Beyond the Individual: Expanding Your Coaching Lens to Teams and Systems

Coaching conversations often begin with the individual client—their goals, challenges, choices, and next steps. Yet many of the situations clients bring to coaching are also influenced by relationships, team dynamics, organizational expectations, and patterns within the larger system.

In this interactive session, participants will explore how to expand their coaching lens beyond the individual without losing sight of the client. Using concepts from Organization and Relationship Systems Coaching, participants will be introduced to the idea of the Third Entity—the relationship or system that exists between people—and learn how this perspective can reveal patterns, tensions, and possibilities that may otherwise remain unseen.

Participants will practice using three perspectives in a coaching conversation: the client’s view, the perspective of another person or group, and the voice of the relationship or system itself. Through paired practice and reflection, coaches will strengthen their ability to listen for relational patterns, explore multiple perspectives, and help clients identify their own agency within a broader system.

This session is designed for coaches who work with individual leaders, teams, or clients navigating complex organizational environments. No previous experience with systems or team coaching is required.

By the end of this program, participants will be able to:

• Differentiate between individual, relational, and systemic perspectives in a coaching conversation.

• Use perspective-expanding questions to help clients recognize relational patterns, consider multiple viewpoints, and explore the broader system influencing their situation.

• Apply the Third Entity concept in a coaching conversation while preserving client autonomy and avoiding diagnosis, interpretation, or advice.

This program has been submitted to ICF for CCEUs. We will update this section as soon as we receive approval.

Kerri Sutey, PCC, is an executive and leadership coach, organizational consultant, facilitator, and speaker who helps leaders and teams navigate complexity, strengthen collaboration, and create meaningful, sustainable change.

Her approach blends professional coaching, systems thinking, team coaching, and Agile coaching to help clients look beyond surface-level challenges and recognize the patterns, relationships, and organizational dynamics shaping their results. Kerri has worked with leaders and organizations across corporate, nonprofit, government, and higher education settings, including Google, Southwest Airlines, ExxonMobil, IBM, the U.S. Department of Defense, and Loyola University Maryland.

She is the founder of Sutey Coaching & Consulting and serves as President of ICF High Country. Kerri is an ICF Professional Certified Coach (PCC) and holds ICAgile Certified Expert credentials in both Agile Coaching (ICE-AC) and Enterprise Coaching (ICE-EC).

Kerri lives in Missoula, Montana, with her 100-pound Bernedoodle, Finn. Outside of work, she enjoys hiking, traveling, and experiencing new places, cultures, and foods.