We know that as you try to grow your business, you’re constantly looking for new ways to improve your team and ensure consistent development to achieve your business’s goals. One of the most popular frameworks which can help you keep your coaching and development on track is the GROW model. In this blog, we’re going to uncover how to use this framework to reach your team's potential and achieve your business goals.
What is the GROW Model?
As we briefly alluded to in the introduction, the GROW model is a well recognised coaching framework which follows a simple four step process to structure highly effective coaching and mentoring sessions with team members. Many people also like to use GROW to help guide their own personal development and make decisions to reach their objectives.
Initially developed in the 1980s by Sir John Whitmore, many coaches and leaders have used the framework for coaching sessions to aid business growth by guiding the conversation and ensuring that a plan can be developed. By making the most of the framework, businesses often find that the coaching conversations tend to be solution focused and a clear pathway to success is created.
The framework follows 4 steps, goal(s), reality, options and will, which we’ve broken down below -
Goal
The first step in the GROW framework is establishing the goal or goals. This is what you’re looking to achieve either as part of a personal development plan or as part of the ongoing business goals. Starting with this in mind helps both the coach and the coachee understand the existing business goals, and what is being worked towards while building trust and increasing collaboration between all parties involved.
We would recommend that you always consider structuring goals in the SMART format to help you ensure it is clear and achievable. We’ve covered how to set SMART goals in another blog that you can read here.
Questions you might want to ask to kick off this session include -
- What are you/we looking to achieve?
- What is your current understanding of the ongoing business goals you're working towards?
- Where would you like to be in x amount of time?
Reality
Once your goal has been established, you can then move on to understanding what the current situation is and dig into what steps can be taken to achieve the end goal. By exploring the reality, you’ll be able to dive deep into self awareness, understanding the individual’s values, beliefs, priorities and existing structures, while also empowering them to share their ideas, insights and knowledge.
When using the GROW model, the reality section is likely where you’re going to spend most of the time during the session. This is because you’ll be reflecting on how existing processes operate, the way the individual sees the situation, and the different steps they’re willing to take to achieve the end goal.
When discussing the reality, you might want to ask questions like -
- What have you tried so far?
- What is going well?
- How do you think you can optimise your processes to ensure consistency?
Options
Now that you’ve established the current situation, it’s time to start deliberating what options are available to ensure that you achieve success. You may have uncovered some of these actions naturally while discussing the reality, however, at this point of the session, you’re able to ensure that no stone gets left unturned because this is where the aim is to problem solve.
This can be made into a fun part of the session, no matter whether it’s for personal growth or to set achievable actions for the coachee (the person you’re coaching), so you might want to consider letting this be a time with no restrictions. No matter how structured or wild the idea may seem, it could be worth encouraging as many ideas as possible to be discussed and written. Bear in mind, just because an idea has come to the table, it doesn’t have to be an action, sometimes a combination of these ideas can help form an action which ultimately achieves success.
To start uncovering the available options, you could consider asking -
- What do you think we could do?
- How could we start this process?
- Where can we get the information we need?
Will
The final step in the process is to facilitate change. The “will” stage of the framework is where you decide what actions will be taken to help ensure that your goals are achieved. If you’ve followed the framework step by step, you’ll have seen how the ideas have developed themselves, so whether it be 1 actionable step or 10, you can ensure that you leave the session with a commitment to what will be done during a set period.
By focusing on the initial goal which was set, you could consider building a map with deadlines for each step to be completed to ensure that there’s full accountability. If you’re coaching someone, you might want to consider asking them what you can do to support them, so they know they’re not alone or how confident they feel that they’ll complete the action on a scale of 1-10. On the other hand, if you’re using the GROW model for your personal development, or to make decisions, you could identify any blockers which may get in the way or how you’re going to be held accountable for the action(s).
To wrap up the conversation and set some actionable steps, you might want to ask -
- What is your next step?
- When will you start taking action?
- How can we get started?
Why Should I Use the GROW Model?
The GROW model is a fantastic framework for establishing goals, assessing and understanding the current situation and creating actionable steps to reach your objectives. There’s a good reason that many businesses and coaches use the GROW coaching model to achieve positive results, and that’s down to its proven track record of success.
One of the major reasons the framework is so successful is down to how easy it is to adapt. Throughout the session, GROW encourages a conversation between the coach and the coachee, or deep reflection if it’s for yourself. By providing the opportunity to facilitate an open discussion with confidence to throw any solution in the mix, you’re allowing your team to allow their creativity to flow, leading to positive morale, innovative ideas and motivation towards executing the actions to reach your business goals.
How to Use the GROW Model in Business
To use the GROW model in your business, you could start by considering how you’ll initially implement the framework across the board. To ensure that you’re empowering success and conversations across all business functions, it could be worth ensuring that all members of your leadership team have bought into the framework. This could be done by inviting in a professional development coach or by holding a coaching session using the framework with the team.
Once you’ve got the buy in, you can ensure that all coaching sessions going forward follow the format and are documented to show this, making it easy to reflect on the actions in the next session. Alternatively, if you’re a solo leader, you can implement this by ensuring that you consistently utilise the framework in all of your coaching sessions, whether you have 1 employee or 100.
As we’ve identified a few times throughout the blog, successful GROW sessions revolve around having a flowing conversation that helps simplify the action steps. By reflecting throughout each stage of the session, you’ll be able to ensure that your whole team is aligned and plug any gaps which may slow down the success. This could ultimately help you to uncover further training and development opportunities along with fresh perspectives which foster business growth.
As an individual, you can also use the GROW framework for your business to make key informed decisions and increase your output towards personal goals. Although it may seem strange to be the coach and the coachee, by following the 4 steps, you can reflect on what you’re looking to achieve to ensure that you succeed, and exactly how you can get there, maintaining accountability throughout the whole process.
In Conclusion
The GROW framework has been popular for over 4 decades and has aided development for many people across the globe. No matter whether you’re looking to coach a member of your team, aid your personal development or make key decisions, utilising the GROW model is a great way to ensure that everything has been fully considered. By going step by step through the process in your coaching sessions, you can be sure to have actionable steps which the coachee feels motivated to do, propelling you towards reaching your business’s goals.
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