Use coaching to empower others

14/12/06 11:31 Filed in: Coaching basics | GROW process | LIFE skills
You want to help a colleague achieve her goal. You need a process and a list of key skills. You need GROW LIFE.

GROW is a time-tested, user-friendly process you can use to help your colleague achieve her goal. Your role in using the process is to ask questions, move your colleague through the process, and get your colleague to commit to taking 1-2 doable action steps.

So, what does GROW stand for and what should you ask?
  • Goal: What’s your goal?
  • Reality: What’s going on?
  • Options: What can you do?
  • Will do: What will you do?
Take 2 minutes (yes, a full 120 seconds) and memorize what GROW stands for and 1-4 of the questions you should ask. (Did you take a full 120 seconds?) Now, please recite out loud the GROW process and 1-4 of the questions. Thanks. Please keep reading.

In addition to a process (GROW), you need a list of skills. You need LIFE:
  • Listening
  • Inquiring
  • Focusing
  • Encouraging
What’s involved in each of these 4 skills?
  • Listen fully to your colleague, not to the thoughts in your head. Listen to really understand. And listen at least 80% of the time. Remember, “listen” respelled is “silent.”
  • Inquire through questions and inviting statements. If you listen a minimum of 80% of the time, you have a maximum of 20% of the time for asking questions (“What’s your goal?”) and for making inviting statements like, “Please talk more about that.” Don’t use the 20% for telling your story or giving advice.
  • Focus your colleague on achieving her goal through SMART action steps. Move your colleague through the GROW process so that she ends the conversation with 1-2 action steps that she is committed to taking. Don’t let your colleague wander.
  • Encourage your colleague. How? By paraphrasing, clarifying, and acknowledging progress.
Take action:
  1. Memorize what GROW LIFE stands for. Recite out loud what GROW LIFE stands for.
  2. Explain GROW LIFE to a colleague. Print out and use this article as necessary.
  3. Use GROW LIFE to help your colleague achieve her goal.
Be a coach. GROW LIFE. Today.