A Gestalt Approach to Working with Groups and Teams, Module 1

Groups and teams that become highly effective do not do so by accident. Instead, their effectiveness is built on an integration of knowledge, skills, and interventions that foster effectiveness. Working with Groups is designed to enable group leaders and team coaches in a variety of settings (leadership teams, limited duration work teams, therapy groups, committees, problem solving groups, etc.) to facilitate high-impact results through the application of concepts and principles based in a Gestalt approach to human behavior.

Armed with a well-reviewed base of Gestalt approaches, you, the leader/coach/manager facilitator /therapist will be better able to leverage these approaches to recognize, engage, address, and develop skills within individuals, subgroups and the group or team as a whole. The sum total of the use of these approaches will result in groups, teams, committees, that are high-functioning, results-producing, and individually-affirming.

Within the workshop, you will also be provided with ample opportunities to practice these skills, in a variety of settings, as a way of integrating these skills naturally into the way you lead groups. Having attended this workshop, you will lead work with groups and teams in a different way than you have in the past.

The learning objectives that underlie this unique professional development experience include:

1. Understanding and applying Gestalt concepts and principles as they relate to working with teams and groups;
2. Developing the capacity to see, assess, and intervene at multiple levels of system (intervening with individuals, sub-groups, and the entire
group) to address a variety of needs that may be occurring simultaneously;
3. Leveraging the Gestalt concepts and principles for success in clinical/therapeutic groups as well as in task/ leadership teams/community
groups and working committees;
4. Establishing and maintaining effective agreements and shared focus within groups and teams;
5. Understanding and leveraging the unique role of resistance/persistence within individuals, groups, and social systems;
6. Reinforcing and integrating the effects of interventions on the group/team and tracking the impact over time;
7. Differentiating the developmental phases of groups/teams and demonstrating how this awareness influences choices in intervening/leading at
any given point in time;
8. Creating and managing experiments within the group as tools for growth and expansion;
9. Consistently modeling ethical practice in working with groups;
10. Discovering and leveraging the facilitator’s unique perspectives, skills, talents, and “voice” in working with and leading groups/teams;
11. Understand the alignment of all of the above with the new ICF Team Coaching Competencies if relevant to your practice.

Past participants have noted significant impact the workshop had on their learning and effectiveness:

Alan Brenner recognizes the benefit of his Working With Groups experience:
“I’m keenly aware of the joys of working in groups that work well together; where there is great alignment of purpose, mutual awareness, empathy and shared values; where all group member—regardless of race, ethnicity, gender, or sexual preference feel safe to take risks, to voice different views, feel respected and heard. The Gestalt Institute of Cleveland is a world leader in group intervention and group participation training and the Groups faculty at GIC is truly extraordinary. No question—my Groups training at GIC has helped me to become a better group leader, member, and contributor.”

Jessica Columbi, another Working with Groups participant, states:
“I have worked in the public sector for nearly 15 years, navigating complex bureaucracies and systems. I have managed and been part of groups from a team of baristas at Starbucks to a group of academic advisors, to serving as co-chair of a professional association, to being part of a tight-knit, ethnic family. This curriculum helped me see dynamics in groups that I had never considered. In designing interventions as part of the week’s work, I got to put my skills to the test and practice in real- time with other practitioners and extraordinary faculty members. I left the week wanting more weeks to learn and practice! And ever since, I’ve found that I am attuned to members of groups that I am in—both personal and professional—and have used skills in this workshop to help those groups “hum.”

John Noell, also acknowledges the impact of his Working with Groups experience on his personal and professional work:
“I was amazed by the skills I was quickly able to put into practice at work and in my personal life. I was able to simultaneously track what was happening within the group, between individuals, and within myself. My awareness became super-charged and it enabled me to help make business meetings much more enjoyable and productive. My time with my family and friend groups also became immensely richer.
Faculty for this program are incredibly skilled and every cohort of GIC programs is filled with curious and talented people who seem to become fast friends. If you work in teams or within groups, as a facilitator or participant, you will greatly benefit from these programs. They receive my highest endorsement.”