From GROW to GROUP: theoretical issues and a practical model for group coaching in organisations
Saul W. Brown and Anthony M. Grant
Despite considerable organisational development research and practice suggesting that interventions in organisations should also be targeted at the group level, most organisational coaching is dyadic (one-to-one) and few models of group coaching have been developed. In Part I of this paper we present an introductory overview of group coaching and compare it to other group-based interventions. We distinguish between the goal-focused nature of group coaching and the process-orientation of group facilitation, and posit that group coaching has important but under-used potential as a means of creating goal-focused change in organisational contexts. In Part II of this paper we address practice issues and we present a practical model of GROUP (Goal, Reality, Options, Understanding others, Perform) coaching that integrates the well-known GROW (Goal, Reality, Options, Way forward) coaching framework with Scharma's U process for group dialogue, double loop learning and other theoretically-grounded practices. From a practitioner's perspective, we draw on the extant literature, we compare group coaching to other team and group-based interventions. Although precisely distinguishing between different group-based change modalities is difficult, we argue that group coaching is a more goal directed process than group facilitation, and that group coaching has important but under-used potential as a means of creating change in organizational contexts.