What’s the difference? Spotlight on team and group coaching, facilitation, workshops and mastermind groups

Team and group coaching

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Often used interchangeably, team and group coaching call on very different skills.

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Teams are a specific type of group, in which all members are working together towards a common goal. Through coaching, the team considers their ways of working together, relationships, and how to best move forward to achieve the team’s agreed upon goals. The coaching helps to accelerate the team’s performance and contributes to a healthy culture of collaboration. The team coach considers the team an entity and while the actions the team chooses to focus on might call on each individual’s strengths, they are all connected to the team’s goals.

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Group coaching brings together a group of individuals who are working towards their own goal and share an interest or challenge. Participants benefit from the other members’ wisdom and stories. The group coach ensures that each member receives value from the coaching by creating a safe and brave environment in which all group members can evolve. The coach also encourages peer coaching to allow members to get curious with each other. They each set individual goals and actions.

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Both team and group coaching usually take place over several months and in both, the coach becomes a thought partner for the group. The agenda is set by the group members who also co-create a set of norms that are reviewed at regular intervals.

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Facilitation

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The role of the facilitator is to create a space of dialogue between the team members. Through this dialogue, the team reaches a level of clarity that was lacking before in order to continue to move forward. A facilitator will often intervene when big decisions need to be made: Priorities and concerns are addressed, the conversation is led with sensitivity and skill and through a framework that allows the team to be constructive in order to generate the best outcomes. Facilitation often takes place over a short period of time - from a few hours to a day or two.

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Workshops and trainings

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The goal for workshops and training is to teach new skills or knowledge. The participants work through materials that have been chosen according to their needs. A trainer delivers content that is predetermined, with a set agenda unlike with coaching where the team or group sets the agenda for the session and for the engagement.

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Mastermind

In a mastermind, participants get together to share advice or ideas and problem solve. They are united by the topic (e.g. business growth, going through a life transition, working on a specific leadership skill). In most groups, each participant receives an equal amount of time to share the area they’d like to receive support on and the rest of the group shares their wisdom and resources to help the highlighted participant.

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Want to curate wonderful group coaching programs? Download our guide to the pre-registration call

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