The GROW Model: Performance Coaching
The GROW model of coaching is frequently taught to trainee coaches at an early stage and provides a useful practical framework for helping people to clarify personal or business goals, explore options and act on them. It was perhaps most famously set out by John Whitmore in his book “Coaching for Performance” published in 1992. The initials of the acronym GROW stand for:
G oal Setting
R eality checking
O ptions
W hat is to be done, When, by Whom and the Will to do it.
As can be perhaps be guessed from these acronyms, a life coach using the GROW model is likely to start by asking you to set goals both for what you want to get out of the coaching sessions as a whole and for individual sessions.
Most coaches will encourage you to set goals which are SMART (Specific, Measurable, Agreed, Realistic and Time-framed). The idea is that this will help you to focus your thoughts and also will enable you to measure whether you achieve what you aim for.
In the “Reality checking” section of the coaching sessions the life coach will assist you to try to assess objectively where you currently are in relation to your goals and how you feel about your current situation. This process of exploration may actually help you to clarify your goals better, as you begin to understand more deeply what is driving you and what your sources of dissatisfaction are.
In the Options stage of the coaching, the idea is not immediately to find a solution, but simply to generate as many possible alternative courses of action as possible. This kind of brainstorming coaching approach is similar in some ways to the person centred approach to counselling advocated by Gerard Egan in the 1970s in his book “The Skilled Helper”.
Once you have generated a number of possible options the next stage will be for you to decide which one or ones you want to try out to help you towards your goals. In this final stage you are moving from discussion to decision and action. The coach will aim to assist you in clarifying for yourself:
- What you are going to do
- When you are going to do it
- Whether it is likely to help you meet your goals (If not then you may change the intended action)
- What difficulties you might encounter and how you might deal with them
- Who you are going to tell about what you are doing (if anyone) and what support you may try to get to help you in your actions.
Overall the GROW Model provides a helpful practical framework to assist you in setting goals and moving towards them.
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