Lesson 5: Coach for performance (5.5)
The coaching process: GROW
Many managers worry that they don’t have the skills required to be a great coach. Relax. As Ramesh said, "if you bring the intention to help, and believe in the person that you're coaching, there is very little you can do wrong when you're coaching."
The GROW model is a well-known approach to coaching used in thousands of organizations around the world. GROW stands for:
• Goal: Set a goal for a conversation, using a neutral observation, “I noticed you’ve been working a lot of long hours lately. What can we do about that?” or "You’re great with clients. How can we leverage that skill internally?"
• Reality: Listen and use questions to explore the issue with your coachee. Believe it or not, listening is the hardest part of coaching. Don’t plan your next statement while the other person is talking. Listen at a deeper level than you’ve ever listened before. Listen like the coachee is going to say something more important than you could ever say. Then, ask genuine questions—questions to which you don’t know the answer. Engage in an honest exploration and dialogue with your coachee; one that generates “aha” moments for both of you.
• Options: Consider ways, or experiments, to help the coachee improve his/her performance. Avoid asking questions in an effort to arrive at a pre-planned conclusion; people see through that behavior, and it will erode your coachee’s trust.
• Way forward: Plan next steps, for example, select an experiment to try and plan to meet about the results. Do this with a spirit of curiosity and the awareness that the experiment might or might not improve performance. If it does, great! If not, you have more information for your next experiment.
Summary: The GROW model
Click the forward arrow to hear more from Ramesh and Kirstan on how to coach.