The Grove Consultants International

09/18/2026

One of the harder parts of leading change is knowing when to just keep moving and when to make space for what people are feeling.

Leaders also carry their own reactions. As circumstances shift, those emotions can shift too, changing how a situation is perceived and how a leader responds.

Recognizing what we are feeling creates space to see what is really there and be more purposeful in how we act. It can help leaders notice when frustration is narrowing their perspective or when teams need more time to make sense of the challenges they are facing.

Creating this space allows leaders to make more thoughtful decisions and respond more effectively to what is needed. At an organizational level, it can also support stronger communication and help teams move through change with greater trust and alignment.

Coaching can provide space to notice these patterns more clearly and strengthen the capacity to work with emotion as part of leading through change.

Learn more about The Grove’s coaching approach: https://www.thegrove.com/leadership-coaching-change

08/28/2026

What do you secretly believe a “good team” should look like?

That was one of the questions practitioners reflected on during our August Team Performance Community of Practice.

The conversation focused on practitioner bias and the assumptions, preferences and ways of working we each bring into the room. Participants discussed how qualities such as directness, creating space or challenging a group can be strengths in one setting and liabilities in another.

The goal isn’t to eliminate those biases. It’s to become more aware of them so we can make more intentional choices about how we support the team in front of us.

These are the kinds of conversations that continue after The Grove’s Team Performance Workshop through our ongoing Community of Practice.

Our next Team Performance Workshop is coming up in September, and space is limited.

Learn more and register: https://www.thegrove.com/courses/team-performance

08/11/2026

As AI becomes part of more workplace decisions, one question keeps surfacing:

Where will tomorrow's leaders develop the judgment that comes from lived experience?

AI can help leaders process information more quickly, but it cannot replace the judgment that comes from working through real challenges and making sense of complex situations.

In his latest article, Grove founder David Sibbet reflects on why coaching is becoming even more valuable in the age of AI. He explores how coaching creates the space for leaders to learn from experience, deepen their judgment and strengthen the change competencies that help transform experience into sound judgment.

If you're considering how AI is reshaping leadership, this article explores why developing sound judgment remains one of a leader's most important responsibilities.

Read the full article: https://www.thegrove.com/blog/what-ai-cant-replace-coaching-leaders-for-sound-judgment

07/24/2026

What does sound judgment require when so much is shifting in so many directions at once?

In his latest article, "What AI Can't Replace: Coaching Leaders for Sound Judgment," Grove founder David Sibbet explores a question that is becoming increasingly important: If managers rely more on AI to make decisions, where will the next generation of leaders gain the experiences they need to develop sound judgment?

David argues that clear thinking matters, but it is not enough. Sound judgment depends on the inner resources that help us meet uncertainty with confidence and learn from experience.

These are also the capacities at the heart of The Grove's leadership coaching. We help leaders build the inner resources and change competencies needed to step into complexity with confidence, learn from experience, and respond with creativity and presence. These capacities do not replace experience—they help transform experience into the sound judgment that technology cannot provide.

Read the article: https://www.thegrove.com/blog/what-ai-cant-replace-coaching-leaders-for-sound-judgment

07/02/2026

“Change is always a relational process.”
—Gisela Wendling, The Liminal Pathways Study

06/16/2026

Most teams don't come right out and say, "We're stuck."

Instead, they say:

"Progress is slow despite hard work."

"Team meetings feel unproductive and inefficient."

"We can't seem to agree on priorities."

These challenges can feel unrelated. But often they form recognizable patterns.

In our Making Sense of Team Dynamics workshop, you'll learn how to use our new Team Challenge Cards to identify these patterns by surfacing the invisible and sometimes unspoken obstacles affecting team performance.

Using the Drexler/Sibbet Team Performance Model, you'll learn how to recognize clusters of challenges, reveal the underlying stage where a team is getting stuck and facilitate conversations that help teams move forward.

July 21, 2026
10:00am–12:00pm PT

Learn more and register: https://www.thegrove.com/courses/making-sense-team-dynamics-team-challenge-cards

05/26/2026

“The meetings, conversations and collaborative structures we create either reinforce the status quo or open the possibility for new thinking to emerge.”

—Visual Consulting: Designing & Leading Change
By David Sibbet and Gisela Wendling, Ph.D.

Many change efforts stall because the process we design unintentionally keeps pulling people back into familiar patterns.

Moving beyond the status quo requires collaborative processes that help people courageously and creatively engage the uncertainty that is inevitably part of any real change. Without it, transformation is not possible.

In our Designing & Leading Change Workshop, you will learn practical, human-centered approaches for leading change in ways that engage people's hearts and minds, generate new possibilities and support lasting movement.

The Early Bird deadline has been extended through June 1.

Learn more: https://www.thegrove.com/courses/designing-and-leading-change

05/05/2026

When the oil crisis of the 1970s exposed how interconnected the system had become, the challenge was to understand what was actually happening.

In a new article on Oil Crisis Regulations, David Sibbet revisits a poster he created in 1981, prompted in part by current disruptions to global oil supply, a recent conversation in our Team Performance Community call focused on using Graphic Guides® to manage up and a review of decades of work.

The image shows how information graphics can influence higher-level decision making.

The aim was to make complex relationships visible in a way that could guide leadership understanding and action.

David is now sharing this work through his platform, Point of View, where you can explore the full series. Subscription is free.

Read the full piece:

Several things came together and prompted this post about the oil crises we all are facing. The first was the war in Iran of course. The second was spending some time consolidating 50 years of files of agenda designs and graphics in a storage locker as a result of consolidation

04/15/2026

The real challenge in most change efforts lies in working with what actually happens as people engage and the process unfolds. Addressing this challenge is the focus of the latest evolution of our in-person Designing & Leading Change workshop.

Together, we explore how to design effective change processes and critical meetings, while working skillfully with the human dynamics that enable creativity and innovation—and ultimately determine whether change takes hold. You’ll bring a current change challenge and work with it directly using The Grove’s visual frameworks and practices alongside a small group of experienced peers.

You also have the option to extend the experience through a six-session coaching package, designed to help you continue advancing your change challenge and deepen your development beyond the workshop.

San Francisco
July 15 to 17, 2026

If you’re navigating complex change in your organization or with clients, this is a space to deepen your practice and move your organization forward.

You can read more here: https://conta.cc/4dxTugl

03/27/2026

We’re excited to share that the Team Challenge Cards are now available.

After months of development, testing and refinement, the cards have arrived and are ready to be purchased through Grove Tools.

They’re designed to help you work more effectively with what’s happening inside a team, surface patterns that are often hard to name, and guide conversations toward meaningful next steps.

Whether you’re facilitating, coaching or leading, the Team Challenge Cards support you in helping teams move from uncertainty to clarity and from insight to action.

Get your deck: https://grovetools-inc.com/products/team-challenge-cards?variant=50997938716950

If you’d like to build confidence using the cards in real situations, join us for the Making Sense of Team Dynamics Workshop on April 21. You’ll learn how to read team dynamics as they unfold and use the cards to guide more focused, productive conversations.

Register: https://www.thegrove.com/courses/making-sense-team-dynamics-team-challenge-cards