



FOSTERING INDIVIDUAL
& COLLECTIVE CHANGE
Growing together
Collective coaching brings coaching to a systemic level, whether it is to make a team dynamics more fluid and efficient, to improve relations with stakeholders or to overcome relational crises.
​
With collective coaching the energy, strengths and frictions within a group are taken as levers to improve its dynamics. We intervene in the context of team and group development as well as at times of crisis. Our most frequent interventions are about disruption of the relation (lost of trust, conflict, agressiveness, ...), intercultural leadership, management or mediation, or foster creativity.
​
Co-development is a unique process where peers coach each other under the guidance of a professional coach.

Relational Intelligence with difficult clients
Success Story

Context
-
A group of luxury hotels decides to train its front line staff (front-desk, housekeeper, waiters, bartenders, concierge and phone reservation) to better handle difficult guests that may turn aggressive.
-
The HR department knows that classic trainings in difficult customer management wouldn't match the stakes.
Stakes & Goals
-
The first goal is to protect staff members by giving them the resources to manage unexpected behaviours from guests, including humiliation or assault.
-
The second goal is to bring new value to the relation, transforming the customer into a client.
​
Observed Results
The program started on a volunteer basis and spread to a large number of sessions. When a participant was asked about her motivation for enrolment in the program, she answered: "I have three colleagues who participated in this program already: for one of them, I must tell you very frankly, that I didn't see the difference. However with the other two, who could not stand difficult relations with customers and who even had clear tendencies to avoid potentially difficult clients, the transformation was complete. One of the two had accumulated a lot of stress. For her it was like a rebirth and I can see her now having fun and in good spirit in handling the most difficult clients. If such a change is possible in two days, it was a foregone conclusion that I would register. "​
​
Merged dynamics (details)
Step 1: Modeling
-
Through a series of interviews, we have identified different situations that have produced difficult relations (segmentation) and elicited successful and unsuccessful strategies expressed by staff members to handle these situations (models or parts of models)​
​
Step 2: Design based on system thinking
-
We have designed a program that enables the participants to step out of a double bind expressed as either suffering from being assaulted, or reacting strongly to the client's inappropriate behaviours with the risk of loosing the client, which in the long run could jeopardise their jobs. We have instead created a virtuous circle by focusing on a positive question: "what is the best service that a luxury hotel can bring to overstressed clients?" and its answer: "To ease their relationship with the staff and to lessen their potential agressiveness".
​​
-
For this program, we have created a unique mix of training in "mental aikido", profiling, cognitive psychology (stepping in the other person's shoes), communication tools, and value marketing.​
​
Step 3 : Facilitation at the crossroads of coaching and training
-
A combination between discovery of models, mental training, psycho-somatic experiences and technical practises.
​
-
The facilitation included specific sequences with a coach on challenging perceptions that could disable some participants from becoming successful in managing their relationship with clients​.
Intercultural Mediation
Success Story

Context
The most important mining site in Africa will open to operations in a few months. The business is a joint-venture between two major companies, one Australian, the other French, in partnership with the Senegalese Authorities.
Stakes & Goals
-
To prepare the transition from the construction phase to the operation phase
-
To solve some misunderstandings and tensions between the three cultural groups.
​
Merged dynamics
A program that included working at two levels: the Steering Committee, then top management (several dozen of people)
​
Step 1: Interviews of members of the Steering Committee
-
To understand differences in perception and expectancies, and identify key factors for an intercultural mediation
​
Step 2: Seminar with the Executive Committee
-
An original mix of training in intercultural management, workshop on operation guidelines, reciprocal bi-lingual communication and mediation (to reach a common working platform conveying the same messages and connotations in different languages and cultures).
​
Step 3: Seminar in large group with top management
-
A mix of training in intercultural management (understanding structures of the three cultures involved and the impact on daily professional relationships), collective coaching and mediation, and a production workshop on organisation and creating future priorities for the beginning of operations.
​
Observed Results
-
Tensions solved, better understanding of differences in culture, values and perceptions;
-
A new start in communications and a renewed ground for collective success;
-
Official thanks for the work accomplished by representatives of all three cultures.
Co-Development

What is co-development?
A group of peers work on a real business issue/questioning brought by one member. The dynamics is based on kindly confronting different perspectives and creating multiple options to tackle it. A coach or facilitator supervises the process. With co-development, each group member has the opportunity to improve their leadership skills, to grow their capability in understanding complex situations, and to expand their range of action.
​
Co-development mixes training, coaching, inter-vision and business meeting. It was created in Canada in 1985 by Adrien Payette and Claude Champagne.
​
How does co-development work?
Co-development teams gather 4 to 6 participants.
There are three roles in a co-development
-
The client (a participant) brings a real business life issue/questioning/situation for which he/she needs advice from the others.
-
The consultants (peers) help the client to clarify their understanding of the issue/questioning/situation then share new perspectives.
-
The facilitator or coach is in charge of the process and ensures fluidity and efficiency.
​
The process is structured in eight steps for one round. A round lasts usually 40-45 minutes.
​
How to choose your peers for co-development?
With your co-development team, you have the opportunity to share topics that you would not share otherwise in your usual work environment. Your peers with your co-development group may confront you kindly and firmly. Real trust and total confidentiality are key success factors for co-development to be fruitful and contribute to your leadership development. It is important to check that there is no direct business or hierarchical links between peers.
Modeling

Modeling highly successful people is a very powerful way to elicit key leverages to success and build programs that will help expand the success from specific people to a whole organisation. A main advantage of modeling people from within the organisation is that it makes it possible to bring to light the unique way developed by the company to be performant. Training, coaching and change programs engineered on this basis are therefore fully adjusted to the company.
How modeling works
If you ask successful people what they do when they succeed in a specific context, for instance how someone took the right decision at a time of crisis, they will often tell you that it was "obvious" or "that they sensed that it was the right way" or that "it is all about experience."
Modelling is about eliciting the actions successful people take in specific contexts and the "mental map" they use. It is then possible to transfer their successful mental strategies and behaviours from one context to another or from a person to another. Many of the change and empowerment programs that we design are based on modelling key successful people within the organisation. Because modelling is about the mental and emotional structure of the experience and rarely about the content of a situation, the modelling process often leads to surprising discoveries. It is a great way to get a thorough understanding of the "special sauce" used by highly effective people.
​
Specific benefits from modeling
-
More sustainable excellence, as people who are modelled demonstrate more excellence and value
-
Powerful knowledge management, as expertise may be easily transferred from masters to teams
-
Reinforcement of a shared professional culture and motivation, throughout the whole modelling process
-
A framework for engineering training programs, as key competencies and strategies have been elicited
-
Update of screening and hiring processes, as modelling often bring new understanding of key success factors for specific positions within the company.
​
​
Creativity

We stimulate the creative spirit within organisations and teams, because we know that creativity is first and foremost a state of mind, and only then the right techniques.
We engineer workshops, offer keynote lectures and train individuals and groups in creative processes and techniques. We offer training and consulting on creative problem solving.
We mix a wide range of approches, from the traditional ones to methods coming from the latest developments from neuro-sciences: brainstorming, analogical and metaphorical approaches, design thinking, cognitive strategies, immersive experiences, art based creative thinking ...
Ask us about our unique coaching recital!
Contact us
