A Team Coaching Process for Complex Leadership Challenges

By Suzi Pomerantz and Bill Bergquist

Have you ever wanted to have in your toolbox a coaching methodology that would have high impact in the most complex and challenging of leadership scenarios? There is a wonderful integrative coaching tool for use when dealing with layered, nuanced complexity with multiple moving parts; in other words, business today!

The process we will discuss in this article is ideally suited for executives and executive teams, Boards, Venture Capitalists, any merger or acquisition, or multi-national/ global virtual organizations.  It’s been used successfully in non-profit situations as well as corporate, for-profit and public sector situations. This process was initially used in various symposia held by an organization [The International Consortium for Coaching in Organizations: ICCO] that no longer exists; however since we were both members of the Founding Board and Executive Committee we wanted to bring forward this coaching process that is part of the remaining legacy of ICCO.

The symposia created a wonderful format for learning, reflection and rich dialogue.  Symposium presenters as well as participants were identified as learners and as active players on a supportive and collaborative field of critical and constructive inquiry. Half the group worked with one of the presenting leaders, co-coaching him in a powerful model we will detail below. The other half either met without a leader, or with a second leader if there was more than one presenter from that organization’s senior leadership team, and they engaged collaboratively around action-plan, strategy, and consulting advice for solving the complex scenario presented. They provided recommendations to the case presenter based on the presentation, answers to their questions, and written material from the leader.

For the purposes of this article, we’ll be focusing on the co-coaching model that was used, which one of the early executive leaders to enjoy the results of that process dubbed “Dream Team Coaching”, since her experience with the impact of the format was as if she had her own Dream Team of coaches and champions in her corner. Following are the Roles, Format, and a few Case Examples to further explain the co-coaching process.