“If I give you advice and it fails, you will blame me. I have traded my advice for your responsibility and that is seldom a good deal. ” – Sir John Whitmore

Last week, we laid out five steps to create a coaching culture. This week I want to introduce you to one of the most enduring coaching models – the GROW model.

The GROW model was introduced to the world in the 1990s by Sir John Whitmore in his book “Coaching for Performance.” I’ve outlined the model so you and your teams can begin using it in your coaching conversations.

Goal: Using the GROW model all coaching starts with agreement on the topic to be discussed, creating objectives for the sessions and setting a long-term goal when appropriate. Coaching is all about asking good questions and drawing out the wisdom that is already inside the coachee. Here are some Goal coaching questions to get you started:

– What is the topic or issue that you would like to work on?

– What is the outcome you would like to achieve related to this topic?

– What are some intermediary steps that would get you closer to your desired outcome?

– What outcomes along the way would indicate you are making the desired progress?

– What would be the best outcome for you from this session?

Reality: In the reality step, the coach helps the coachee identify the current state of the chosen topic and determine how it is different from the desired outcome. The coach also helps the coachee ignore irrelevant history. We often believe the current state we are in is caused by many things that had nothing to do with it. It just feels better to put the blame somewhere else.

Here are some questions you can use to work through the Reality step.

– What is the present situation? Can you provide more detail?

– What is your concern about the situation? How great is your concern?

– What actions have you taken so far? What were the effects of those actions?

– What barriers will need to be overcome?

Options: In this step, the coach helps the coachee develop ideas to move towards their goal. Some questions for the Options step are:

– What are some different ways you could approach this?

– What would you do if you could start with a blank sheet of paper?

– What else?

– What are the advantages and disadvantages of…?

– Which of these solutions appeals to you most?

– Which would give you the best results?

Will: In this step, the coach helps the coachee decide which option they will pursue, identify potential obstacles, define the steps and timing. Some questions to use for the Will step are:

– What are you going to do?

– When are you going to do it?

– What are your success criteria for this option?

– What obstacles might you meet?

– On a scale of 1-10, how certain are you that you will carry out the actions you have laid out? What would make that a 10?

Many people expand the GROW model to GROWTH and discuss Tactics and Habits with their coachees. I find the tactics are pretty well covered in the GROW discussions, but habits are a great addition to any goal that requires behavior change to meet the goal and to maintain success after the goal is obtained.

I hope you’ll give the GROW coaching model a try. The results of a coaching culture are proven. It is now in your hands to implement! 

Remember, coaching is about asking great questions and listening. It is a tough skill to master but you’ll love the results as you get better and better at it.

We love helping leaders build great companies and better lives for themselves and the people they lead. We’ve got some great free resources for you in our resource library. You can check them out here – www.valuesdrivenresults.com/resource-library/ or give us a call at (229) 244-1559. We’d love to help you in any way we can.

Curt Fowler is president of Fowler & Company and director at Fowler, Holley, Rambo & Stalvey.

Curt and the team at FHRS help leaders build great companies through Virtual CFO, strategy, tax and accounting services.

Curt is a syndicated business writer, keynote speaker and business advisor. He has an MBA in strategy and entrepreneurship from the Kellogg School, is a CPA and a pretty good guy as defined by his wife and five children. (Welcome Baby Owen – June 2021!)