At the Hudson Institute of Coaching’s July 16^th panel on “The Power of Group Coaching,” experts from Google, Accenture, McKinsey, El Camino Group, and Hudson shared their insights about group coaching, including practical steps companies can take as they expand development opportunities to new team members. Click here to register to view the recording.

What is Group Coaching?

“It’s a really hard time to be a people manager,” said Kara Gabay, Coach Lead at Google, pointing to quiet quitting, return to office, reorganizations, and layoffs among the many challenges managers face. Especially now, managers and their teams need support so that they can thrive in the face of these problems. 

Group coaching, explained Hudson CEO Michael Hudson, is a “modality where a coach will work with a group of people to help individuals achieve their individual goals.” Like one-on-one coaching, group coaching helps participants build capacity and leadership skills. But with the increase in isolation, stress, and loneliness in recent years, group coaching can stem the tide of disengagement by building relationships based on trust and shared experiences at scale across an organization. 

Caroline Campbell, Talent Strategist, Leadership Development Coach and Facilitator at Accenture, sees group coaching as a path to affordably scale coaching “to junior and emerging people leaders.” Eileen Coseky Fracchia, Founder and CEO of El Camino Group, framed group coaching as an “investment” in reaching “a broader audience,” from mid-level to senior managers, instead of reserving coaching only for executives. 

The Five Keys to Group Coaching 

Eileen, who formerly led development at organizations including Wells Fargo and The Marcus Buckingham Company, laid out five keys for group coaching. Other experts offered strategies based on their experience scaling programs at big companies.

Key #1: Establish Objectives and Expectations 

Group coaching facilitators should communicate program objectives, as well as boundaries, to participants. Eileen, from El Camino Group, recommends inviting people to be vulnerable and making “people feel safe and protected,” while also reminding them that coaching isn’t therapy. Similarly, Caroline from Accenture advises telling employees up front that their individual stories will remain confidential.  

Setting a focus enables group coaching conversations to stay grounded in common needs and aligned with program objectives. At McKinsey, shared Terry Hackett, an Associate Director, Coach, and Learning Design Leader, employees engage in intense work with many different clients. With that in mind, one of the company’s group coaching programs set its focus on participants’ personal operating model — for example, how people spend their time or where they get their energy — allowing team members to share solutions. 

Key #2: Embrace Flexibility 

Group coaching must strive to keep participants engaged as individual schedules, priorities, and contexts change — a challenge that compounds at scale. McKinsey’s evaluations on group coaching found that participants love the experience but lament a drop off in engagement by peers as time goes on. 

Caroline from Accenture recommends allowing people to select a cohort based on their schedule, rather than being assigned to one, while offering flexibility to attend another session if they can’t come to their normal one. Over the past 18 months, Accenture partnered with Hudson’s Wiser platform to bring group coaching to over 500 managers in groups of six — with an emphasis on pulling together people from different parts of the business.. The platform’s group matching and scheduling features factor availability into group formation, making it easier for participants to stay engaged.

Flexibility should extend beyond logistics to the content of coaching sessions. McKinsey has found it helpful to continuously ask: What would be most valuable for participants right now? Group coaching at Accenture pairs opportunities for employees to choose topics they want to focus on with shared modules everyone participates in. 

Anonymized tracking of participants’ progress toward goals and session engagement data (both available on the Wiser platform) can help coaching leaders assess if pivots are necessary without compromising participant privacy. 

Key #3: Peer Engagement and Community 

Group coaching conversations remind people they aren’t alone and serve as a springboard to seek solutions. As a participant in group coaching herself, Kara from Google was able to overcome a sense of isolation and recognize that “other people have the same challenges as me.” 

Companies should follow up on these shared challenges. At Google, employees facing the same issues are paired up, enabling them to connect, check in on one another, and promote accountability as they grow and improve.

Group coaching also fosters community. Terry from McKinsey recalled the story of one high potential employee who was struggling to find her footing and considering leaving the company. The colleague was an external hire from another firm, and was having trouble making connections, navigating the culture, and getting project assignments. 

Group coaching helped her connect to others, form relationships needed to participate in more projects, and stay rather than quit — showing how group coaching engenders a sense of inclusion and helps employees build networks that enable them to do their best work, all while investing in their development. Forming diverse groups with employees of different backgrounds and expertise can help participants forge relationships with people they might otherwise not encounter.

Key #4: Ongoing Support 

Group coaching should combine individual self-reflection with recurring, small group sessions. At McKinsey, group coaching unfolds in seven sessions spaced two weeks apart. Time between sessions offers a runway for employees to experiment and return to the next discussion with fresh insights. It also offers a chance for individual learning.

At Accenture, the Wiser platform sends group coaching participants learning material and “prompts for self-reflection,” explained Caroline, providing ongoing support between sessions.

Key #5: Leadership Involvement 

For group coaching to succeed, emphasized Eileen from El Camino Group, leaders must be “engaged” and “versed in what’s going to be happening.” At Google, Kara saw how leadership signaling that coaching is a priority generated buy-in: “If we could have the leadership team attend group coaching, see the value, and then talk about that value with their team — that’s where I’ve had the most success.” 

The Power of Group Coaching 

Group coaching is helping companies respond to urgent needs, from employee engagement and retention to equity and inclusion.

At Accenture, the rate at which group coaching participants leave the company is more than 10% lower than non-participants. Data from coaching sessions and participant inputs, aggregated by the Wiser platform, helps company leadership understand and address employees’ problems, said Caroline. 

Group coaching at McKinsey has generated strong bonds among members of affinity groups, like the McKinsey Black Network, who received group coaching as a development benefit and to foster a supportive community. It also provides an opportunity to “pressure test ideas” and “build trust,” according to Terry. 

At Google, group coaching helps employees “realize they’re not alone” and “hear how people have handled this challenge in the past,” said Kara. 

Group coaching can help your team unlock their potential, build capacity, problem solve, and establish connections. As a tool for scaling development, group coaching’s own potential only continues to grow.

“It is our perspective at Hudson that there’s so much more to do with group coaching. It’s something that is only really getting started out there,” said Michael Hudson. 

To learn more about implementing group coaching in your organization, reach out to wiser@hudsoninstitute.com or visit wisercoaching.com/group-coaching.