Peer Coaching Groups to Bring Development for Everyone.

Abstract

Peer coaching in groups (PCG), also called peer advisory groups or personal board of advisors by practitioners, has been praised as an effective tool for staff and leadership development. It is used by hundreds of business communities, such as Young Presidents’ Organization or Vistage; dozens of Fortune 500 companies, including Microsoft, Walmart, and Amazon; and prominent business schools. Since organizations’ approaches and settings vary widely, they could benefit from empirical data on the factors that make PCG effective for personal and professional development. However, there is scarce research on PCG in a business context, leaving practitioners without sufficient evidence-based answers. This empirical study employs critical incident interviews and thematic analysis to investigate the experiences of participants from 61 groups in 24 different PCG settings in a business context. The findings help to understand factors of engagement of peer coaches, relevant characteristics of matching peers in a group, nature of peer accountability, proper group size, and role of friendship in a peer growth group. A new research-based definition of PCG is provided. The results will facilitate further scholarly discussion in the field and better understanding among scholars and practitioners.