovely introduction. I always feel [00:04:00] slightly embarrassed. It's not strange, isn't it strange? And we do talk
Ellie Scarf: a lot about visibility.
Ellie Scarf: I know.
Louise Kovacs: I'm not, don't, don't look at my LinkedIn profile for any examples of any of the amazing things that Ellie teaches you how to do, because I'm not a good practitioner in that
Ellie Scarf: way. But she is a very good practitioner in every other way. Thank you. So. So firstly, Louise, I wanted to talk today about group and team coaching specifically.
Ellie Scarf: And the reason I wanted to do that is that in my community, in the impact coach collective, a lot of the coaches have been thinking about different offers that they take to market. They've been talking to clients throughout their sales processes and group coaching and team coaching are coming up a lot.
Ellie Scarf: And I've been asked on a number of occasions, what the difference is. How do you know when you should be doing which, and I thought that was a good opportunity for us to talk about. So, fantastic.
Louise Kovacs: It's a great topic.
Ellie Scarf: I wanted to start by asking you about your experience of group, group and team coaching.
Louise Kovacs: [00:05:00] Mm-Hmm. . Well, how about start with group coaching. Mm-Hmm. first and what that might mean and what it might look like. And I think in order to do that, we have to also talk about the difference between groups and teams. Mm-Hmm. . So the way that I think about it is. Group coaching is coaching that you would do with any kind of group of people.
Louise Kovacs: Now, they could be individuals who come together for some specific reason, because they like the sound of the group that you're putting together. Or it could be a group of leaders from the same company, or it could in fact be a team. So I like to think of team coaching as a subset of group coaching, even though they are different.
Louise Kovacs: Yes, very different. But the difference being, What does a team have that a group doesn't? And there are a couple of key features of a team, I think are important to think about when you're working with any group. Do they have a shared common purpose as a team? So do they have something that they need to deliver together?[00:06:00]
Louise Kovacs: And can they only deliver it by working together? And so are there interdependencies between the groups of people in that team that would mean that they can deliver the goal? So there's And there's interdependencies. Those are probably two of the really key things about what makes a group different from a team.
Louise Kovacs: Cause I could have a group of leaders from the same organization. But they're not necessarily a team because they have individual goals that they're working on, or they work for different bits of the business. Whereas if I've got a team, that team has a shared purpose, some set of shared objectives, and they need each other in order to be able to deliver it.
Ellie Scarf: Yeah. I, I. That makes a lot of sense, the way you've articulated that. Can you give an example of like a group coaching program that you've been involved in?
Louise Kovacs: I was thinking about this earlier, and one of the things that popped into my mind was the group coaching that we used to do as part of our manager as coach [00:07:00] program that we put together at Fuji Xerox.
Louise Kovacs: It's a great example, I think, because we used to do, run a workshop, And then teaching them all the basic skills of coaching and how to, how to coach their teams. And then we'd put them in group coaching pods after that, where they'd come to the session and say, this is what I've tried. This is what I've, you know, this is my objective.
Louise Kovacs: And it's a shared experience of us coaching them. To coach other people, but we're not coaching them as a team, even though they're all sales leaders in the same sort of sales leadership team. We were working with them as a group of people who were trying to learn how to coach their team.
Ellie Scarf: So, so based on your criteria, the reason that's a group is because they don't have.
Ellie Scarf: Shared objectives and they don't have interdependency to achieve their own goals in this scenario.
Louise Kovacs: No, that's right. So the overall, you might say they do have a shared goal because the company had a shared sales target, but they're not dependent on each other for that.
Ellie Scarf: No.
Louise Kovacs: There's no interdependency. [00:08:00] If you hit miss your target, I miss mine.
Louise Kovacs: Yeah. So there's a lot of independence and we weren't coaching them together to achieve an overall target. We were coaching them individually.
Ellie Scarf: Yeah.
Louise Kovacs: in order to improve their coaching skills. And it works well. The different, the reason why we would do that in a group versus individually is they learn from each other.
Louise Kovacs: And it's also a little bit of a way of getting the laggards to get on board because they see their peers doing it and getting good benefit from it. So that's one reason why you might do it in a group. Another example might be you've run a leadership program. So you've put together a great leadership program, but you want some way of keeping the learning going.
Louise Kovacs: So you might again use a group, a group coaching scenario where they come into the coaching group with their leadership challenges. And they are going to share what they're trying to achieve. And you would coach them, you might actually be doing almost individual coaching in a group setting [00:09:00] and then get other people to give their thoughts or to offer their view or to ask more questions.
Louise Kovacs: So again, you get the benefit of people learning from each other and an element of accountability because you're in a group setting.
Ellie Scarf: And from a Commercial perspective, I've, I've noticed that group coaching is quite attractive to organizations when they want to offer some sort of bespoke development for people, but there may not be the budget to fund a individual coaching program.
Ellie Scarf: So off the back of Like a leadership program, they may choose to invest in group because it feels like, I mean, you do get a huge amount of learning out of group programs. You do get to bring your own personal issues to the group. And yeah, and you can, you can sort of learn from others as well. So I think there is a view that it is a more accessible.
Ellie Scarf: development option?
Louise Kovacs: I think so. And I think, you know, for certain levels in an organization, it's definitely [00:10:00] helpful. Would I do it with the most senior leaders? Maybe not, but even then they would probably gain benefit from it, but they may be a little more hesitant to share their vulnerabilities. But with their peers, they may, but I wouldn't put very senior people with more junior people necessarily.
Louise Kovacs: But you could if they were willing to, to participate and share their vulnerabilities, it would very much depend on the culture of the organization because people would learn a lot from it. But I think the leaders might feel a bit exposed if they feel like, well, I shouldn't be sharing my vulnerabilities.
Ellie Scarf: And also sometimes where we have that dynamic, we find that the more junior people are much less willing to speak up which can be tricky, but is something worth thinking about is that when you're delivering group coaching, the makeup of the group is actually really important.
Louise Kovacs: Which brings me to a thought I was talking to you about earlier is that coaches who are doing group coaching need to be aware of what happens when [00:11:00] you put people in a group.
Louise Kovacs: Yes. And how that can expose them to feeling very vulnerable. And therefore you do have to give some thought to your own capacity to hold the space to make people feel safe in that group environment and understanding what are some of the key things and the dynamics that can involve in a group. So it's worth understanding some of that.
Louise Kovacs: You can't assume because you're good experienced individual coach. that you'll be able to hold a group because it is very different. How do you manage the dynamic, not only between you and the individual, which is what you're used to doing in an individual coaching session, but how do you handle the dynamic between you and the group and between the individual people in the group with each other?
Ellie Scarf: So, so https: otter. ai
Ellie Scarf: That we don't have to manage when we're working in a one on one capacity. So, so there is some [00:12:00] development and awareness that we need to, to build. How would you recommend people develop that awareness? I mean, my, my experience that I think what made me feel comfortable with group coaching was probably just a lot of facilitation of group.
Ellie Scarf: Training and starting to understand what dynamics look like in a, in a group space. But what else could people do?
Louise Kovacs: Oh, you could do some reading about group dynamics, or you could go on any of the number of courses that talk about group dynamics. So you get to understand it depending on what perspectives you want to draw on.
Louise Kovacs: There's lots in the psychodynamic space that people talk about group dynamics. But there is also just general facilitation skills and given the sort of work you're likely to be doing, you're not asking people, although you might be if you had a really mature group, to go particularly doing deep psychological work in the group.
Louise Kovacs: That's when you're more likely to get dynamics playing out. It could easily happen if you've got [00:13:00] peers in a room who are somewhat competitive and there may be some sort of rupture in that group. And how do you process that? Do you pretend it never happened? Or do you use that as a learning experience for people in the group to say, well, let's see, you know, we had a bit of a rupture in our group last time.
Louise Kovacs: How do we go about repairing that? So there's quite a lot you could do to learn about group dynamics, what happens when there's a rupture in the group. How do you process it as a group? That's actually quite a different skill.
Ellie Scarf: Is that something someone would bring to supervision as well? Yeah.
Louise Kovacs: So they would definitely bring it to supervision.
Louise Kovacs: I mean, I've got, as you know, a supervision group, and I will often bring not necessarily the content of my supervision group, but I will bring some of the dynamics that are playing out as well. In the group to my supervisor, just to say, what am I going to do here in terms of, I'm just thinking how meta
Ellie Scarf: meta that is.
Ellie Scarf: So a coach running a group program brings the content [00:14:00] of their group program to supervision in your supervision group, which you then bring to your coach,
Louise Kovacs: my supervisor. Yeah, that's right. Yeah. So,
Ellie Scarf: yeah, so, so I think, I think the message is group coaching is definitely an accessible offer for coaches, but there is development that, that you should do in terms of just making sure you're educated about how to handle, how to handle dynamics in a group because, you know, Like Louise said, often, often it won't come up and everyone will be there to share really, really frankly and transparently.
Ellie Scarf: But you can't ignore the fact that people bring them their whole selves into a group and they also bring the dynamics that they already have into the group and that can cause
Louise Kovacs: yeah,
Ellie Scarf: some tensions and, and the most important thing we want to do is not make anything worse.
Louise Kovacs: Yes. That's right. Yeah. And being just aware of it and knowing that.
Louise Kovacs: If something happens, it's okay because you can all learn from it and not to panic. So I think one of the things that I think with group and team coaching is you have to be pretty able to handle [00:15:00] anything that's going to come up and stay calm. Because if you get dragged into the dynamic, then you are not able to manage it.
Louise Kovacs: As well, it's also a learning for everyone to say, look, I even I got dragged into that. So, yeah, but again, it does require an ability to stay pretty calm when things start getting a bit hairy, which we'll talk about a bit more in coaching where that can definitely happen.
Ellie Scarf: Yeah. Well, we might, we might talk about that because I think one of the.
Ellie Scarf: The similarities with team and group coaching is the fact that we have people who are coming together who, who may or may not have a preexisting relationship, but in a team coaching environment, we're much more likely for that to be the case. Now, team coaching is. Very much you know, on the minds of a lot of coaches at the moment, there's a lot of new team coaching courses out there.
Ellie Scarf: I think that there are new team coaching sort of guidelines from the ICF now that, that people are being very mindful of How [00:16:00] do we, how do we differentiate what is actually a team for the purpose of team coaching? So we've talked about the two criteria.
Louise Kovacs: Yeah.
Ellie Scarf: Is there anything else that you would keep in mind when, when you're deciding is this a group or is this a team?
Louise Kovacs: I think the main things are those two things. And then thinking about, do they have varied Capabilities and skills and talents that they're bringing that mean that they absolutely have to work together. So there is something they're not all doing exactly the same job. There could still be a team that would be less likely.
Louise Kovacs: Normally, if you think of a classic leadership team, they absolutely are a team because they've got a shared goal. There's probably a senior leader in there with that team. They may not have sat down and articulated the purpose. That's their purpose as a team, which we'll come to, because that's often the first step in any team coaching model.
Louise Kovacs: But they really do have to have that real shared, you know, passion or drive to achieve something together. [00:17:00] And you're right, they do bring, unlike group coaching, an existing dynamic. And often what you might be being brought into is to try and help, yeah, resolve, yeah, resolve. Yeah. Dysfunction or improve what's already a great team and make it even better.
Louise Kovacs: So, yeah that
Ellie Scarf: is, it's, it's interesting work and, and actually often the first thing I've experienced when brought in to do, you know, leadership teamwork particularly is that there is no definition around purpose and that we have to do that. And one of the. The questions that I've grappled with a lot is whether an engagement is team coaching or whether it's team development.
Ellie Scarf: And the way I think about it is that team development is often the work we do when we introduce a psychometric, we might use more of a workshop style approach where we're actually bringing in content or introducing a process that we want to work through to get to a predetermined outcome. [00:18:00] And then the coaching is the piece that takes place when we.
Ellie Scarf: Allow that team to take those things and then set their own path and to work through that. But how is that how you would differentiate between team development versus team coaching? Do we need to differentiate it?
Louise Kovacs: I think it's useful to differentiate because often team development is focused very specifically on the dynamics in the team.
Louise Kovacs: Often people will say this team isn't working as well as it could. Yeah, let's do some kind of team Intervention. Yes. And so perhaps it's a day or a day and a half where yes We use some sort of psychometric and the aim is by the end of it that they've got a greater understanding of each other and the team dynamics are brought to the surface and worked through.
Louise Kovacs: And at the end of it, the team is able to function better. That's a very specific one off type intervention, which is team development. And it's also, you might think about it in that sort of, you know, the stages of teams. Where are they? [00:19:00] Is this a new team? And so, you know, they're in the norming and storming stage.
Louise Kovacs: So what would you do there might be different to a team that's been together a long time. So generally, I think team interventions should be. It should be articulated as a team development because it's a one off, likely to be a one off intervention. It might include multiple interventions over a period of time, but it's still team development because you're not working with them as they're working on their work.
Louise Kovacs: So for me, that's the big differentiator. So we've done a specific intervention, usually in a very structured format, because we're going to follow a format that we've designed for the team development day or two days. Whereas for team coaching, I'm just going to walk in the room and see what happens.
Ellie Scarf: Yes.
Ellie Scarf: Yeah. Obviously with all our perspectives and, and toolkits, but, but really the, the, the agenda and the, the drive comes from the team. And
Louise Kovacs: I might still absolutely [00:20:00] start with what is the purpose of this team? And the first coaching session that I do with them might be to help them evolve that in order that we know what we're working towards as a team.
Louise Kovacs: So we know then we can discuss as a team, all those other elements, but it's. all coming from them and it's a lot less structured. I would probably have some sort of team coaching model in mind in order to make sure that I'm covering things. But when I'm in the room, often you're coaching people as they're having conversations and I might step in and say it's interesting, you know, in our last session, we observed a particular dynamic and I'm just observing that playing out now.
Louise Kovacs: So let's stop and just, I might call a timeout.
Ellie Scarf: Yeah. And
Louise Kovacs: just say, what is happening? I've noticed that, you know, we talked about how you often interrupt or talk over X person. And I just observed that three times in a row.
Ellie Scarf: Yeah. And we might do that to a degree in [00:21:00] team development, but not in the same way because we don't have that longitudinal you know, view of things.
Ellie Scarf: We aren't necessarily, like you said, involved in their day to day, how they go about doing what they're there to do together.
Louise Kovacs: So we might, you know, in a team coaching environment, we might just be sitting in as a coach in their leadership meeting on the basis that I'm going to intervene. Yes. When I feared it's necessary.
Louise Kovacs: So I might either be driving something a bit more process orientated, i. e. we're here to talk about purpose today, which would be more driven from me. But if I'm in a true team coaching environment, I'm sitting in on what they're doing just as a normal course of their leadership team meeting or their team meetings with a specific framework in mind to say what's going on in terms of the dynamics in this team.
Louise Kovacs: Am I seeing that some people are not speaking up or some people aren't? [00:22:00] Is it clear that this team has lost sight of their purpose and we need to revisit it? Or is there a particular gap in this team in terms of knowledge about what each other Does or tacit knowledge of they integrated someone new into the team.
Louise Kovacs: So you're looking at it much more from a dynamic perspective. It's like, what's happening now in the minute. Yes. Versus I've got a planned program that I'm running, which is, is more of the team development.
Ellie Scarf: Yeah. And sometimes with those leadership teams, they're so deeply entrenched in, in the doing things the way that they've always done them, that it's very hard for them to have perspective.
Ellie Scarf: Yes, exactly. So, so that's something we bring, gosh, I think we could probably dive into the practice of team coaching, but that's not, that's not what we're here to talk to. So. In terms of, you know, how we sell and how we deliver team and group coaching, what are some of the different models that, that you've come across in terms of how we might deliver group or team coaching
Louise Kovacs: in terms of the actual coaching models or [00:23:00] in terms of how am I more, more
Ellie Scarf: in terms of, yeah, how we might structure it as an intervention.
Louise Kovacs: Right. I think the first thing I always do is work out, is it a team or group? Yeah. First, first tick, okay, it's team. Let's talk about team coaching. One, and then it's really about understanding what the purpose of the coaching would be. So not the team's purpose, but you know, why are we there? Yeah, what does the organization have as a priority and what do all the various stakeholders need?
Louise Kovacs: So I would definitely start there and then say, okay, well, let's think about it. Let's offer them a year program. once a month coaching. So once a month, we get everyone together. Now that could either be a specific team coaching session for a couple of hours, or it could be a coach attending their regular leadership meetings.
Louise Kovacs: Yeah. Anyway, and coming in as the coach, I would [00:24:00] always do something first with the group around purpose. And so you'd have something So almost like a
Ellie Scarf: team development piece up front where you feel just a short
Louise Kovacs: version of that, even if it's just to talk about like a longer coaching. Yes. A longer coaching session.
Louise Kovacs: And I think it's worth talking to all the members of the team. In advance.
Ellie Scarf: Yes. Just
Louise Kovacs: to see what everyone's perspective on the team is.
Ellie Scarf: Yeah. So you would need to build that in. If you were thinking about a model. And in fact, often doing some stakeholder feedback gathering. Exactly. Is a very important part of a team coaching.
Ellie Scarf: So
Louise Kovacs: let's say, let's say it's a year program. With Upfront, you're going to interview each team member. You're also going to talk to some of the key stakeholders of that team. And then, from there, you will construct probably what you're going to do in that first. meeting, which might be a half day. Yeah.
Louise Kovacs: Let's get them together for a half day. Talk about team purpose or whatever it is that you think [00:25:00] is going to be really important and set them up for success in the coaching. Because I think one of the things which is really important is does the team have the capacity for team coaching, i. e. are they able to reflect together or do you need to build to that in which case, perhaps you'll do more structured team development intervention first, which is followed up with some team coaching.
Louise Kovacs: Once you've got the dynamic or once there's a team purpose clearly agreed, or once some of the other things which need to be reviewed are dealt with. So that could be another model. Let's say I've done a bit of thinking about this team. I've spoken to a few people. I don't feel that they've got the team dynamic or the reflective capacity to work together.
Louise Kovacs: In a coaching mode, which is going to be very unstructured, and therefore I'm going to do team development.
Ellie Scarf: Yeah.
Louise Kovacs: And I also wonder just to throw in a different perspective here is, whether or not to bring in an [00:26:00] adult developmental theory perspective, which I often would just would is to say, if you have a hypothesis that the team would score in the conventional, I'm maybe talking about things people don't know about in a conventional mindset, they may be less able to take on a very loose,
Ellie Scarf: Yes.
Louise Kovacs: Coaching. Let's all get together and talk about things together.
Ellie Scarf: Because that's one of the things that can happen in team coaching, which can be tricky, is that we get the group in the room and there's a real discomfort, firstly, with not really understanding why they're there. Which is obviously work we can do beforehand and we can ensure has happened beforehand, but, but also just that real discomfort with the lack of structure.
Louise Kovacs: Yes, or the lack of content. Yes. Yeah, so I want you to give me some content here and our answer is, well, the content is going to come from you. We're going to work with the things that you [00:27:00] bring to the group. And there can be a real discomfort with that. The expectation that you as an external person is there.
Louise Kovacs: To provide content and frameworks and structure. It's not to say that you wouldn't do that in a team coaching set up, but it's much less likely. And if you're a purist team coach, you wouldn't bring that. You might bring a few frameworks from time to time, but you would very much be working with the team.
Louise Kovacs: So I think you have to understand what the team state is first before you make that call.
Ellie Scarf: Yeah. And, and, and I think from, from a coach perspective, when we're trying to sort of put, build a contract or a proposal around this, it does mean that we need to be really clear and transparent about, you know, understanding where the teams are and getting clear about the expectations that actually some people may find it quite challenging.
Ellie Scarf: There may be some negative feedback, particularly in the early days that we need to. You know, every, all the stakeholders need to be willing to [00:28:00] sit with.
Louise Kovacs: Yes.
Ellie Scarf: And so if, if the person engaging you is going to freak out you know, you need to just be careful that, that they know that that is part of the process.
Ellie Scarf: Yeah.
Louise Kovacs: That is learning in itself that you can work with, but I think you do need to have them when you're building a proposal, some form of stage in the process where you're doing a diagnosis mode. Yes. So, and you make that very clear that there is that you charge for it because often you don't charge for it.
Louise Kovacs: You just propose the coaching and then you don't have the budget to actually do the diagnosis work that you need to do in order to make sure that what you're proposing works for that. Yeah. And,
Ellie Scarf: and I've definitely done that. Like I've, I've gone in all guns blazing with team coaching and the team has, they've Has caught up, but, you know, if I had my time again, I'm not sure that I would have said they were ready for it at that point.
Ellie Scarf: And so, you know, I've learned that.
Louise Kovacs: And it might not be long. It might be, you [00:29:00] just need to a couple of really structured sessions with them before you can then move to that more. In the moment, more emergent, in more emergent process. So they also need to trust you. I mean, it's very hard for them to say, well, this person's just going to walk in and call me out on my behavior.
Louise Kovacs: Yeah. That doesn't feel very safe either. So how do you build the relationships? Yeah. Sometimes it's helpful to have two people because one person can be working with the team and the other coach can be observing. So that's another thing, another model that you could think about. I thought
Ellie Scarf: you were going to say one good cop, one bad cop.
Louise Kovacs: Well, that's also possible. That's a different model. I think when we used to work together, I was definitely the bad cop. There were days when I got quite frustrated with some of our
Ellie Scarf: groups. But that was, we were in house coaches at that point. That's right, at that point, yeah. So, so that's, that's Team coaching with group coaching.
Ellie Scarf: I mean, the most common model for group coaching is where there has been a development program and then there is group coaching off the back of [00:30:00] it. Are there any other models where you would have group coaching as an intervention in itself? I think if
Louise Kovacs: you had a particular cohort, even without any kind of program content, yeah.
Louise Kovacs: So for example, like a new partners, new partners, new partners in some kind of professional services firm or high potential program or a new team, a new department that's been set up. They don't have to work together, but they're all facing similar challenges or or a work group or a work group potentially.
Louise Kovacs: So they're not dependent on each other, but they all have to. They have to work on a project on a project together.
Ellie Scarf: I mean, that could be so, and, and with a group, if you went in with a group program, you could have a learning journey throughout the group coaching where you, I have, I have. Deliver where you go and do maybe 30 minutes to 60 minutes of, of content.
Ellie Scarf: Yeah. And then your coaching session is, is off the back of that, where people get to work [00:31:00] through. That's right. Through the content and the application in a group.
Louise Kovacs: Yes, that's right. That's a good application of it because you know, they've got content then that they can talk about, that they can try and apply.
Louise Kovacs: So a bit like the program we did where we had the sales managers doing their Leaders coach. You could do something similar, but you'd break it up over six months. It's six month program. Every session is 30 minutes content followed by an hour coaching to work out or two hours coaching, how they're going to apply it.
Louise Kovacs: And
Ellie Scarf: I think the appetite for that sort of a model is a lot higher now than it used to, because we're often working in a virtual environment where the capacity for long periods of zoom is, Is a little bit reduced. And I think, I think there is an overall view that they don't want to, that there's not such an interest in the long multi day development programs anymore.
Ellie Scarf: No, that they used to be.
Louise Kovacs: No. And it's hard to get people coming back for long [00:32:00] periods. So if you try and sell a leadership program where they come together for a day, every quarter, it seems to be very hard to sell. Yeah. In my experience, whereas something which is two hours. Yeah, for six months, for six months, once a month I think you can, that's, that's more likely to be something that people have an appetite for, but not three day programs.
Louise Kovacs: I think. Do you remember the glory days of three day programs
Ellie Scarf: off site
Louise Kovacs: with dinners and a bit more of that now
Ellie Scarf: coming back, but
Louise Kovacs: it's not. Quite the same. It's not. I think people might invest in that for very senior groups. Yes. So they want to bring, you know, their next high potential, but for the next sort of C level, C suite together.
Louise Kovacs: Yeah. Those kind of.
Ellie Scarf: Yeah,
Louise Kovacs: programs are still some companies are investing in, but there's also a lot of people who are working remotely and teams have changed. So I think the other thing to think about here is when we used to think about teams, they used to be largely all in the same place. [00:33:00] Yes. Well, that's not the case anymore.
Louise Kovacs: No, it's very rare actually for you to have a leadership team that's all in the same place. Yes. A lot more teams are spread globally for various reasons. And so actually have to really think carefully about how you do either a group or team intervention that makes it affordable. Maybe you bring them together once in person.
Louise Kovacs: I can't, I think a lot of the team coaching is much more effective in person. It's much harder in a Zoom or Teams environment to do really good interventions. It can be done. I personally don't like it, but I know people have a team coaching.
Ellie Scarf: I think I've mostly done it virtually, but I think it does, it does help.
Ellie Scarf: And you don't always have this choice, but it does help if you get to spend a bit of time together in person, maybe when you're doing that workshop component or the, the purpose definition, because then you get to eyeball the people,
Louise Kovacs: the individual dynamics. You can't see. [00:34:00] You can't see the dynamics in, as well.
Louise Kovacs: No. Because there is an automatic break for people interrupting when they're virtual. So if in plasm, this dynamic is you speak and I talk over you all the time. Yes. That wouldn't happen on Zoom. No, because you can't have two audio tracks. So there is an automatic. break on, I have to wait for you to finish.
Louise Kovacs: Yeah. I mean, you can try and interrupt, but if, if I'm, if the pattern is so well established that if you see me beginning to speak, you stop, that might still happen, but it's a lot less obvious. So I think you don't necessarily get the true dynamic of the team.
Ellie Scarf: Yeah. But then if the team, this is playing devil's advocate, if the team is always remote, then that is virtual, then what you are getting is a very good,
Louise Kovacs: yes, that's true too.
Louise Kovacs: Yeah. Then you have to learn how to, how do you work with that environment?
Ellie Scarf: Yeah. And generally, you know, like everything, it's a, it's a mix. It's a [00:35:00] mix. It's a hybrid. So to get to very practical questions, one thing I've been asked is how would you charge for a group or a team program? You know, Let's say compared to how you would charge for a one on one program.
Louise Kovacs: Well, you can't charge, say there's five people in there for I'll charge you five times. That's a shame. Much, but you could try. Yeah. And generally there are longer sessions, aren't they? So you're charging, let's say 700 Australian dollars for an individual coaching session, which is probably, Average.
Louise Kovacs: Pretty standard, yeah. Pretty standard. Would I charge for then, but that's an hour, and let's say I've got a group coaching program, five people for two hours. Yeah. I'd probably charge something like three thousand for that.
Ellie Scarf: Yeah, I think anywhere sort of between. Three, three and a half. Two and a half.
Ellie Scarf: Two and a half. To three and a half. But that's a, yeah, a ballpark. So we're sort of talking about, 2. 5 X, what an [00:36:00] individual session would be. Now, this is a very much an approximation and it really depends on the context, but I wanted to give a bit of a sense of how to think about it, because it's not the case that we would times it by the number of people, but equally it's not the case that we would just, you know, translate it to a rate that, you know, Is the same.
Ellie Scarf: So you definitely do, because there's a lot more there's more preparation involved in a group, in a team program. There is more complexity that you're managing and it's typically with a higher level of, of individual in an organization. So, you know, The budget is an interesting thing for organizations.
Ellie Scarf: I think team coaching is budgeted fairly highly, whereas group coaching is seen as a budget, a cheaper intervention.
Louise Kovacs: That's right. So I think if it was team coaching with a senior leadership team and you're going every month for a couple of hours or longer, you'd want to think about that being, even if it's an hour to two hours, you're talking about a half day.
Louise Kovacs: Yes. By the time you've done your prep. Yeah. And got [00:37:00] everything together. So you have to think about, what am I prepared to charge for a half day? And is that the same as your half day facilitation rate? It'd
Ellie Scarf: be pretty comparable. Yes,
Louise Kovacs: it would be. Yeah. So you'd want to think foreground. Yeah. Yeah.
Ellie Scarf: Yes. But, you know, just bear in mind that for everyone, this is going to be different depending on your clients, your level of experience.
Ellie Scarf: So we're just sort of talking. Ballparks
Louise Kovacs: here,
Ellie Scarf: but I thought, and remember, we're talking optimistically,
Louise Kovacs: I would love to get for every team coaching that you do.
Ellie Scarf: Yeah, yeah, absolutely. So yeah, I think, is there anything else that, you know, think people would be interested in from a practical perspective that we should cover off?
Louise Kovacs: I do think one of the key things is to think about not just the time that you're going to spend in the room or in the Zoom room with the team, but actually the prep that you're going to have to do to get the session ready and to do the post reflections and the follow up with stakeholders and make sure [00:38:00] that you're getting paid for that as well.
Louise Kovacs: And it doesn't take up, that can take up a lot of time. That is such a good point. Yeah. Yeah. So I would say you have to think about, yes, I've got two hours in the room and I'll pull that a half day with prep and maybe a little bit of follow up. But then you might think, actually, there's even a couple of extra hours that I might do, patching up with a senior stakeholder and saying, this is how it went and debriefing.
Louise Kovacs: Yeah. And taking it to supervision. Taking it to supervision and doing a bit of research for the next session or thinking about, oh, there was a group dynamic there I need to. Think about how I'm going to handle that next time. So I would make sure that you are covering some of that. You just absorb, of course, into your, into your general process, but I think really think about, and if you're designing content, make sure that you're thinking about how much time you need to do that and what materials you need.
Louise Kovacs: And yeah, so there's quite a lot [00:39:00] involved in those, particularly the group. Sorry, the group ones where you're providing content and the team interventions, which are team development and there's likely to be more content.
Ellie Scarf: Yes. Yeah, because probably the least in terms of active preparation is team coaching in a purist sense, but that's probably the most reflective.
Louise Kovacs: Yes.
Ellie Scarf: Whereas team development and group coaching will require more preparation and structure and understanding the flow a lot more. And that can take up a lot of time. And I would expect early in, you know, if you haven't done it many times that you will spend. A lot of time on, on that piece of the puzzle and it will get quicker and quicker.
Ellie Scarf: So, you know, it's worth investing that time in doing it well. And, and talk to people who've done it and talk to people who've not done it before, because you don't want to reinvent the wheel.
Louise Kovacs: No. I want some people do have a very standard program. You know, I know one coaching company that has the high performing team program.
Louise Kovacs: It's there are tweaks they make for [00:40:00] each. One, but it's basically the same process. It's a day and a half. We use these models. We use this content. We make a few adjustments, but so for them, there isn't a lot of extra prep time, except that they do a big diagnosis phase at the start. Yeah. But the content is fairly similar for each.
Louise Kovacs: Yeah. In that team development piece. That's very much a team development and there isn't any follow up team coaching, although they could offer that. They could offer that,
Ellie Scarf: yeah, as a separate.
Louise Kovacs: I have suggested it.
Ellie Scarf: Good. Good. Okay. Well, look, that has been so helpful, Louise, I want to say a massive thank you for coming and talking to us.
Ellie Scarf: Always my
Louise Kovacs: pleasure. I love talking to your group, as you know,
Ellie Scarf: yes. And so anyone who's listening to this, I, you know, I can only suggest contact Louise. If you are interested in supervision, keep your eye out, don't follow her on LinkedIn because she will, when her book is published, I'm sure put it up there.
Louise Kovacs: Oh yes. There'll be some more active Yes. Profile [00:41:00] raising. Yes. Conducted at that point, but it's going to be submitted to the publishers next month in August and we will get a date then when it's going to be released. So we'll let everyone know. And I
Ellie Scarf: have just seen a sneak peek of the chapter on team and, and group coaching and, and you definitely want to read it when it comes out.
Ellie Scarf: So thank you so much. And I'll see you next week, everybody. Bye.
Bye.
Thanks for listening to this episode of the business of executive coaching. If you found it helpful, please share it with a colleague or friend on LinkedIn. And don't forget to tag me so I can say thanks. I would be tremendously grateful also if you would leave a review on Apple podcasts. More reviews means more people can find us.
This episode was brought to you by the Impact Coach Collective, where executive coaches grow their businesses in a community of peers with business education, mentoring, deal clinics, and more. If you'd [00:42:00] like to contact me or work with me further, all my free resources, courses, and more info on the Impact Coach Collective can be found at elliescarf.com. Have a brilliant week, and I look forward to talking to you again soon.
