Learning Leadership Through Collective Inquiry
In today’s VUCA* world, organizations face more and more complex challenges, and leaders regularly face challenges for which there is no obvious answer. Until now, experienced leaders have been rewarded for having the answers – and not having the answer has been seen as a deficit. As well, leaders often have few places where they can think out loud without needing to appear certain.
What if there was another way to do this without knowing the answers?
Collaborative Coaching Lab
The Collaborative Coaching Lab is an offering that provides a structured space to bring challenges to trusted peers, slow down their thinking, examine assumptions, and discover perspectives they may not have reached on their own.
Rather than receiving expert advice, participants explore the situation from multiple perspectives and identify new possibilities for action. Learning happens on multiple levels: presenters gain new ideas, participants gain knowledge about the content of the case, and also learn from the approach and questions that their peers ask.
In the process, participants strengthen skills essential to leadership: deep listening, inquiry, reframing, systems thinking, and the ability to stay with complexity without rushing to solutions.
* VUCA = volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous
University-based format
Participants include a mixed group of graduate students and senior leaders from non-profit organizations, with the option of the students also presenting cases from their own work.
Delivery options
The Collaborative Coaching Lab can be adapted to different settings and group sizes, and can be set up as a single session or multi-session series.
A full lab with multiple case presenters typically runs 3–3.5 hours. The session moves between plenary and small-group work: case presenters introduce their challenges briefly to the full group, participants work in small consultation groups for approximately 60–90 minutes, and the group reconvenes to hear reflections and learning from each presenter. When time allows, participants return to their small groups for a final debrief.
- 1 credit course – 15 contact hours
A course might entail 2-3 labs over 6-9 weeks, with presenters returning for the 2nd and 3rd sessions, to describe the progress that they’ve made so far and to continue the consultation. To earn course credit, students can be assigned readings and related written assignments.
2. A Continuing Education (CE) workshop or short series for professionals eligible for CE credit under the university’s approved offerings.
The lab can be presented as a one-off workshop or as a series, depending on the CE requirements of the program.
3. Professional Education, as a non-credit program for practitioners, leaders, alumni, or other working professionals.
The lab can be presented as a one-off workshop or a series, depending on the number of case presenters, and the overall design of the lab.
Testimonial:
“One of my favorite programs that Abby conceived of was the Collaborative Coaching Lab. The thing I loved about it was because Abby is always about learning. And this had learning at these different levels. It had learning for the client, because at the end, the client would stand and say, “Well, here’s what I got out of this.” And almost universally, the client got something valuable out of it.
And then the tables would report, “What did we find?” And then we would say, like, “Well, I found out that my approach is completely different from Scott’s approach. And Scott’s approach is very different.”
All of a sudden, we see these perspectives of how to do things. So the learning was buzzing around this room and the benefit coming out of it for the clients, which was great, but also for us, as well. I thought the design was magnificent.”
