Peer Coaching Circle Guide & Curriculum

Peer Coaching Circle Guide & Curriculum

Purpose: Create low-cost, high-impact professional development through recurring peer coaching circles that sustain skill practice, candid feedback, and mutual accountability.

Who this is for

Managers, team leads, individual contributors, educators, and professionals who want a structured way to improve practice, solve problems, and build coaching muscle together. Circles work well across roles, functions, or within a single team.

Quick design decisions

• Group size: 4–8 people. Small enough for depth; big enough for variety.
• Cadence: Every 2–4 weeks (biweekly is a good default).
• Session length: 60–90 minutes depending on number of participants.
• Commitment: Recommended 6-session pilot (one curriculum cycle) with optional extension.
• Roles: rotating Coachee, Coach, Timekeeper, and Confidentiality Steward / Observer as needed.

Core norms (establish at kickoff)

• Confidentiality: What’s shared in the circle stays in the circle unless explicitly agreed otherwise.
• Human-centered: Assume positive intent; focus on learning not judging.
• Time discipline: Respect the agenda and the timekeeper.
• Practice & follow-through: Each session ends with a concrete commitment and a way to report progress.
• Equity of airtime: Use time limits per role to ensure voice-sharing.
• Feedback style: Use specific, behavior-focused feedback (see guidelines below).

6-Session Curriculum (facilitator-ready)

Session structure template (60–90 mins)

1. Welcome & check-in (5–10 mins)
2. Coachee presentation (10–15 mins)
3. Coaching conversation (20–35 mins)
4. Peer feedback & feedforward (10–15 mins)
5. Commitment & closing (5–10 mins)

Session 1 — Kickoff: Norms, goals, and initial coaching

Objectives: Build trust, agree norms, set individual learning goals, practice a short coaching cycle.

• Icebreaker: Quick personal learning goal statement.
• Establish confidentiality and feedback norms.
• Run one short coaching round (30–40 mins total) to demonstrate format.
• Assign first commitments (experiment to try before next session).

Session 2 — Deep listening & clarifying questions

Objectives: Practice active listening, questioning to surface assumptions and root causes.

• Mini-teach: Elements of deep listening and powerful questions.
• Two coaching rounds with emphasis on paraphrase, reflection, and curiosity-based questions.

Session 3 — Challenging assumptions & exploring options

Objectives: Use real cases to test assumptions and generate creative options.

• Mini-exercise: Reframe and evidence-check assumptions.
• Coaching rounds focused on option generation and decision clarity.

Session 4 — Feedback that helps people improve

Objectives: Practice giving and receiving behavior-focused feedback and feedforward.

• Teach: Situation-Behavior-Impact (SBI) + Feedforward technique.
• Role plays and one live coaching round using structured feedback.

Session 5 — Action planning & measuring progress

Objectives: Strengthen habits of small experiments, metric-minded progress tracking, and accountability.

• Introduce simple progress tracker and evidence examples.
• Coaching rounds emphasize measurable next steps and data to collect.

Session 6 — Reflect, certify, and scale

Objectives: Reflect on the cycle, evaluate skill growth, decide next steps, and optionally award internal coaching certificates based on criteria.

• Group reflection: Wins, learning edges, and system improvements.
• Use sample evaluation rubric to recognize demonstrated coaching competence.
• Plan the next cycle: rotate membership, invite observers, or spin up new circles.

Roles and responsibilities

• Coachee: Presents a real, current challenge and accepts coaching and feedback.
• Coach: Listens, asks clarifying and generative questions, helps coachee surface options; do not dominate or give instant solutions.
• Observer/Feedbacker: Notes coaching techniques used and provides structured feedback on what helped or hindered.
• Timekeeper/Facilitator: Keeps the agenda and norms, ensures equity of airtime, and helps with closing commitments.

Confidentiality & psychological safety norms (sample agreement)

• What’s shared in the circle is confidential unless the coachee explicitly allows sharing.
• Use names only when necessary; otherwise focus on situations and behaviors.
• Release pressure to ‘fix’—the circle’s role is to explore and support choices, not command action.
• If something shared suggests safety or legal risk, follow your organization’s mandated reporting rules.

Coaching prompts (starter list)

• What outcome would make this conversation a success for you?
• What have you already tried and what did you learn?
• What assumptions are you making about the people or context?
• If a trusted colleague could wave a wand, what would they do differently?
• What small experiment could you run this week to test an idea?

Peer feedback guidelines

Use specific, observable language. Prefer: Situation → Behavior → Impact → Feedforward.

1. Describe the situation briefly (when/where).
2. Describe the behavior you observed (specific actions, not traits).
3. Describe the impact (on you, the team, the outcome).
4. Offer a forward-facing suggestion: one thing to try next time.

Progress tracking sheet (simple template)

Use this in-session or convert to a shared spreadsheet/form for ongoing tracking.

Sample evaluation criteria for internal coaching recognition

Use a simple 1–4 rubric (1 = emerging, 4 = consistently demonstrated).

• Goal clarity: Helps coachee articulate a specific, measurable learning goal.
• Listening: Demonstrates deep listening (paraphrase, reflect, silence).
• Questioning: Uses powerful, open questions to elicit insight.
• Feedback: Gives specific, behavior-focused feedback and feedforward.
• Action planning: Co-creates clear next steps with measures and timelines.
• Follow-through: Demonstrates evidence of follow-up in subsequent sessions.

Facilitator checklist & common pitfalls

• Before session: Confirm coachee topic and desired outcome.
• Start on time, review norms briefly.
• Watch for solution-hijacking—remind peers to ask and coach rather than fix.
• Keep to timeboxes and ensure everyone commits to a next step.
• Rotate roles so coaching skills spread across the group.

Remote and hybrid adaptations

• Use video for better presence; allow observers to mute video if needed for psychological safety.
• Use a shared document or form to capture commitments and the progress tracker.
• Use breakout rooms for small practice pairs if the group grows larger.

Measuring impact

Collect simple measures: number of commitments completed, self-rated skill improvements, participant satisfaction, and a short behavioral example of change. Consider a 3-question post-cycle survey: What changed? What helped most? What will you keep doing?

Next steps

1. Run a 6-session pilot with committed volunteers.
2. Use the progress tracker each session and collect a short evaluation at the end of the cycle.
3. Adapt the curriculum based on participant hungers, timing needs, and organizational context.

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