#13 - Helping others to GROW
Wednesday, April 29th 2009 @ 10:43 PM
Alex Piriz gives us an insight into his personal experience using a very successful coaching model called GROW:
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A very interesting experience I had in my first job in Ireland, was having a career coach appointed to help me succeed in a new role. The concept of a career coach or a life coach might be new to you. In my case before this life coaching experience the word coach itself, would bring to my mind this image of a well sized man, on a clean sweat suit, barking young coachees instructions on how to improve their game.
The experience of being coached brought to me a new understanding of coaching: not as the art of telling people what to do on a specific discipline, but as the art of helping people discover their very own solutions to their very own challenges. Following this experience I have become very enthusiastic about coaching and I have also received some instruction on how to do it myself, which I enjoy very much.
One proven approach to coaching is by using the GROW model. Each of the 4 letters of this word, G, R, O and W, stands for one of the four steps that comprise the methodology. It is based on a series of conversations in which the coach asks the person coached, or coachee, a lot of questions to help him or her establish a course of action to resolve a specific problem.
By basing the interaction mainly in questions the coach ensures that he or she listen much more than what he or she talks, and that the surfacing solutions are the result of the coachee’s thoughts and ideas. As such, those solutions are likely to be much more relevant for the coachee, than solutions that might be pointed out directly by the coach. Every father of a child gone through the teen stage can attest about how difficult it is to give a solution in a golden plate to a person and expect that person to take it in heart. How different things are when people come up with their own solutions themselves for their own problems?
When using the GROW model, you use the following four steps to structure a coaching session:
G: Establish the GOAL:
This step is about helping the person identify what are the objectives to achieve that would resolve a specific problem. Clarity on the persons’ objectives relative to a specific problem are not always as clear as they might seem. Very often following this stage the coachee discovers aspects of what he or she wants that were not clear before, or that he or she wanted something quite different to what seemed to be originally in mind.
When referring to a specific problem to be resolved the questions typically asked in this stage are:
“What is your objective?”
“What would you like to achieve?”
“How can that be measured?”
R: Examine current REALITY
This step is about trying to help the coachee to put that goal into context.
Verbalizing the current reality and how it blocks access to the coachees’ GOAL helps the coachee understand better what the challenges to overcome are, and whether these challenges are in the external environment or in the coachee’s own mind.
The type of questions the coach would normally ask here are:
“What is currently happening?”
“What would happen if you do not achieve your goal?”
“What stands in the way of achieving what you want?”
“Why is it standing in your way?”
O: Explore the OPTIONS
Here the coach helps the coachee develop different alternatives to resolve the problem, aiming to support the coachees’ creativity in the process and helping him or her consider all possible options before actually judging them or discarding them in isolation. Very often just articulating the options and its pros and cons gives the coachee a new perspective, and allows him or her to develop new and more creative options in the process.
Questions the coach normally asks in this stage are:
“What are the different ways to you could approach the situation?”
“What approaches have you used in similar circumstances?”
“Who might be able to help?”
“What does your instinct or gut feeling tell you?”
“Which of the options energises you the most?”
W: Ensure a good WRAP UP
This step is about helping the coachee to commit to specific actions in line with the alternatives for resolution identified in the previous stage. Helping the coachee identify what can get in the middle of the required actions can help him or her ensure that actions are taken and resolution of the problem becomes closer. Also it is important to secure actions to move towards resolution instead of rummaging the problem within a great structure!
Typical questions asked at this stage are:
“What have you chosen to do?”
“What are your next steps?”
“How are you going to measure your success?”
“What support you will need to make this happen?”
“What will keep you committed and on track to take the chosen course of action?”
In summary, by coaching though this approach you can help others GROW, and the four steps are G Goal, R Reality, O Options, and W Will do, or future actions.
I personally find very encouraging and uplifting to see how a person that cares, even not being an expert on a particular problem or experience, can enlighten a fellow human being just by being willing and able to ask the right questions. Try it with others and try it with yourself! You may find out that coaching is an excellent alternative to giving what is often well intentioned, but almost never welcome… unsolicited advise.
