A hot seat is the highest-leverage 15 minutes in group coaching: one member gets coached live on a real problem, and everyone else quietly solves their own version of it while they watch. The catch is that it falls apart without structure. One rambling answer, one piece of unsolicited advice from the group, and a 60-minute call turns into 35 minutes for one person and nothing for the other seven.
This hot seat group coaching prompt builds the whole session for you: a minute-by-minute agenda that actually fits the clock, a facilitation script with the exact questions to ask, and a way to pull the rest of the group in so they get value too. By the end of this page you’ll also understand why each part is built the way it is, so you can adapt it to any group you run.
When to use this
- You run a recurring group program (mastermind, accelerator, membership) and want a repeatable session format.
- Your group calls drift, run long, or let one talkative member dominate.
- You want the people who aren’t in the hot seat to still leave with an action.
- You’re onboarding a co-facilitator and need a script they can run without you.
- You’re prepping a call in the gap between two clients and have no time to design it from scratch.
The prompt
Copy this whole block into ChatGPT, Claude, or Gemini:
You are an expert group coaching facilitator who designs hot-seat sessions. In a hot seat, one member is coached live on a real challenge while the rest of the group watches, learns, and contributes. Your job is to design the full session so it stays on time, every member gets value, and the person in the hot seat leaves with a clear next step.
Before you build anything, ask me up to 3 clarifying questions if any detail below is unclear or missing. Otherwise, proceed.
CONTEXT
- The group: {{GROUP_NICHE}}
- Total session length: {{SESSION_LENGTH}}
- Number of members on the call: {{GROUP_SIZE}}
- Number of hot seats this session: {{HOT_SEATS}}
- Theme or focus for this session: {{SESSION_THEME}}
- My facilitation style: {{COACHING_STYLE}}
TASK
Design a complete hot-seat session with these parts:
1. A minute-by-minute AGENDA that fits exactly within {{SESSION_LENGTH}}, including opening, each hot seat, group input, and a close.
2. For EACH hot seat, a FACILITATION SCRIPT: how I open it, 5-7 powerful open questions to coach with (in a logical order), and how I land a concrete commitment.
3. A GROUP-INVOLVEMENT step per hot seat so observers contribute and extract their own lesson, not just watch.
4. A CLOSING ritual that captures one action per member and protects the end time.
CONSTRAINTS
- The agenda timings must add up to {{SESSION_LENGTH}} exactly. Show running time in each line.
- Coaching questions must be open (no yes/no), and must coach the person, not give advice.
- Match my facilitation style: {{COACHING_STYLE}}. No corporate jargon.
- Keep it practical enough to run from the page, with no extra prep.
After the plan, give me 3 facilitator phrases I can use to gently cut off a rambling answer and keep the session on time.
How to customize it
Replace the six {{VARIABLES}} before you send it:
| Variable | What to put | Example |
|---|---|---|
{{GROUP_NICHE}} |
Who is actually in the room | early-stage founders in a 6-month business accelerator |
{{SESSION_LENGTH}} |
The full call length | 60 minutes |
{{GROUP_SIZE}} |
How many members attend | 8 members |
{{HOT_SEATS}} |
How many people get coached live | 2 hot seats |
{{SESSION_THEME}} |
The focus that keeps hot seats on-topic | pricing and selling without discounting |
{{COACHING_STYLE}} |
How you facilitate | direct, warm, asks more than it tells |
See it in action (full example)
Here is the exact prompt, filled in for a business coach running an accelerator. This is the whole input, nothing hidden:
You are an expert group coaching facilitator who designs hot-seat sessions. In a hot seat, one member is coached live on a real challenge while the rest of the group watches, learns, and contributes. Your job is to design the full session so it stays on time, every member gets value, and the person in the hot seat leaves with a clear next step.
Before you build anything, ask me up to 3 clarifying questions if any detail below is unclear or missing. Otherwise, proceed.
CONTEXT
- The group: early-stage founders in a 6-month business accelerator
- Total session length: 60 minutes
- Number of members on the call: 8 members
- Number of hot seats this session: 2 hot seats
- Theme or focus for this session: pricing and selling without discounting
- My facilitation style: direct, warm, asks more than it tells
TASK
Design a complete hot-seat session... [rest of the prompt unchanged]
And here is the complete output the model returns:
Quick check before I build this, so the timing lands cleanly: 1. Do you want the two hot seats back-to-back, or a short group debrief between them? (I’ve assumed a debrief between them below.) 2. Are hot-seat volunteers chosen live, or do you know the two members in advance? 3. Should the close include an accountability pairing, or just a stated commitment?
I’ll proceed with sensible defaults; adjust if I’ve guessed wrong.
HOT-SEAT SESSION PLAN — Pricing & Selling Without Discounting Group: 8 founders | Length: 60 minutes | 2 hot seats
AGENDA (running time in brackets) – 0:00-0:05 Opening: name the theme, set the one rule “no advice unless asked” [05] – 0:05-0:25 Hot Seat 1 (20 min) [25] – 0:25-0:30 Group debrief 1: “what did this surface for you?” [30] – 0:30-0:50 Hot Seat 2 (20 min) [50] – 0:50-0:55 Group debrief 2 + harvest [55] – 0:55-1:00 Close: one action per member, end on time [60]
Total: 60 minutes exactly.
OPENING (5 min) “Today’s theme is pricing without discounting. Two of you are in the hot seat. Everyone else, your job isn’t to fix them, it’s to notice where their problem shows up in your business. One rule: hold your advice unless I invite it. Questions are welcome, advice is not.”
HOT-SEAT SCRIPT (run this for each seat, 20 min) Open it (2 min): “In one or two sentences, what’s the pricing situation you want to work on today, and what would a useful outcome look like by 0:25?”
Coaching questions, in order (12 min): 1. “When you imagine quoting your full price out loud, what’s the story you tell yourself about what happens next?” 2. “What’s the actual evidence for that story, and what’s the evidence against it?” 3. “What does the discount protect you from having to do or say?” 4. “If your most confident peer had your exact offer, what would they charge, and what would they refuse to apologize for?” 5. “What would the client need to understand about the value for the full price to feel obvious to them?” 6. “Where in your sales conversation does the discount usually slip out, and what could stand in that spot instead?” 7. “Knowing all that, what’s the smallest change you’re willing to make on your very next sales call?”
Land the commitment (3 min): “Say it back as a single sentence starting with ‘By next session I will…’ Make it specific enough that we’ll know if it happened.”
Group involvement (3 min): “Before we move on, no advice, just this: in the chat, finish the sentence ‘The moment that hit home for me was…’ That’s your takeaway to keep.”
GROUP DEBRIEF (5 min each) Pull 2-3 chat responses out loud. Ask the group: “What’s one belief about your own pricing that this hot seat just put pressure on?” This is how observers get coached without being in the seat.
CLOSE (5 min) Go around (or use the chat for a group of 8): each member states one action in the form “My next move on pricing is ___.” You restate the two hot-seat commitments so they’re witnessed. End on the minute: “Same time next week. Go raise a price.”
3 phrases to cut off a ramble and protect time: 1. “Let me pause you there, because that’s the gold, what’s the one sentence underneath everything you just said?” 2. “I’m going to be protective of your time and the group’s, so let’s land this: what’s the decision?” 3. “Hold that thought, it’s a great one for the debrief in two minutes. For now, answer me this one question.”
That is a session you can run straight from the screen, with the questions, the timings, and the lines you’ll actually say out loud.
Why this works
Four LLM principles are doing the work here. Learn them and every prompt you write gets sharper:
- Role priming. The opening line casts the model as a facilitator who specifically designs hot-seat sessions, not a generic “helpful assistant.” That single instruction pulls the answer toward real facilitation craft, timing discipline, and open questioning, instead of a vague meeting outline. Always assign the most specific expert role that fits the job.
- Specificity in, specificity out. The output is only as concrete as your context block. Telling it the group is “founders working on pricing” is why the coaching questions are about discount stories and sales calls, not abstract “goal setting.” The richer your
{{GROUP_NICHE}}and{{SESSION_THEME}}, the more usable the script. - Constraints as quality control. The rules aren’t decoration, each one kills a common failure. “Timings must add up exactly” forces a real agenda instead of a loose list. “Questions must be open and coach the person, not give advice” stops the model from defaulting to advice-giving, which is the most common way AI ruins a coaching script. Telling the model what NOT to do is as powerful as telling it what to do.
- A built-in clarifying step. The line “ask me up to 3 clarifying questions first” lets the model fill gaps by asking instead of guessing. In the example it asks about back-to-back seats and accountability pairing, the exact details that change the timing. This one line is the biggest fix for generic, off-target AI output.
Do this now
- Copy the prompt above into ChatGPT or Claude.
- Replace the six variables with your real group, length, size, theme, and style.
- Send it. If it asks clarifying questions, answer them, they’re what make the timing fit.
- Read the facilitation script out loud once before your call so the questions sound like you, then run it.
Pro tips
- Reuse the agenda, swap the theme. Once the timing works for your group, keep the structure and only change
{{SESSION_THEME}}each week. Consistency is what trains members to come ready. - Keep the “no advice” rule. It’s the single thing that makes observers think instead of pile on, and it’s why the quiet members get value too.
- Ask for a 90-minute version too. Run the prompt again with a longer
{{SESSION_LENGTH}}and more hot seats, then keep both formats on file for short and long weeks. - Save the cut-off phrases. Drop the three facilitator phrases into your notes app; having them ready is the difference between a call that ends on time and one that doesn’t.
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