Asking Coaching Questions Using GROW Model

As mentioned in the previous article, coaching is one of the tools that leaders can use to improve productivity, increase performance and boost morale. One of the most popular coaching model used by many coaches around the world is the GROW  model.

In this conversation model, a coach asks questions that explore the coachee's Goal, Reality of current situation, Options for improvement and Will to do them.

Let us look at some of the questions that a coach can ask using this GROW  model;

Goal questions

1. What do you want to achieve in life?
2. What is your career goal?
3. What do you want to achieve x years from now?
4. Where do you see yourself 3 years from now in this organization?
5. Which area in your job that you want to improve?
6. What do you want to discuss in our coaching session today?

Reality questions

1. Where are you now relative to your career goal?
2. What aspects of your job that give you the greatest pleasure?
3. Which areas in your job that you want to improve?
4. What makes you happy and fulfilled?
5. What have you achieved so far in your career? life? finance? etc

Options questions

1. What are you planning to do to achieve your goals?
2. What actions will you take to improve yourself?
3. What kind of support do you need to move you closer to your goals?
4. When are you planning to implement your plan?
5. How do you measure your success in moving towards your goals?
6. What new skills, knowledge or attitude that you need to have to move you closer to your goals?

Will questions

1. On a scale of 1 to 10, how motivated are you to achieve your goals?
2. What are the possible challenges that you will face to move towards your goals?
3. How will you overcome the challenges? What is your plan?
4. On an emotional level, what emotions can prevent you from achieving your goals? How will you manage them?
5. How will you motivate your self to stay focus on your goals?
6. How will you reward your self when you achieve the milestones in moving toward your goals?

These are some possible questions that can be asked when coaching using this model. You can create your own questions to be asked as well. Don't limit yourself to the ones above. 

Even though the model provides a step by step guide, in real coaching session, things will not go as smoothly as in the model. A good coach knows when to move forward with the questions or stay on the questions until the coachee is clear with what he wants or when to backtrack and go to the previous steps. The key is to stay flexible and sensitive to the need of the coachee.

Try the questions in your coaching session today and you will see the results in your coachee. 

Achieving Career Goals

Fail to plan, plan to fail. I am sure most of us heard this maxim before. As with anything worth achieving in life, we need a good plan to advance our career and move up the corporate ladder.

From my reading and personal experience, there are several steps that we can take to plan our career (and personal life).

Know where we are - In this step, we do a self-audit, analyzing our own knowledge, skills and attitude (KSA) that help us to perform our current jobs. We can ask the opinion of our trusted colleagues or friends and be open to their feedback.

Know where we want to go - The next step is to ‘peek’ into the future and ask ourselves what we want to achieve in our career. An increased in salary? A promotion? A career change? Another important questions to ask are “When do I want to achieve it?” and “What set of KSA do I need?”

Identify the gap - At this step, we look back at our current set of KSA and compare them with the ones needed to achieve our objective. For example, to be promoted from a sales executive to say, a sales manager, we need strategic marketing skills.

Identify resources - In order for us to upgrade our KSA as identified in step 3 above, we need resources. Money, time and people (contacts) are examples of resources that can help us. We also need other tools such as books, audio tapes, seminars and training.

Write an action plan - Next, grab a pen and a piece of paper and write an action plan on how to upgrade our KSA. Remember to make it as specific and objective as possible (ex ; I will attend two sales training per year beginning next year; I will read one sales book per month starting next week). As you can see, we need to include time frame as well in our plan.

Take action daily – Lastly, we need to take action daily based on our written action plan to move us closer to our desired career and personal growth (ex ; reading books on sales one hour every day; saving 5% of monthly salary for personal development).

One important point to remember is that our plan is not carved in stone. As we go long, we may need to re-adjust our plan as we find new resources or discover new opportunities.