IAC HK Chapter President, Bonnie Chan IAC-CC was interviewed by SCMP

Why would a person choose group coaching instead of individual attention? Bonnie Chan, an executive and business coach at Coach Lite, said group coaching was for someone looking for collective wisdom.

This was especially suitable when the desired improvement was organisational, not personal, and when performance outcome was dependent on more than one person, such as collaborative work in a company, community or charity purpose.

According to Ms Chan, group coaching is a better method for achieving performance and realising an organisation's mission.

Companies or organisations are the biggest client base for group coaching. Sometimes, they can comprise colleagues from one office or from different branches across regions, participating in one or two 90-minute sessions a month for up to three months.

Ms Chan said, in many cases, group coaching was employed to address interdepartmental conflicts in organisations and remedy the problem. "This gets department managers to co-operate and understand what the other is doing," she said. "Also, throughout group coaching, we can point out blind spots, look at communication skills, attitudes and examine documents from their own perspective and that of each other."

Mentor coaching is another form of group coaching, whereby experienced coaches teach trainee coaches working towards certification. Ms Chan said it was a chance to share their experiences in a relaxed and supportive setting.

While she said group coaching was a relatively new concept in Hong Kong, people interested could opt for this form of self-help instead of more costly individual coaching, which usually costs from HK$2,500 to HK$3,500 per hour. Rates for group coaching tend to be 20 per cent higher, but the cost is typically divided between the participants, or paid by the company.