6 Coaching Questions to Boost Connection in Groups and Teams | by Jennifer Britton

Connection is a core focus and need for our clients—especially these days. In fact, at a time when national strategies are being developed to tackle loneliness, and remote and hybrid work is putting more distance between people than ever, connection is something we could all use more of.

And group and team coaching are important vehicles in facilitating connection both inside and outside of organizations. In fact, connection is at the very heart of this kind of coaching.

In a group and team coaching process, participants have to trust not only the coach but their fellow group and team members as well. Because without connection, we can't create the trust and safety needed to dive into the core layers of coaching—values, beliefs, mindsets, assumptions and perspectives.

Asking the right questions

Several years ago, I did a blog series for coaches titled "Six Coaching Questions to…." Many coaches found the questions valuable, in part because so much of coaching is about asking questions. These are questions I have posed to the teams and groups that I've coached over the last two decades.

I took a look back at the 6 Coaching Questions to Strengthen Connection in Groups and Teams blog post from more than a decade ago and wanted to update these for 2024. As I wrote then:

Creating deeper levels of connection amongst team and group members in a team or group coaching process is key to opening the doorway into greater levels of trust between members. Greater levels of trust often translate into greater levels of safety, vulnerability (or openness to each other), and performance.

Here are 6 Questions to Boost Team Connection

Updated for 2024, here are six powerful coaching questions you can ask groups or teams to help them become more aware of their connections:

1. What does each one of us bring that's unique to this team or group?
2. What strengths do we bring:
   • Individually?
   • Collectively?
   • Where do they overlap?
   • What gaps exist?
   • TIP: Consider providing the team or group with a strengths-based profile as pre-work, such as VIA Strengths or CliftonStrengths.
3. What is the common connection that binds each of us together?
4. What is important about our shared values, vision, mission, etc.?
5. What's the common theme to our experience?
6. What do we each need from each other to have the best conversations possible?

Wrap-up

In today's world of work and change, it's important to feel connected to others.

This is likely one of the reasons that team and group coaching continue to grow in popularity. Because knowing that we're not alone, even if we are on a different path of development, is a key part of the learning journey.

Enjoy the conversations that result from these questions!

Contributing Author:

Jennifer Britton, MES, CHRP, CPT, PCC, is the author of seven books and has influenced a generation of coaches in the realms of team and group coaching. You may have read her writing, including Effective Group Coaching (Wiley, 2010), the first book in the world to be published on the topic of group coaching; From One to Many: Best Practices for Team and Group Coaching; or her latest, Reconnecting Workspaces: Pathways to Thrive in the Virtual, Remote and Hybrid World (2021).

Since 2006, Jennifer's Group Coaching Essentials and Advanced Group and Team Coaching Practicum programs have become known as the must-do training in the area of group coaching. Focused on providing coaches with best practices in designing, marketing and implementing group coaching, these programs have helped thousands of coaches launch their own group and team coaching programs in a wide variety of settings (public, corporate, non-profit). Together both courses are approved for 18.75 ICF CCEUs. These are the first two of 10 course pathways leading to certificates in Group and Team Coaching.

Potentials Realized's ICF-CCE programs are geared for aspiring group and team coaches, especially those wanting to work toward the New Advanced Credential in Team Coaching (ACTC) with the ICF.

Also check out our neuroscience course for group and team coaches (NLE-A), Team Coaching Essentials  and ACTIVATE Your Team and Group Coaching Superpowers. Prefer podcasts? Listen in to the Remote Pathways podcast, which explores the many different pathways to remote work, business and leadership.

Learn more about Jennifer & see all their articles here >>