Ask yourself these simple questions & you will G.R.O.W.

, Ask yourself these simple questions & you will G.R.O.W.Today I want to share with you one of my own tools for coaching with my clients. It is a great way to help them G.R.O.W. – By asking yourself some of these simple questions when you become challenged or by using them to help and support your teams you will get better results through the GROW coaching process. Start to work through the questions in the set order. Once you have established the G=goal move onto R=reality, ask yourself questions here until that becomes clear, then move onto O=options.. Finally getting to the all important W=what will you do..

GOAL

  • What is the aim of this discussion?
  • What do you want to achieve long term?
  • What does success look like?
  • How much personal control or influence do you have over your goal?
  • What would be a milestone on the way?
  • By when do you want to achieve it?
  • Is that positive, challenging and attainable?
  • How will you measure it?

REALITY

  • What is happening right now? Only focus on fact, what is really happening at the moment.
  • (WHAT, WHEN, WHERE, NOW MUCH, HOW OFTEN)
  • Who is directly and indirectly involved?
  • If things are not going well with this issue, who else gets drawn in?
  • If things are not going well, what happens to you?
  • What about others involved, what happens to them?
  • What have you done about this so far? With what results?
  • How often have you tried?
  • What is missing in this situation?
  • What is holding you back from a way forward?
  • Intuitively, what is really going on here?

OPTIONS

  • What options do you have for steps to resolve this issue?
  • What else might you do?
  • What would someone who handles this kind of issue really do well?
  • What if you had more time for this issue, what might you try?
  • What if you had less time? What might that force you to try?
  • Image that you had more energy and confidence, what could you do then?
  • What is somebody said: “Money no object” What might you try then?
  • If you had total power, what might you try then?
  • What if you could start again?
  • If the constraints you identified earlier were removed – what could you do then?
  • What should you do?
  • Would you like another suggestion?
  • What are the costs and benefits of each of these ideas?

WILL

  • What option or options do you choose?
  • To what extent does this meet all of your objectives?
  • What are your criteria and measurements for success?
  • When, precisely, will you start and finish each action step?
  • What could hinder you taking these steps?
  • What personal resistance do you have to taking these steps?
  • What will you do to eliminate these external and internal factors?
  • Who needs to know what your plans are?
  • What support do you need, and from whom?
  • What could I do to support you?
  • What commitment, on a 1 – 10 scale do you have to taking agreed actions?
  • What prevents this from being a 10?
  • What could you do to alter or raise your commitment closer to 10?
  • Is there anything else you want to talk about now, or are we finished?

By following these questions (in this order) it will help you to uncover the appropriate answer to the challenge or questions you are facing. It is often th case that you actually know the answer, you just need some clarification or logic applied to draw it from you. Clearly these things are much better facilitaited and coached (See me for details :o). If you are a coach I recommend you memorize and learn the process and the questions here . I use them nearly every day.

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1 Comment

  1. Dag Nybo 4th June 2010 at 23:05

    GROW is a very interesting methodology/process, Ian… Have you read Effective Coaching by Myles Downey?

    Reply

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