Group and Team Coaching

Christine Thornton is an organisational consultant and supervisor, helping business leaders and coaches think through complex systemic and relationship dynamics, for better performance. Author of several books and papers, her most recent book, The art and science of working together (Routledge, 2019), develops her analysis of team coaching further. Christine’s career encompasses senior leadership, 30 years’ consulting and writing, and recognition of lifetime contributions to the coaching profession. www.thorntonconsulting.org.

‘Christine’s book has made an important contribution; she brings together three important root strands of this field and valuably integrates them: analytic groups, human systems and Action Learning... Christine also provides thoughtful guidance to practitioners about traps to be avoided and sage advice for how best to use tools and what tools are best suited to different presenting issues and situations. She shows us how being a group or team coach requires not only a thorough training to develop the discipline needed to practice the art and craft of group and team coaching, but also a lifetime’s personal development and reflective practice to develop the holding presence combined with the humility to step back and enable the team or group to do their own work.’Peter Hawkins, Professor, Henley Business School and Author of Leadership Team Coaching‘A very lucid, clear and pragmatic exposition of what groups are for, how they function, how they malfunction and how they can be worked with much more competently... Indispensable to leaders, managers and psychology professionals.’Gerhard Wilke, Ashridge Business School and Hon. Fellow I.A.G.P.‘As team coaching becomes more widely used, this book provides invaluable insights into the complexities and unconscious processes in groups which coaches need to understand. Christine Thornton shares theory in a very accessible way, and gives practical pointers to help coaches work at a deeper level and more effectively.’Gill Smith, Chair, Association for Coaching, UK‘She strikes a nice balance between what informs group coaching – the bedrock, if you will – and practical, real-world examples from her twenty-five years’ experience in the field. The Coaching profession needs a book like this.’Katherine Tulpa, Chair, Association for Coaching, Global‘Ms Thornton has written a sophisticated, cogent book targeting the burgeoning world of group and team coaching. She integrates group analytic and systems theories into the fundamental components of this new profession as well as provides functional tools for working with teams and groups… Thornton’s scholarly work establishes a benchmark text in the budding world of group and team coaching.’International Journal of Group Psychotherapy‘Breaking down complex systems and group analytic theory into understandable parts of a whole… Permeating Thornton’s approach to coaching is the science and psychodynamics of how we learn… A real celebration of group analysis.’Group Analysis‘The author says she "set out to write a book that would share some new understandings of group and team life in organisations", and "if the book encourages group and team coaches to question and reflect more on what they find in their work, it will have achieved its purpose". The author’s wealth of experience ensures that this is achieved.’The Coaching Psychologist‘I found Group and Team Coaching: The Secret Life of Groups refreshing in its honesty and willingness to confront the often unconscious "dark side" of group and organisational experience that so frequently interferes with task achievement… A recommended and refreshing work especially for social workers who manage teams, divisions and organisations.'Social Work with Groups

• Author’s foreword: what this book can do Foreword to the second edition Foreword to the first edition Acknowledgements to the third edition Acknowledgements to the first edition Part 1: Introductory 1. Introduction: what is group and team coaching? Part 2: The concepts 2. Learning, holding and exchange 3. Looking deeper: the secret life of groups 4. Eight group factors influencing learning and change Part 3: Organizations and teams 5. Understanding organizations, groups and teams: systems and complexity thinking 6. Team coaching I Part 4: Learning groups 7. Learning group coaching 8. Supervision groups Part 5: Practical steps for specific challenges and occasions 9. Strategies for tackling problem behaviour in groups 10. Virtual group and team coaching 11. Team coaching II: understanding and tackling difficult patterns of behaviour 12. Managing beginnings, middles and endings: boundaries of the group Part 6: Navigation and further learning Afterword to the third edition Suggested further reading Frequently asked questions References and bibliography Index