How to use the GROW coaching model in your mentoring
The GROW model
Karmjit shares how you can use the GROW model to approach your mentoring sessions and focus your objectives - whether you’re the mentor or the mentee.
The GROW model, developed by Sir John Whitmore in the late 1980s and ‘90s is a framework and structure used in mentoring and coaching conversations as well as other leadership discussions and project plans.
We want to share how you can use the GROW model to approach your mentoring sessions and help you organise your objectives and the steps you need to take to reach these, whether you’re the mentor or the mentee.
What is the GROW model?
The GROW model for mentoring and coaching stands for:
Goal: what do you want to achieve?
Reality: what’s happening now and what resources do you need?
Options: what can I do?
Will (or wrap up / way forward): what will I do?
You may wonder whether a model from the ‘80s will still have relevance if you apply it to a much more diverse and agile workforce and your mentoring. But the fact that the GROW model has remained popular in mentoring and coaching probably lies in its simplicity and ability to be adapted and applied to many different mentor conversations you may be having, especially at the outset.
Whether you are a mentor or a mentee the GROW model can add an effective structure and focus to your sessions, particularly those early sessions when you are teasing out what a mentee wants to focus on and get from the mentoring. You could apply the model to help a mentee improve their performance in an identified area of their career, support them to plan the steps to, and reach their longer-term career objectives.
Here are some tips for using the GROW model as a framework in your mentoring and examples of GROW model questions for mentoring sessions:
Goal
If you’re a mentee, this is where you think about what your objectives are for the mentoring, what career and development goals you want to work on, short term and long term. Don’t worry if you aren’t sure about all of these objectives - your mentor should work with you to focus them. You can also use the Goal part of the model to set objectives for each mentoring session so you have clear objectives for each discussion.
Some examples Goal questions in the GROW model you can work through are:
What is it that you want to achieve?
What problem are you trying to solve?
What is your long term objective?
What does a successful outcome look like for you?
What is the best use of this time?
What can we do in the time available?
What would be valuable for you during these sessions?
Reality
As a mentee, this is the place to self-assess where you are now and explore what might be stopping you from reaching your goals.
For a mentor, this is an important point to let your mentee tell their story and give their own insight about what is happening, what they’ve tried to do so far and tease out the direction of travel they want to go.
Some questions to consider for the Reality element of the GROW model include:
What is happening now?
What’s preventing you from reaching your goals?
What have you tried so far to address the situation? Why do you think these haven’t worked?
How do you feel about the current situation?
What is your biggest obstacle and concern and how do you think you can overcome it?
What personal changes can you make to get you closer to your goal?
Is there a gap in skills you can address?
Options
This is where a mentee / mentor can work together to explore options in order to take things forward. Here, a mentee should be generating ideas but it’s the role of the mentor to work these through, brainstorm ideas together and challenge their mentee on how realistic the different options are.
Some questions to cover in Options when using the GROW model are:
What’s your ideal outcome and what ideas do you have to get there?
Shall we brainstorm some of the ways you can approach this?
Which ideas are most realistic?
Do you have a preferred option?
Who do you think will need to support you with this option?
What are the advantages and disadvantages of this option?
What’s the second best option?
What if time / money / resource wasn’t an issue - what is the ideal outcome?
Is there a way a mentor can help with these options e.g. are they working in the industry you want to get into?
Will / wrap up / way forward
This is an important stage. You can have a great discussion on goals and ideas, but, to really get change, you will need to convert the options into action and commit to some next steps.
Some questions you can cover for the way forward in the GROW model are:
Which option(s) are you going with?
How will you go about it?
When will you do this?
Who do you need to talk to?
Who do you need to get on board?
What do you need to do first? How will you prioritise?
The GROW model’s structure and these suggested questions are just a guide, and you will of course need to adapt as your mentoring relationship develops, and, as with all forms of career and personal development, it’s worth regularly assessing the goals and options to make sure they are still relevant and haven’t changed.
We hope it’s useful in your approach and if you do use it as one of our mentors or mentees, do let us know what you think.
