GROW Model for Product Leaders
The practical coaching model driven by a powerful coaching philosophy
What is the GROW Model?
GROW is more than a coaching model loved by the coaching community. It is also a top leadership tool that works across all disciplines and cultures. With its four deceptively simple steps, GROW has proved successful all over the world. It forms the backbone of coaching in many organizations and universities globally, due to the outstanding results. It helps people to achieve success personally or as part of a team.
G: Goal – Defining short and long-term goals
R: Reality – Exploring the current situation
O: Options – Identify and evaluate possible options
W: Will – Define what you will be doing and by when
Why is the GROW Model Effective?
The GROW model can be effective regardless of your leadership style. It provides a realistic and straightforward way of getting things done. One of the best ways to understand its effectiveness is to look at the Inner Game method, which inspired GROW.
GROW Model and the Inner Game
The GROW model was inspired by the Inner Game method by tennis coach Timothy Gallwey. He realized that despite understanding his players’ shortcomings, he could not get them to fix them by simply explaining their flaws to them. The parallel between the GROW model and Gallwey’s approach can be understood with this example. Asking tennis players to keep their eyes on the ball might have worked for a short while but it was hard to make it stick in their heads. So, Gallwey asked his players to say ‘bounce’ (out loud) when the ball bounced and say ‘hit’ (out loud) when they hit the ball. This resulted in the players keeping their eyes on the ball and improving their performance without much effort.
What makes Gallwey’s approach and the GROW model similar is to create awareness-raising questions to help people discover solutions to their problems by understanding what they might or might not be doing wrong. The argument here is that many people fail to learn from experience and use available knowledge to improve and move forward
Limitations of the GROW Model
A criticism of the GROW model has been that approaches like GROW do not account for philosophical aspects. This means that while GROW might be suitable for goal-oriented fields such as business or sports, it is not suitable for life-coaching conversations. However, a counter-argument for this has been that GROW has, over the years evolved to include trans-personal goals.
The GROW model, like any other model of its kind, isn’t free of limitations. Below are some of the limitations of the GROW model.
Goals Need to be Realistic: The coachee can end up having exaggerated goals that he/she might think are achievable, despite not being realistic. The limitation of the GROW model in terms of goal setting is that both the coach and coachee need to have realistic goals.
The Coach Might Not be Aware of Ground Realities: Many organizations hire coaches for training sessions. If the coach is not aware of the ground realities, the GROW model might not be effective since the information received by him/her can be misleading.
Uninterested Coachee: Unless the coachee is motivated enough to participate during the coaching session, GROW will not be effective as a framework. Many employees who attend training and brainstorming sessions can lack attention, motivation and interest in what they are being taught. Hence, making the entire exercise useless.
Lack of Will: As the final part of the GROW model is to establish the will to get things done, this can be a part which might be skipped by the coachee. This might particularly on people who are uninterested and lack the will to act. Some might even do so in an organization to maintain the status quo to keep a hold on organizational affairs by promoting inefficiency.
The GROW model is like a vehicle. It is the driver who needs to ensure that he/she can use it to its full potential to yield desired results. For GROW to be effective, both the coach and coachee need to show interest and resolve to find the best way forward to set goals, remove obstacles, address ground realities and find actionable solutions to achieve desired goals.
How does the model work?
GROW stands for goal, reality, options (or obstacles) and will (or way forward).
Goal
Like writing a story, you start with a goal – the endpoint that you would like to get to.
The goal should be SMART (specific, measurable and achievable in a realistic time frame). But the goal should be challenging too.
It’s also important to make sure the goal is relevant and fits in with their career aims, as well as team and company objectives. For example, there’s no point in a motion designer setting the goal of learning stop-motion animation if there are no plans to use it.
You’ll need to set the goal before moving on to the other stages in the model, but it’s something you’ll return to as you progress.
Focusing on the goal keeps you or your staff aligned to the solution rather than overthinking the problem.
You might ask “what do you want to achieve and when?” and “how will you know that the goal has been achieved?”.
How can leaders help their employees at this stage?
Set up a meeting to discuss what they want to achieve
Find out when they would like to achieve their goal
Determine how the goal will be measured
For example, Rachael is a Jr. IT technician who wants to earn a promotion before the end of the year. Her progress would be measured by completing training course modules and passing a final exam.
Reality
To achieve your goal, you need to understand where you are today (the current reality).
This is an opportunity to reflect on what is happening now. You should focus on the potential opportunities, rather than problems.
Having this reflection period allows you and your staff to look at things with a fresh perspective.
How can leaders help their employees at this stage?
Ask your employee to evaluate the current situation themselves (who, what, when, why)
Provide feedback, analyse assumptions and offer any of your own observations
Check whether they’ve already made steps towards their goal. Has a solution started to present itself?
Coming back to our example, Rachael observes that her current team is made up of two juniors (including themselves), and one senior. The senior IT technician has been in their current role for at least ten years. There are other teams in the company, which follow the same organisational structure.
Rachael has already enrolled on the training course and successfully completed the first module, so she has already made some progress towards the goal.
Options/obstacles
Now you’ve set your goal and worked out the current situation, you can determine what your options are to get to that place and how to get around any obstacles.
Brainstorm all possible choices and narrow down the best ones. At this stage, it’s important not to make the decisions on someone else’s behalf, so offer suggestions gently.
How can leaders help their employees at this stage?
Get your employee to list any problems they might encounter and the ways they could overcome these
Offer your feedback and your own suggestions
Encourage your staff member to make some decisions about what they’ll do next
Rachael, the IT technician in our example, voices that there is no opportunity for promotion in her current team. She suggests that she might have to seek out a senior role in another team or – worst case scenario – look outside the company.
You ask how she would feel about moving teams or even leaving the business altogether and reassure her that there are opportunities in another department.
Rachael says she would miss her current team, but they are supportive and would encourage her to go for it. She decides that she wants to aim for a promotion in another team as this is the best option for her.
The way forward/will
Once you’ve explored your options and decided upon the best one, you can work out the way forward to meet the goal.
This can sometimes naturally flow from the conversation of reality – now you know your options, how will you proceed?
How can leaders help their employees at this stage?
Work with your employee to make a plan with specific actions and time frames
Ask who else – if anyone – will need to help or if any other measures need to be put in place
Agree on how you’ll continue to provide support and check progress
Rachael plans to complete the training course and pass the final exam two months before the end of the year, so she has time to apply for the position in another team.
You help her prepare a learning plan and set up weekly one-to-ones so you can support her through the process and discuss any changes or new obstacles.
What effects can the GROW Model have on staff?
The GROW Model is simple and isn’t designed to be followed so strictly.
It doesn’t have to be a linear process. While you do need to set the goal and have a conversation about the reality, you can then jump around between all four parts.
For example, our IT technician Rachael might later discover that the senior in her current team will be retiring in the new year. Now a new option is available, you work with her to reassess her way forward.
Unsurprisingly, Rachael decides to push her goal time frame back until the new year so she can apply for the senior role within her team.
The GROW Model can also be used in different ways – whether that be for just yourself, someone you manage or for a whole team.
It’s there to help facilitate conversations with your staff, so they can continue to develop their skills and career.
🔥 Top three quotes from our Instagram page
Strategy is about making choices, and trade-offs; it's about deliberately choosing to be different. - Micheal Porter
The manager asks how and when; the leader asks what and why. — Warren G Bennis
Leadership is the art of getting someone else to do something you want done because he wants to do it. - Dwight D Eisenhower
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