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GROW Performance coaching
30 March 2009
During my business coaching and mentoring with business owners and directors in the Midlands and London, I use a wide variety of management coahcing tools and this is a very useful five step coaching process based on the GROW coaching model that can be used for managing project and facilitating meetings at any time. Often known as the GROW model explained in John Whitmore’s book “Performance Coaching” it is used to ensure that once the Goal has been decided that the process always ends up with a Work plan by the end of the meeting.
After reading this, you will know all about:
- the simple but very effective T-GROW process, which is also known as the GROW model
- how to use the process in management coaching sessions and any type of meeting that has a goal and requires an action plan to reach it
- the five different stages of the process, which are all extremely logical and easy to follow
- the order in which to go from deciding on the “Goal” to “Working out a plan”
- how useful it is when involved with building high performance teams
Performance coaching
T-GROW model
Step 1
Agree on the Topic to be discussed – it is most important to focus on this. So after the pleasantries – “hallo, how are you doing, what do fancy drinking (stay off the alcohol at all costs, even for Dutch courage), are you as nervous as me, not sure how this is going to work out, we’ll have to suck it and see”…. So what would you like to chat about? It is important to realise that some Topics appear from something that happened that day, or maybe it is a subject that has been running round and around for some time and some topics crop up time and time again.
Step 2
Discover where the client wants to be – once you have got a topic for the session agree a Goal that they want to achieve by the end of the mentoring session, be it 15, 30 minutes or an hour. Something that would make them feel that the session had been really useful.
Step 3
Find out the Reality of the situation by getting as much background information as possible. Discover where the client is, what the challenges are, what has been tried and what were the results – this part is all about the mentor asking questions and listening to: –
- When did it all begin?
- What and who was involved?
- Where did it occur?
- How does it look/feel/sound like?
- What has been done to resolve the challenge?
- What was the result of the changes?
Note: the book “Smart Questions by Dorothy Leeds ISBN 04251 76592 is a great book to start the journey of tapping into your own wisdom and to help others tap into their own skills, expertise and knowledge – a tremendous book, easy to read, simple to implement and worth many times its’ cover price.
Step 4
Create some Options going forward by asking about what could be done, in a sort of structured brainstorming session. This is
where some creativity is needed, to look at the situation from different perspectives.
Note. It is really important to adopt the position of not accepting “I don’t know” or stop at the first idea. My experience tells me never to accept “I don’t know” as people always know but are afraid of saying it. Follow this up by saying “Well even if you don’t know what do think it would look/feel/sound like. I always get some answers. It seems that as a society we take on this role of not knowing too easily, almost not to stand out as a know-all.
Step 5
Work out a plan of action, by taking ownership of the solution. The plan must be written down with steps that will be taken by the mentee … maybe people to talk to, information to be found or it maybe that a change of behaviour or a different communication style is to be tried. Whatever is agreed, timescales need to be woven into the plan to make progress measurable and the mentee accountable.
©William Barron
Creating Insight