Form a Study Group

Do you have colleagues or friends who are also taking this self-paced program? Form a study group to support each other as you build these skills!

In addition to creating a Slack channel to collaborate, get help with homework, and ask questions, consider holding a meeting to brainstorm organizational changes and get extra help practicing the skills you’ve each learned.

After everyone has finished one course, schedule a one-hour meeting to check in on the skills covered in that course. Below, you can find a sample meeting agenda to use for each meeting.

We highly recommend you complete the courses in the following order (the skills build!):

  1. Mentoring, Coaching, and Sponsoring
  2. Dealing with Surprising Human Emotions
  3. Delivering Feedback
  4. Setting Expectations
  5. Building Resilience

Study Group Agenda

First 5 minutes: Welcome

  1. Welcome! Give folks a moment to get settled in.

  2. Pick one facilitator for this meeting (and rotate the facilitator each meeting!). The facilitator's job is to keep track of the time, and write down one short note per section (details below).

  3. Facilitator, share this ground rule reminder: "Lean heavily on coaching questions (rather than giving advice!) throughout this meeting."

15-20 minutes: Round robin

Starting with the facilitator, each person gets 2 minutes to share the following:

  • one "lightbulb" moment
  • one skill that might be a superpower for them
  • one skill they could use help/support strengthening

No comments or questions yet about what each person says! This is just sharing time.

Facilitator: keep count of the skills in each category!

15 minutes: Organizational support

Facilitator, identify the 1 or 2 skills that came up the most in the "what could we use help/support strengthening" list.

Chat as a group about what support structures could be implemented—or changes could be made—at the organizational level to support managers developing these skills.

Remember to use those coaching questions to go explore this topic before hopping into solutions-mode! Facilitator, feel free to pause folks and ask them to turn their statement into an open coaching question.

Near the end of the 15 minutes, identify a point person (or 2) to tackle the next steps/outcomes of this conversation. Facilitator, write these down and email the group a reminder afterwards!

15 minutes: Individual support

  1. Pair up folks as accountability buddies. There's no wrong way to pair up; you can support each other even if you're both wrestling with the same skills!

  2. Once you're in pairs, pick one skill that you mentioned wanting to develop further. Your buddy is here to hold you accountable for completing the course's homework, and to help you strengthen that skill.

  3. Spend the rest of these 15 minutes asking coaching questions to clarify the best ways to support one another, make a plan, and schedule your future check-ins! For example:

    • "What would be the most helpful: asynchronous check-ins, coaching, or practicing together?"
    • "What's in the way of you honing this skill?"
    • "How should we celebrate when we've each finished the homework?"

Last 5 minutes: Plan the next meeting

Come back together as a group. Pick a deadline for finishing the next course, and schedule the next one of these meetings. Facilitator, send the calendar invite!

Extra credit: pick the next meeting's facilitator now!