How CoachingOurselves works
The simplest leadership development program you’ll ever run.
No instructors. No lectures. Just managers learning through each other.
The 90-minute session
No preparation required — participants can sit down cold. They’ll receive the guidebook ahead of time and are welcome to browse it, but the session is designed to work without any prep.
Small groups of 4–6 meet for 90 minutes. They read a passage together, reflect individually, then discuss as peers. No instructor. The guidebook structures the conversation.
Each person leaves with at least one concrete action commitment. Next month, they check in on progress before starting the next topic.
The discussion IS the learning. The guidebook IS the facilitator.
Typical session flow
→
Discussion & Sharing
→
Commitments
Three ways to run it
Choose the facilitation model that fits your organization. All three use the same guidebooks and methodology.
L&D-Led
Your HR or L&D team facilitates sessions. They set the schedule, pick topics, and guide the groups. No subject matter expertise needed — the guidebook provides the content.
Our Train-the-Trainer certification (two sessions, approximately five hours) gives your team full independence — facilitation skills, program design, and scaling strategies to run CoachingOurselves end-to-end across teams and geographies.
Best for: Organizations with dedicated L&D staff who want hands-on control of the program.
Manager-as-Facilitator
Managers facilitate sessions for their own teams. A short workshop gets them ready — no prior facilitation experience needed.
Best for: Scaling leadership development without growing your L&D headcount.
OD-Led
Your organizational development or culture team designs the sequence of topics against a change you are actually working on, convenes groups deliberately mixed across functions, and holds the thread across them. The guidebooks come from the people who built the field — Edgar Schein, David Cooperrider, Marvin Weisbord and Sandra Janoff.
Best for: Culture change, post-merger integration and breaking down silos — where the point is to shift how the organization works, not only how individuals manage.
“The facilitator holds the space — they don’t teach. The peers do the learning.”
Who it’s for
Individual Contributors & Rising Stars
Help future leaders grow their leadership capacity before they become managers. Light, easy to deploy at scale.
New Managers & Frontline Supervisors
82% enter without formal training. Give them a peer support system and practical skills from day one.
Mid-Level Managers
The “frozen middle” that makes or breaks every change initiative.
Senior Leaders
Strategic agility, systems thinking, leading through uncertainty.
Same methodology, different topics. We help you pick the right ones.
What makes this different
It’s not a content library. ChatGPT can generate a discussion guide in 30 seconds. But content without a process changes nothing. What matters is the structured reflection — the ritual of stopping, articulating your experience to peers, and making sense of it together.
It’s not a lecture on a video call. Most “peer learning” programs put an instructor on a call and add breakout rooms. That’s a webinar, not peer learning.
It’s the operationalized ritual. The permission to stop and talk. The trust built over months of honest conversation. The accountability that comes from committing in front of peers.
We’ve been doing this for 18 years. We know exactly how to make it work.
Flexible program design
Every organization is different. We help you design the right cadence, group structure, and topic path.
Program formats
6 sessions over 6 months. Monthly rhythm. Most popular for new programs.
10 sessions over 12 months. Two sessions per mindset (Reflective, Analytical, Worldly, Collaborative, Action) — Henry Mintzberg and Jonathan Gosling’s framework. Some clients have sustained Five Mindsets programs for 15+ years.
Start with 3 sessions over 3 months. Perfect for teams that want to try before committing to a full program.
Scaling & sustaining
Year 1 participants become Year 2 facilitators. The program grows without requiring constant L&D involvement. Some clients have sustained this cascading model for 15+ years.
One session per quarter, open to graduates of any internal leadership development program. A lightweight way to keep peer learning alive beyond the formal program.
Where we fit in the 70-20-10 model
Research shows that 70% of learning comes from on-the-job experience. 20% comes from peers and social learning. 10% comes from formal training.
Most L&D budgets go to the 10%. CoachingOurselves lives in the 20% — and makes the 70% more intentional by connecting experience to reflection.
It’s not a replacement for training. It’s what makes training stick.
Ready to see it in action?
Design a program for your organization in a 30-minute discovery call. Or experience a live demo session with other L&D leaders.
Curious what this looks like in practice? See the results organisations have had with peer learning groups.