The GROW coaching model: a practical guide with questions

GROW was developed in the UK in the 1980s by Graham Alexander, Alan Fine and Sir John Whitmore, and popularised by Whitmore's Coaching for Performance. It has survived because it does one thing extremely well: it stops a manager giving advice for long enough that the other person has to think.

The four stages

G — Goal

Establish what the person wants. Two levels: the session goal ("what do you want to have decided by the time we finish?") and the longer-term goal ("what are you working towards?").

Questions that work:

• "What would you like to focus on today?"
• "What would a good outcome look like by the end of this conversation?"
• "How will you know you've got there?"
• "Is that in your control?"

Getting a specific, owned goal is most of the work. "I want to be better at managing my time" is not a goal; "I want to leave on time three days a week without dropping anything" is.

R — Reality

Explore what is actually happening now, without judgement and without leaping to solutions. This is the stage managers rush, and the stage that produces the insight.

Questions that work:

• "What's happening at the moment?"
• "What have you already tried, and what happened?"
• "What's the effect of this on you? On the team?"
• "What's your part in it?"
• "What's stopping you?" — then stay quiet.

The silence is a technique, not an accident. Most people's second answer is more honest than their first.

O — Options

Generate possibilities. The aim is quantity before quality, and the coach contributes last if at all.

Questions that work:

• "What could you do?"
• "And what else?" (Repeat. The fourth answer is usually the interesting one.)
• "If the budget/time/person weren't a constraint, what would you do?"
• "What would you advise a colleague in this position?"
• "Would it be useful if I offered a thought?" — ask permission, and only after they have run dry.

W — Will

Convert options into commitment. Vague endings are why coaching conversations feel pleasant and change nothing.

Questions that work:

• "What will you do?"
• "By when, specifically?"
• "On a scale of one to ten, how likely are you to do it?" If under eight: "What would make it a nine?"
• "What might get in the way, and how will you handle it?"
• "What support do you need from me?"

A worked conversation

A team leader, Priya, coaches Sam, a supervisor who is working late every night.

Goal. Sam starts with "I need more hours in the day." Priya works it into something actionable: by the end of the session, Sam wants a plan to leave by six on at least three days a week without work slipping.

Reality. Sam's list of what he does after five is revealing: the daily figures, checking two colleagues' paperwork, and answering the shared inbox. He has tried starting earlier, which extended the day at both ends. When Priya asks "what's your part in it?", Sam's second answer is the real one — he does not trust the checks to anyone else after an error three months ago.

Options. Sam generates: train both colleagues on the paperwork standard; sample-check rather than check everything; move the figures to the morning; set inbox hours; ask for an admin hour. Priya asks "and what else?" twice and gets: agree with her which of these she will back if it goes wrong.

Will. Sam commits to training both colleagues this week, sample-checking from the following Monday at 1 in 5, and reviewing the error rate with Priya in three weeks. Confidence: seven — because he is worried about the error rate. It becomes a nine when Priya agrees she will own the consequence of any error in the trial period.

Notice that Priya never once said "you should delegate the checking". Sam did, and that is why it will happen.

Common mistakes

1. Advice disguised as a question. "Have you thought about just delegating the checking?" is advice with a question mark. People know.
2. Skipping Reality. The fastest route to a solution the person will not implement.
3. Stopping at Options. A great conversation with no commitment is entertainment.
4. Coaching when you should be managing. If the required standard is not being met, say so plainly. Coaching supports a performance process; it does not substitute for one. See coaching vs mentoring.
5. No follow-up. If you never ask about the commitment again, you have taught them it did not matter.
6. Using it on someone who wants an answer. If a colleague needs to know the correct dosage, the legal position or where the file is, tell them.

Where GROW falls short

• It assumes the person has the capability and information to solve the problem. Sometimes they do not, and coaching becomes an evasion.
• It handles a discrete problem well and long-term development poorly — that is mentoring's territory.
• Four tidy stages can feel mechanical if you run it as a script. Real conversations loop back to Reality repeatedly.
• It is largely silent on the power dynamic when the coach is also the person who writes your appraisal, which in a workplace is usually the case.

How to evidence coaching in your ILM portfolio

Level 5 — Unit 505 Coaching and mentoring in a leadership role is the dedicated unit, and coaching is one of the best-evidenced activities in the whole qualification. Suitable evidence:

• Session records or a coaching log across several sessions, showing the structure used and the actions agreed (anonymised and with consent)
• A reflective account analysing your own coaching practice, including where you gave advice instead of asking
• Witness testimony from the person you coached
• Assessment observation of a live coaching conversation, or a video clip — capped at 15 minutes
• A coaching agreement or contracting document as a workplace document

Level 3 — Unit 303 Managing the performance of others where coaching sits inside performance management, and Unit 302 Managing personal and professional development for your own development as a coach.

Get consent before recording anyone, and anonymise personal information. Video evidence for your portfolio covers the practicalities.

Where to go next

• Coaching vs mentoring
• ILM Level 5 — includes Unit 505 Coaching and mentoring in a leadership role.
• Delegation