GROW Model
Goal · Reality · Options · Will
What is the GROW model?
- Four stages of questions: Goal, Reality, Options, Will
- A structure that helps people find the answer themselves
- Holding back advice in Reality makes or breaks it
When you adopt GROW, what actually changes in a one-on-one is not the wording of the questions but who does the talking and who owns the decision. A 30-minute session in which the leader talked for 20 minutes and the team member listened for 10 flips to one in which the team member talks for 20 and the leader asks questions for 10. The conclusion is often not very different from what the leader would have said. But whether that conclusion came from the team member first determines the follow-through rate the following week.
In practice, many companies use T-GROW, which adds a T (Topic) at the front. Letting the person choose the topic first with 'What would be good to talk about today?' reduces the tendency for leaders to push an agenda they prepared in advance. For a 30-minute session, a workable split is about 5 minutes for Goal, 10 for Reality, 10 for Options, and 5 for Will, but if the Reality stage wraps up in under 3 minutes, it is usually superficial. Pile up at least three options before weighing feasibility, and at the end ask 'On a scale of 1 to 10, how confident are you that you can carry out this plan?' If the answer is below 7, break the plan into smaller pieces. Conversely, when only the leader holds the relevant information, the situation calls for teaching and feedback, not coaching.
The most common misconception is that coaching is just a matter of asking questions. When a directive disguised as a question, such as 'That works too, but have you considered Option A?', is repeated two or three times, team members treat the session as a guess-the-answer game and end up saying, 'Just tell me which way you want to go and I’ll do it.' If the Reality stage is mistaken for cross-examination and 'Why did you do that?' is fired off repeatedly, the conversation turns into an interrogation, and from the next session on, meetings keep getting postponed. Even riskier is using coaching to paper over structural problems such as understaffing or lack of authority. When the conclusion is that it is an individual’s lack of commitment, the team member takes on something they cannot solve alone, and cynicism spreads to the entire 1 on 1 program.
Seungbin JeonAn instructor who draws on psychology expertise to support communication and leadership growth in organizations
John KimInstructor John Kim, author of B2B Marketing Design and CEO of Nanum ConsultingIt was developed in 1980s Britain by Graham Alexander, Alan Fine, and John Whitmore. Sir John Whitmore introduced it in his book Coaching for Performance (1992), and it spread worldwide. Its roots lie in the 'Inner Game' philosophy, which grew out of tennis coaching.
Consider a hypothetical case: Sales Team 2 at Company A, an industrial valve manufacturer with 180 employees. New orders in Q3 stood at only 62% of target, and Kim, a five-year employee, was spending all of their time managing existing accounts. Over 8 weeks, the manager held 30-minute 1 on 1s every other week using the GROW structure.
- In the first session, when the manager asked, 'What would you like to have decided 30 minutes from now?', Kim chose 'where to find 3 new accounts' as the topic.
- In the Reality stage, the team leader set aside the advice they had prepared and listened for 10 minutes. Spreading out the weekly schedule, Kim said on their own, 'Of last month's 14 visits, 12 were to existing accounts.'
- At the Options stage, the manager twice repeated 'Shall we look at three more?', and Kim came up with seven options, including re-contacting dormant customers, joining insurance agent seminars, and asking existing contacts for introductions.
- At the Will stage, when asked 'On a scale of 1 to 10, how confident are you that you can do it?', Kim answered 5. After the plan was cut down to 'call 8 dormant customers within 2 weeks,' the score rose to 8.
- Eight weeks later, Kim’s share of visits to new customers rose from 14% to 41%, producing 2 new orders and 6 quote requests, while the manager’s talking time in sessions fell from 18 minutes in the first session to 6 minutes.