The responsibilities of being a leader are countless. One of the most important is being a coach and mentor. Coaching is an essential skill to the advancement of your team. Coaching your workforce will help develop great employees, which in turn develops a great organization.
While coaching, it’s vital that we help team members clarify what goals need to be achieved, both professionally and personally. Here’s the $100,000 question: How do we cultivate our coaching skills to assist in this development?
One of the methods I like to use is called the GROW model. GROW is an acronym that stands for goal, current reality, options and will. The GROW model is based around the theory that using questions rather than instructions will foster change more readily.
My leadership team is made up of 6 highly motivated individuals. They all have aspirations of climbing into top leadership positions. Of course, completing college is a big topic of our coaching sessions. Recently, Brian, one of my supervisors stated that his wish was to achieve his Bachelors degree by September 2014. This was a great opportunity to put some water on this thought and GROW this goal.
Goal
Active listening is extremely important in coaching. As we listen to our team members, be in tune for some useful information that will allow you to assist with their development. In Brian’s case, his desire to complete his college in the allotted time frame became his goal. Some of the questions I asked included:
- What is the best way to achieve your career goals?
- How much college do you already have?
- Are you enrolled in school presently?
Once it was determined Brian had the classes needed to meet this tight deadline, I documented the goal description on his coaching sheet.
Reality
A reality check helps to determine the starting point. Setting goals is the easy part; it’s the starting point that needs to be determined. If your goal is to land on the moon in two years, but you still don’t have a rocket, Houston we have a problem.
Lead the discussion towards what’s going on today with the individual’s current responsibilities, including any family obligations, financial readiness, and support structure.
- In Brian’s case my questions included:
- Do you have the time for this added responsibility?
- What does your family think?
- Are there any other goals that would interfere in completing college?
- What keeps you from completing this goal?
These questions allowed me to determine that Brian’s family was supportive; that he was in good financial waters, and that there were no other goals at the present that could take him off task.
Options
This is where brainstorming comes into play. Investigate the options for reaching this goal. As you brainstorm, this is a good time to offer your own suggestions. Remember though, with this exercise it is important to allow the team member to do most of the talking.
You can guide the discussion to allow for some ah ha moments. Some of the questions to ask here may include:
- What else could you do instead?
- How could this goal change for you?
- What specific things will you do to make this goal a reality?
Will
Now that we have a goal, understand our current reality and have our options laid out, there should be no reason why this goal cannot be accomplished, right? Well, not so fast! Now it comes down to executing the options for success. We can be our own worst enemies when it comes to reaching our goals.
In this step we need our team member to commit to a precise path of actions to move this process forward. My questions to Brian included:
- What will you do now and by when?
- What can stop you from moving forward?
- How can you keep yourself motivated?
- Is there any further support you need from me?
One of the things I like to do after this coaching session is to write the goal for the team member and list under each letter what was discussed. This way they will have a written document to reference. It is also important in future coaching sessions to follow up and determine the progress. This will continue to show your support, and foster the will to succeed.
Conclusion
It’s important to guide and coach your team members. There is no better feeling than assisting your team in reaching their goals. When you use the GROW model for coaching, it keeps things on a good path, and gives you a specific standard to use for the team’s success.