In the workshop I facilitated today, and, increasingly in my workshops, I have been setting up peer-coaching opportunities. Reviewing the feedback from today’s session, it was clearly a favorite activity, so let me share a few ideas with you here.

First of all, peer coaching capitalizes on the idea of giving each participant a specific role. This means it helps ensure everyone is fully and actively engaged. So, if you have been noticing a lack of engagement in your workshops or meetings, this might be a great tool to try!

Secondly, peer coaching lands squarely in the sphere of transformational facilitation because the activity run itself and each participant becomes an expert and leader. Honestly, during peer-coaching time I sit quietly and listen while keeping my eye on my timer, that’s it.

Here’s how I ran today’s session:

Prior to the workshop, I prepared a handout with open-ended questions on it that included items like, “What is the issue? When is it happening? What is happening to you when the issue is taking place? What is happening for others?” etc. This list is helpful for people who may not feel comfortable generating open-ended questions on the fly on their own, although I found that many people did not need the paper and were easily able to ask appropriate open ended questions.

In setting up the coaching, I reminded people to turn off their “right reflex,” which is a term a colleague recently introduced me to. When our reflex is engaged, our tendency is to quickly generate solutions to a problem, rather than continue to listen openly. I introduced the concept to people and encouraged them to refrain from asking questions like, “Have you tried x?”, which is really a solution disguised as a question.

Next, I asked people to count off in such a way that groups of three were formed. This mixed up the tables where people had been sitting and put them into new groups for a fresh perspective. I encouraged each group to move their chairs and find a comfortable spot to work together.

Once everyone was settled, I asked them to decide on an A, B, and C person in their group. For the purposes of our coaching, we would start the first round with A presenting their issue as the “coached person;” B serving as the person asking questions (I did not use the word “coach” because I wanted to reinforce that their role was to ask questions); and C playing the role of observer, who would be tasked with providing feedback to the coach at the end of the session – were they able to keep asking open-ended questions or did their “right reflex” kick in?

I set a timer for 5 minutes and let them start. When time was up, the observer had two minutes to provide feedback. During this time, the coached person was also able to give feedback to the coach if they wanted to.

After we were done, roles switched. B became the person being coached, C became the question-asker, and A became the observer. At the end of this round we switched one more time, so that everyone had a chance to try out each role.

At first people felt that 5 minutes was too long, but by the third round, they had figured out how to fill the time and get deeper into the issues they were addressing.

As one participant noted, “I loved being able to speak on issues with others.”

If you decide to run this activity, here are few things to consider:

• Let them choose: I kept the prompt fairly open but still on-topic for the workshop. For today’s workshop on Positive Behavior Guidance and SEL it was simply, “What is a negative behavior in youth that you are seeing in your program that you would like to address?”
• Give them more time: After the first round participants said they wanted more time for the observer to give feedback, so I extended my original time from 1 minute to 2 minutes. Luckily, we had the extra minutes to spare because I really wanted to honor their depth of consideration and conversation.
• Keep an ear out: During the 5 minutes, the person being coached should be doing most of the talking, with the question-asker only minimally involved. The observer should not be saying anything, and all solutions should be coming from the person being coached. If you notice groups falling into other practices, redirect them so that everyone has a turn to really be heard out and clearly think about good questions to ask.

After the three rounds, I asked everyone to return to their original tables and talk about how it was for them to participate in the peer coaching. I also asked them how they could envision bringing this back to their staff or students. This again surfaced in their evaluations for the workshop, where several people commented that they wanted to try the peer coaching with the people they work with!

There are many other ways to do peer coaching. I would love to hear about how you use this process, any tools you love, or any other tips you have!