Allard de Jong explores group supervision for team coaches. This issue: towards a model
Team coaches explicitly function in complex systems as opposed to linear one-on-one relationships and I’ve always believed that a group supervision setting better mimics some of the complexity, dynamics and processes that these coaches encounter on a daily basis (eg, connectedness and belonging, envy, admiration, idealisation, emulation, courage, safety, witnessing and being witnessed, encouragement).
Furthermore, I love the rich learning that groups provide, knowing that “in a supervision group, each member has the experience of being supervised, and of supervising as a member of the group, with the capacity of the supervisor to understand augmented by the capacities of all the members, who participate in both ways” (Thornton, 2016).
As a supervisor, I have developed a model of group supervision (see Figure 1 below) and road tested it with the supervision groups we run at Team Coaching Studio. One that would leverage the advantages of group supervision (Bernard & Goodyear, 2009) and minimise its limitations (Carroll, 2012). In the following, I outline this model in the form of a ‘scaffolding’ that now allows me to act coherently and congruently in my practice.
Figure 1: Allard de Jong’s group supervision model © Allard de Jong
- The underlying principles and frameworks
The 7-Eyed Model: this was developed by Peter Hawkins and Robin Shohet in 1985, who integrated the relational (which focuses on the relationships between client, coach and supervisor, and systemic (which focuses on the interplay between each relationship and their context within the wider system) aspects of supervision in a single theoretical model. - John Heron’s six category of intervention styles.
- The Three Core Functions of Supervision: normative (the supervisee as a professional), formative (the supervisee as a team coach) and restorative (the supervisee as a person) (Inskipp & Proctor, 1993).
- Co-created learning communities: West & Williams (2018) found what seem to be common relational characteristics of learning communities: (1) sense of belonging, (2) interdependence or reliance among the members, (3) trust among members, and (4) faith or trust in the shared purpose of the community.
- Holding an optimistic stance: Gestalt takes a realistic view of the present (we are doing the best we know how at any given moment) and an optimistic view of the possible (anything is possible), preferring to work in the development of the potential within an individual or system rather than correcting them.
- Applying the paradoxical theory of change: Arnold Beisser’s (1970) paradoxical theory of change suggests that when people allow themselves to be fully and consciously in touch with who they currently are, change and growth then emerge as the inevitable and natural outcome of such contact and genuine self knowledge.
- Trust: trust is the foundation of supporting growth and learning. It builds from the expression of interest by the supervisor that is experienced as interest by the supervisee. Building trust requires the minimising of hierarchical conditions as well as completion (eg, expectations met, cycles completed).
- Leaning into resistance: The ability to resist is as necessary as the ability to go along – not to resist. As a supervisor, I get interested in resistance. I move towards it, I welcome it, join with it. Rather than seeing resistance as a hindrance to dialogue in the supervision group, it can instead be viewed as a builder of trust, and as essential for intimacy. When supervisees discover they are able to disagree openly, object and push back, the ground is laid for a trusting relationship.
- Awareness! There are two main ways the group helps each supervisee build awareness: 1) we focus the supervisee on their own present awareness by asking awareness-raising questions across the 7 Eyes, and 2) we offer feedback on what we observe.
- Well developed / Less developed: The Gestalt International Study Center teaches the concepts of ‘well developed’ and ‘less developed’ as a way of talking about how supervisees tend to lean towards one end of a polarity and call it good, while calling the other end of the polarity bad. At times, a supervisee may use the well-developed because it is an automatic way of being. Overuse of any behaviour narrows choices and there may be a cost of using the same behaviour over and over again. I want to get the supervisee (and through him/her, his/her client) interested in what they might add.
The supervision session process and structure
Based on the above, the following is the provisional structure/agenda of the group supervision session:
1. Check in: It provides a chance for each group member to feel understood and valued while also understanding and valuing others and it makes the implicit field more explicit.
2. The ‘Big C’ contract: established once at the beginning of a new group (and revisited periodically if necessary), we run through an adapted version of Thornton’s (2016) contracting with groups checklist (purpose, programme structure, fees, desired behaviours, etc.)
3. The ‘Little C’ contract: how do we best use our time in today’s supervision session.
4. Supervision: a carefully structured and facilitated group dialogue that involves the lead supervisor as well as the group members, including time to help each supervisee make meaning and extract actionable items.
5. A collective review of the supervision group’s patterns of interaction.
6. Check out.
The ‘scaffolding’ is shown in Figure 2. This model has undergone several iterations while putting it into practice, with team coaches bringing a variety of presenting issues from across Alison Hodges’ wonderful map (see Figure 3) and will most certainly evolve as I continue to co-learn with my supervision groups.
Figure 2: The scaffolding © Allard de Jong
Figure 3: Mapping the territory of team coaching © Alison Hodges, reproduced with kind permission
References
- A Beisser, The Paradoxical Theory of Change, In Fagan, J and Shepherd, I L (Eds.), Gestalt Therapy Now, Harper & Row, 1970
- J M Bernard and R K Goodyear, Fundamentals of Clinical Supervision, Pearson, 2009
- M Carroll, Group Supervision: A Training for the Helping Professions (DVD), 2012
- A Hodge, Mapping the complex territory of team coaching and supervision, 2020, https://bit.ly/alison-hodge-map-team-coaching
- A Hodge, ‘Supervising Team Coaches’, in Bachkirova, T, Jackson, P, & Clutterbuck, D. (Eds.), Coaching and Mentoring Supervision (2nd Ed), 21, 254-265, 2021
- F Inskipp and B Proctor, Making the Most of Supervision Part I, Cascade, 1993
- B Proctor, Group Supervision: A Guide to Creative Practice, SAGE, 2008
- C Thornton, Group and Team Coaching: The Secret Life of Groups, Routledge, 2016
- R E West and G Williams, “I don’t think that word means what you think it means”: A proposed framework for defining learning communities, Educational Technology Research and Development, 2018
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- Allard de Jong is a director of the Team Coaching Studio
- www.teamcoachingstudio.com