CircleShift Group Coaching Webinar: A Six-Stage Framework for Meaningful Group Coaching

Welcome and webinar objectives

Rafael: Welcome, everyone, and thank you for joining our webinar on group coaching. I’m Rafael, a trainer with iNLP Center, joining you from Paraná, Brazil. Today we have some exciting news: we’re introducing group coaching with CircleShift.

During this webinar, you’ll better understand group coaching, learn some tools you can use, and discover what’s new in our training. We have students and attendees joining from different parts of the world, and that international community is one of the things I enjoy about iNLP Center.

I want you to leave today with three things. First, a new distinction: What is the difference between group coaching and teaching, presenting, or leading a discussion? Second, a repeatable process you can use whenever you facilitate a group coaching session. That process creates consistency, even though every session is different because the people, their goals, and their needs are different. Third, you’ll learn a practical tool that you can begin using right away.

Group coaching is not group teaching

Rafael: What is the difference between teaching and coaching? We could also consider mentoring or counseling.

In teaching, the teacher or trainer provides content, explanations, instructions, and information that participants are expected to learn or use. Group coaching is different. You are not primarily giving solutions or instructions. You are helping participants—your clients or coachees—clarify their own personally meaningful outcomes, reflect, exchange perspectives, and choose their own next steps.

The question changes from “What should I tell the group?” or “What should I explain?” to “What will help them discover?”

If you’re already a coach, you know that in a coaching process the client owns the discovery. That remains true in group coaching.

Balancing individual ownership and group learning

Rafael: In group coaching, two things happen simultaneously. One is group learning: What does the group gain from the experience? How are participants interacting and learning from one another? The other is individual ownership: Each person has their own goals, solutions, and desired results.

This is also an important distinction between group coaching and team coaching. In team coaching, a team is working toward a collective result. Consider a company that wants the sales force, as a whole, to increase sales by 10 percent. One salesperson might increase sales by 15 percent, another by 5 percent, and the group might collectively reach the overall target. The team goal has been met.

Now imagine the company says it wants each salesperson to increase sales by 10 percent. In that case, the person who improved by 15 percent has met the goal, but the person who improved by 5 percent has not. Those are individual outcomes.

The same distinction appears in group coaching. A group may share a general topic while participants have different personal goals. For example, in a weight-related coaching group, one person might want to lose ten pounds, another five, while someone else may focus on maintaining their present weight. Each person is working toward their own goal within the shared theme.

The underlying idea is that individuals own their own goals, while the group provides an additional source of learning and support.

Introducing the six stages of CircleShift

Rafael: We’re introducing a new model in our Group Coaching Training called CircleShift. It’s a repeatable process you can use to guide a group coaching session. Students who know our Universal Coaching Model from Life Coach Training will recognize the benefit of having a structure that helps a session flow. CircleShift brings that kind of useful structure to group coaching.

The six stages are OPEN, OWN, EXCHANGE, SHIFT, COMMIT, and BRIDGE.

OPEN — Establish the coaching space

We begin by connecting with participants, building rapport, setting agreements and expectations, inviting participation, and clarifying the purpose or theme of the session.

A group needs a shared focus. If one person wants to earn more money, another wants to lose weight, and another wants to start a business, those goals may be too different for one group coaching experience. A common theme helps participants understand what brings them together.

OWN — Clarify each person’s outcome

Within that broader theme, each participant asks: “What is my personal goal? What do I want to take away from this session? What would make this useful to me?”

The coach helps participants clarify their desired outcomes, explore personal goals, notice patterns or beliefs, and maintain ownership of their learning.

EXCHANGE — Learn from other people’s experiences

This is the collaborative stage. Participants hear what other people are experiencing, share perspectives, notice similarities and differences, and potentially feel supported by a community of people facing related challenges.

There is value in working one-on-one with a coach. But in a group, you also benefit from the experience and perspectives of other people who are on a similar journey. The coach helps balance participation and creates room for multiple viewpoints.

SHIFT — Explore different perspectives and possibilities

Here we help clients explore assumptions, reframe situations, notice strengths and resources, and expand the options they can consider. Appropriate transformation tools, including NLP-informed exercises, can be used to support this exploration.

COMMIT — Choose the next step

Toward the end of the session, each participant chooses an action. The questions might be: “What will your next step be? When will you do it? How will you do it?”

The goal is a realistic, personally meaningful commitment. The coach helps participants consider feasibility, accountability, and the support they may need.

BRIDGE — Connect one session to the next

BRIDGE happens between sessions. Participants try an action, observe what happens, reflect on the experience, and bring that learning into the next group coaching conversation.

The overall progression is from insight to action, from action into real life, and from real-life feedback into new awareness.

The coach guides the process, not the answers

Rafael: When people decide to become coaches, they often say, “I want to help people change and overcome obstacles.” That’s a beautiful intention, but it can lead to a trap: starting to mentor or fix the client instead of coaching.

A coach is not the group’s fixer. The coach supports each person in finding possibilities and solutions in their own way and at their own pace.

The coach has three important responsibilities. First, hold the process by maintaining agreements, purpose, boundaries, and pacing so participants can benefit from the experience. Second, invite discovery by asking questions that deepen individual and shared awareness. Third, protect choice by letting participants decide what fits their circumstances, rather than prescribing a solution.

Interactive exercise: Advice or coaching?

Rafael: Let’s do an exercise. First, I’m curious: Have you coached groups before? You can tell us in the chat how much experience you have, or say that you haven’t coached a group yet.

Now imagine you’re coaching a group of eight people. One participant says, “I keep planning to speak up, but I never do.” Before you can respond, someone else says, “You just need to be more disciplined.”

What would you do as the group coach? Take a moment to consider your response. You can share it in the chat or think about it privately. It’s fine if you’re not sure yet.

Here are two options.

Option A — Direct: “Here are three tricks for speaking up. Everyone should try them this week.” You then provide three strategies for speaking up in meetings.

Option B — Coach: “Before jumping into solutions, what is happening for you in those moments?”

Which approach sounds more like coaching: A or B?

Attendees (chat): B.

Rafael: Yes. A directive response can be appropriate in teaching or mentoring. But in group coaching, we want clients to discover their own answers. Asking a question can open a more creative conversation and help people explore the situation for themselves.

Let’s zoom in on three CircleShift stages that are at the heart of this example.

OWN: “What tends to happen just before you stay quiet?”

EXCHANGE: “What do others notice about the stories we tell ourselves?”

SHIFT: “What changes if this is about safety, not discipline?”

These three questions are only an example. In a real group coaching session, the conversation would have more space for interaction and follow-up. The coach invites another perspective, and participants are free to accept, reject, or refine it.

When someone supplies an answer immediately, the exchange can stop there. When the coach invites exploration, people can notice assumptions and hear different experiences. Afterward, each person decides what the new perspective means for them and what they want to do next.

A six-question CircleShift takeaway

Rafael: You can think of CircleShift as six helpful questions. Even when doing self-coaching, you can adapt these questions.

• OPEN: What would make this session or conversation useful?
• OWN: What matters most to you?
• EXCHANGE: What are others noticing?
• SHIFT: What else might be possible?
• COMMIT: What step will you choose?
• BRIDGE: Where, when, and how will you apply it?

COMMIT and BRIDGE are especially important at the end of the process. In COMMIT, each participant chooses an action that is specific, feasible, and personally meaningful. BRIDGE is where they try that action in real life, notice what happens, and return to the next session with new information.

That is the cycle: insight, action, real-world feedback, and new awareness.

What’s included in the updated training

Rafael: We have offered Group Coaching Training for several years, and I’ve been facilitating that course. Now we’re launching an update based on CircleShift.

In the first module, we teach the foundations of coaching. That includes what coaching is, how group dynamics work, and the distinctions among group coaching, team coaching, mentoring, therapy, and teaching. The idea is to include the fundamentals students need within this program.

Then we have a module for each stage of CircleShift: OPEN, OWN, EXCHANGE, SHIFT, COMMIT, and BRIDGE. Finally, we cover the tools needed to design and deliver professional group coaching programs.

Students study the self-paced lessons on their own schedule. Some prefer to go slowly, reflect, and review material; others work more quickly toward a deadline. The live sessions provide discussion, practice with each CircleShift stage, and feedback from the trainer and fellow students.

The course also includes downloadable tools, such as templates, worksheets, and guides that students can use when coaching. Students ultimately demonstrate a full CircleShift session and receive trainer feedback.

Who is CircleShift designed for?

Rafael: This training is designed for several kinds of learners.

Aspiring coaches can learn group coaching from the ground up, even without previous life coach or NLP training.

One-on-one coaches may want to expand their services. Maybe their schedules are full, or they want to offer a lower-priced entry point to new clients. Others simply believe in the value of people learning together.

Leaders and facilitators can apply coaching principles when leading business conversations or brainstorming meetings.

Specialty practitioners, including those with expertise in NLP or another area, may use group coaching structures appropriately within their field.

Group coaching as a business offering

Rafael: Group coaching can also create new opportunities for a coach’s business. Consider a hypothetical example. If one individual client pays $150 per hour and attends four sessions, that would be $600 for the month.

If you instead coach a group of eight people, and each participant pays $65 for a session, four group sessions could bring in a little over $2,000 in gross revenue. These are examples, and the actual numbers depend on your own business and clients.

Group coaching can create a second offer at a lower entry price while letting participants benefit from a shared experience. I’ve also had students offer group coaching free as a way to introduce people to their one-on-one services. A regular group program may also help develop recurring revenue.

Audience Q&A: Ideal group size

Rafael: I see a question from Eva: “Depending on the topic, what is the ideal group size to ensure a healthy environment, especially if the number of volunteers is increasing?”

Overall, I tend to recommend five to ten participants. With fewer than five, you may lose some of the feeling of a group and the opportunity for support from multiple people. Above ten, facilitation and meaningful participation can become more challenging.

A group of up to fifteen can still be feasible, but I wouldn’t consider it ideal in many situations. Especially if sessions are an hour to an hour and a half, too many participants can reduce each person’s opportunity to share. My recommendation is generally not to go above ten.

There are also different group structures. Most group coaching programs have a beginning and an end, with the same participants going through a shared journey. In those programs, people don’t usually join halfway through.

Other formats are ongoing. In a mastermind-style group, for example, some participants may leave and others may join. That can work, but you need to manage the numbers and structure carefully so the group remains useful to the participants.

Closing

Rafael: Thank you, everyone, for joining the webinar. I hope you learned something useful about group coaching, and I hope to see you soon. Goodbye!