GROW Coaching Model Worksheet
Goal
What do you want to accomplish?
How will you know when it is
achieved?
Reality
What’s happening now in terms of
the goal?
How far am I away from the goal?
Obstacles
What is standing in the way –
Me?
Other people?
Lack of skills, knowledge, expertise?
Physical environment?
Options
What options do I have to resolve
the issues or obstacles?
Way Forward/Will
Which option will I commit to?
GROW Coaching Model Worksheet and Notes
Distinguish between end and performance goals. End goals are the final
Goal objective while performance goals identify the level that you believe will
What do you want to accomplish?
provide you with the best chance of achieving the end goal.
How will you know when it is Individual needs to feel ownership for the goal. The value of choice and
achieved? responsibility in terms of self-motivation should never be underestimated.
Goals must be agreed on between all the parties involved.
Sample Questions –
What is the aim of this discussion?
What do you want to achieve long term?
What does success look like?
How much personal control or influence do you have over your goal?
What would be a milestone on the way?
By when do you want to achieve it?
Is that positive, challenging and attainable?
How will you measure it?
Goals can’t be established until the current situation is known and understood.
Reality
Potential misperceptions of both the coach and the coachee. As a coach you
What’s happening now in terms of must work to detach yourself from the goal.
the goal?
A coach follows the interest or chain of thought of the coachee, while at the
How far am I away from the goal?
same time monitoring how that relates to the subject as a whole. Following
the coachee’s train of thought rather than asserting his own, the coach gains
the coachee’s confidence and trust.
Sample Questions –
What is happening right now? Only focus on fact, what is really
happening at the moment. (WHAT, WHEN, WHERE, HOW MUCH, HOW OFTEN)
Who is directly and indirectly involved?
If things are not going well with this issue, who else gets drawn in?
If things are not going well, what happens to you?
What about others involved, what happens to them?
What have you done about this so far? With what results?
How often have you tried?
What is missing in this situation?
What is holding you back from finding a way forward?
Both coach and coachee should understand how the obstacles is stopping the
Obstacles individual from going straight from where they are to where they want to be.
What is standing in the way?
Check for obstacles in four areas: (1) the person themselves, (2) caused by
other people, (3) a lack of skills, knowledge or experience, and (4) caused by
the physical environment.
A coach needs to understand how obstacles are obstructing the coachee from
their goal.
Purpose is not to find the right answer but to create and list as many
Options alternative courses of action as possible.
What options do I have to resolve
the issues or obstacles?
Quantity is more important than quality at this point. If preferences,
censorship, ridicule, obstacles, or the need for completeness are expressed
during the collection process, potentially valuable contributions will be missed
and the choices will be limited.
Coach does all he/she can to draw these options from the coachee or from the
team he is coaching/managing.
When does the coach add input – once the coachee has exhausted all
possibilities, the coach may simply say, “I have another couple of options.”
Reviewing the options can lead to additional options
Sample Questions:
What options do you have for steps to resolve this issue?
What else might you do?
What would someone who handles this kind of issue really do well?
What if you had more time for this issue, what might you try?
What if you had less time? What might that force you to try?
Imagine that you had more energy and confidence, what could you try
then?
What if somebody said: "Money no object"? What might you try then?
If you had total power, what might you try then?
What if you could start again?
If the constraints you identified earlier were removed - what could you
do then?
What should you do?
Would you like another suggestion?
What are the costs and benefits of each of these ideas?
Way Forward/Will Purpose is to convert a discussion into a decision.
Which option will I commit to? “What are you going to do?” Not, “What are you thinking of doing?’ or
“Which of these do you prefer?”
Other sample questions-
“When are you going to do it?”
“Will this action meet your goal?”
“What obstacles might you meet along the way?”
“Who needs to know?”
“What support do you need”
“How and when are you going to get that support?”
“What other considerations do you have?”
Whitmore, J. (2009). Coaching for performance. Boston: Nicholas Brealey Publishing.
Wikipedia. GROW model retrieved on May 8, 2011. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GROW_model.
