“Don’t go through life, grow through life.” – Eric Butterworth
There are things – such as principles, systems and models that have created successes or failures when used. To move towards success, the smart thing to do is take a working principle, adapt it to your dynamic situation to get similar results.
In coaching, there is a model that has made a significant contribution to the field in helping coachee move in the line of their dreams and achieves success.
It is called the G.R.O.W Model – is a Model of Coaching has been widely used in the Professional and Personal Coaching fields developed by Graham Alexander, Alan Fine, and Sir John Whitmore, who all made significant contributions to it.
The G.R.O.W is an acronym for a 4-Step process that is followed during a Coaching Session and can be used for Self-Coaching as well as any other form of coaching.
The 4 steps (in form of questions) are:
What is the Goal? The purpose of entering a coaching session must be clarified to ensure that you are hitting the target. The ensure that this is happening, it is better to see to it that you help the coachee clarify their goals to become S.M.A.R.T (I) – Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic, Time-Bound and Interesting enough for them to desire to pursue it.
What are the Realities? The coachee has current things they believe in, they have
What are the Options? Most of the questions under options are “do…” and it can look like this: ‘What if you can focus only on your goals’ or ‘what are 3 quick steps -alternatives, options to get you to your goals (a great question to clarify options).
What Will you do? – Your ‘Take-Aways – And Start Doing’ – Way Forward. The question can look like this: ‘what support do you need from me to get things done?’
While reflecting on the blog, I remember I documented the things I learned from using this GROW Model in Coaching Practicum on 30 March 2020.
We were paired up with another catalyst coach – one is the coach and the other, the coachee, then the switch to another person.
Some of the questions that came up include:
What is happening currently that is making feel you they need motivation?
What has been the result so far?
How can you help people prioritize?
How can you be present with people?
What do you feel this person does and the other doesn’t?
How much time do you have?
What would you do?
When will you commit, on a scale of 1-10?
What will you do differently?
What does effectiveness mean to you? What areas of effectiveness?
My Take away from the session includes:
As a Coach, it is advisable to write, to capture what your Coachee is saying, don’t trust your memory. This is helpful as you can refer to later, even after the coaching session.
Don’t jump in too soon, when the coachee is speaking, as a coach, you need to allow them to speak – after all, it is about them, not you.
It is a great practice to acknowledge the coachee. As the coach, ensure that you create the pacing and space that allows the coachee to share, give them the gift of your presence.
As the coach, try to summarize the objections of the coachee. Ensure you set a goal at the beginning. So, you can recap at the end that what they wanted was achieved.
Sharing a story with the coachee, if you have limited time is not a wise decision. Stories are good, but it is advisable to use it in mentoring.
The languages fit the same language of the coachee. They want steps, ask for steps, etc.
Understand their area of motivation (about people’s attitudes), for example ask, which person are you specifically talking about?
Don’t ask leading questions. Make it open-ended.
Stay on the goal. If you move away, lock it back to the main goal.
Ask the coachee to summarize their key takeaway, ask question such as, ‘did you get something out of this session or not?
Ask back, ask back to maintain the flow.
Always get to ask the coachee for the commitment.
Pay attention and be sensitive to intonation. (Don’t go with oh, okay. Be excited for whatever the coachee wanted to do or achieve).
Make the goal smart for them. Help them to reframe their goal – help them to drill into the why.
Cultural differences may be an issue; one way to overcome this concern is good listening.
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