I started using Relenta CRM  for my business when I realised that every other system was letting me down

We market the world’s first online coaching system which guides the coach during an actual coaching session.

I started with the free system but as the business has grown now have a plan.

I find it useful in 3 areas.

- To keep all contacts and emails in one place
- To keep a to do list for non contact items
- To send out mailshots to potential customers.

I like a lot of features. What I would like to change is

- Being able to move activities directly from the diary as in google calendar
- Being able to adjust the date of activities with out having to open them.

I think it is a great little system for small businesses.

Bob

The client has described their problem and I have created a end point in the virtual world, with some object representing the prize or goal. Then they have described the obstacles between them and the goal and I have created objects to signify each obstacle. We then discuss the obstacles in turn and start to find ways around them. We conclude as with a conventional coaching session where I recap and use the message facility to recap on their actions.

Thus far it has followed a fairly conventional coaching session using GROW. However what I have found is the physical representation of the obstacles invites me to pursue lines of questioning that I might not use in a ‘normal’ session.

For instance asking how close the obstacles appear to the client, how big they are, are they the same size in relation to one another, if we remove them all is the way to the goal clear? Inviting the client to come and look at the situation from the perspective of standing on one of the obstacles often seems to bring up new ideas.

There seems to be something about the physical representation of the obstacle and the immersive nature of the space that creates a very interesting ‘map’ of the client’s world and view of the problem. The clients have found that the physical representation seems to allow them to view the situation in a more detached and useful way. Both of us have a good recall of the sessions as the environment seems to provide a number of ‘anchor points’ to the conversation.

I wondered if anyone else has done any work in this area or if you know of any other ways of representing the client’s world apart from just talking about it. I am thinking about the constellations work of Bert Hellinger, where I have seen a situation represented by stones.

I will be looking further into this but I would be interested in other’s experiences.

Cheers, Bob

It reminded me of a few years ago when I devised a special version of GROW for helping people stop smoking.

GROW works very well for issues like this. The key is to get down to actual facts in the Obstacles section.

The Goal and Reality stages are usually pretty easy for smoking. I.e.
Goal – to give up smoking by a certain date
Reality – what you smoke now and when.

The interesting area is the Obstacles section. The Obstacles to giving up smoking are usually pretty complex and made up a combination of social, medical and psychological factors. You have to really get to the bottom of all of them if you are to have any hope of permanent success.

As with most types of GROW you need to separate out the different factors and start to find out the facts. Often you will find it is hard for the clients to think clearly about the Obstacles but will come up with many justifications and excuses. Here is a dialogue from a CoachMaster session with Mark, a 20 a day smoker.

Me – What are the blocks to stopping smoking Mark?
Mark – I would not enjoy life much if I did not smoke

Me – What does it actually mean that you ‘would not enjoy life’?
Mark – I would not have the social chat I enjoy with my fellow smokers, I would put on weight and I would miss the nicotine.

Me – So missing on social contact with other smokers is one Obstacle to stopping?
Mark – Yes that is part of it.

We went on to discuss address the issues of putting on weight and missing the nicotine. The key is to see the importance of getting past the ‘concept’ of ‘I would not enjoy life’ to the actual Obstacles then you can deal with them.

It would be pointless if I had just accepted ‘I would not enjoy life much as an Obstacle because I had no idea what it really meant. By getting down to actual facts of what he would miss we had a clear target and could devise Options to get around them.

Usually it is clear when you have a clear Obstacle because you can see how you can create Options around it. If you can’t see how to create Options around a particular Obstacle the chances are it is not clear.

I will look more at the Obstacles around smoking and other health goals in another blog.

We have interest from a large bank who want to use it as part of their appraisal process and an international computer services company who want to use it to coach their sales people.

If you know uses for GROW that we have not thought of then please leave a comment or send me an email.

Cheers,  Bob

I have recently started a pilot study to for coaches who want to work with others on weight loss and fitness goals using my online coaching software which is known as CoachMaster.

I have produced a special version of CoachMaster which is completely focused on helping others to lose weight or gain fitness.  The complete GROW process is laid out for the coaches.  They connect online with the clients and lead them through a structured GROW process.  Goal, Reality, Obstacles, Options and Way forward.  The idea is that at the end the clients leave with a set of to dos that they are confident will lead them to their goal.

Initial feedback from the coaches is quite good.  They like the fact that the entire process is laid out for them with questions hints and advice.  I think with a little supervision that coaches who a reasonably familiar with GROW should be able to give an expert session

I will be reporting more of the results as I receive them.

If you know anyone who would like to take part as a coach or a client please let me know. bob (at) bobgriffiths dot com

Thanks,

Bob

In this blog I would like to address the use of GROW in a team environment.

Grow can be used in many different situations but it is especially valuable where there is a team of people who are (supposedly) all heading towards the same goal.

You can use GROW in exactly the same way as if you were using it with an individual.  However it is possible within a team there could be issues within the team which would prevent GROW from working well.

For instance there could be:

• A low level of trust between team members
• Team members who do not tell the truth to each other
• Poor interpersonal relationships between existing team members
• A lack of clarity and agreement on the team purpose
• Disputes about the level and type of resources available
• Individuals fighting for the their own corner and working in silos

I have worked with teams who exhibited all of these behaviours.  Some times at the same time!  All or any of them can prevent GROW working well or even at all.

Let me give you an example.   I was working with a technical support team who  were getting a lot of criticism for not sorting out queries fast enough.  The team was torn between trying to service their existing customers and trying to implement the various other projects that they had to do.

I was aware that the team had a lot of the issues which I had detailed above and that it was unlikely to work if I simply sat the team down and asked them to work through GROW on the issue.

The way I dealt with it was by sending out confidential questionnaires to ask individuals perceptions of the problem and interviewing key individuals before we had the face to face session.

By the time I had them all together I had a pretty fair idea of what the issues were.  I started the day by getting them to define and reconnect with their own purpose as I felt that they had lost any sense of ‘why are we here’.

I then fed this back the results of the questionnaires and interviews anonymously to the whole team.   I then asked them to decide which issues they thought they could deal with in the meeting and which should be parked for another time.

Once we had got that out of the way I put them in small mixed teams with a single issue.  They were able to apply GROW to the  individual issues successfully and then we all came together again to ensure that the solutions worked together.

There are certain types of problem that are particularly suited to the GROW approach.

One example might be to help someone obtain a promotion.

It is usually very clear how they will know that they have got a promotion so the Goal or end result is very clear.

Normally the reality will be how many times they had tried for the promotion, what happened, what resources they have currently, and how they feel about the current account attempt. Which again does not take very long.

The obstacles are where most of the work is done. They might have internal obstacles about their fear of putting themselves forward. There could be external obstacles if the standard needed is very high or if someone is trying to block them. And there could be a lack of knowledge or skills which are required in order to get the new role.

The important thing as with most GROW sessions is to separate out the obstacles into discrete items so that they can be dealt with. Here is a list of items from a real client session.

1) My manager is not supporting me
2) I don’t have the client handling skills they want
3) I don’t know if I could cope with the workload

As you can see once you have separated out the Obstacles it often becomes a lot clearer what is to be done.

Which means that you can move onto the Options – taking the Obstacles one at a time.

My manager is not supporting me
Option – To have a conversation with her manager to see what she would have to do to get his support

I don’t have the client facing skills they want
Option – To speak to HR and get details of what skills are needed and request to go onto a course

I don’t know if I could cope with the workload
Option – To speak to an individual who is currently doing the job, ask what the workload is really like and ask how they manage.

Once the Options were clear it was very straightforward to convert the Options into actions.

In the coming weeks I will be adding to the blog other examples of where GROW is really effective.

In GROW terms a ‘problem’ has a particular meaning. Most people have some idea what the word ‘problem’ means for them but when we use it in connection with GROW we assign a particular meaning to the term.

SO WHAT IS A ‘PROBLEM’?

Definition of a problem

For the purposes of using GROW a problem always has two attributes. First there is a goal, purpose, idea or something a person is trying to accomplish. Secondly, there is something opposing and blocking it, which appears to prevent them doing what they want.

In order to solve a problem a person has to be clear on the elements that make it up. If either of the elements is absent then there is not a clear problem and it becomes very difficult to solve.

The value of using this definition with GROW is that the elements of a problem are automatically built into the process. The Goal is where you want to get to, the Reality is where you are, the Obstacles are what is stopping you and the Options are the ways around the Obstacles.

If you bear the definition of a problem in mind while you are working out the elements of GROW then it can assist you in ensuring you have the correct information. For instance when you get to Obstacles you have to ensure that you and the client understand how the Obstacles are stopping them from achieving their Goal. If they are not really stopping them then you don’t have a problem and the client can probably move forward.

Lets look at a few examples. The statement “My house has burned down” is not a problem. “My house has burned down I have no clothes left and I have to be on TV in 20 minutes” could be a problem. “I want to drive my car to the beach but I have a broken leg” is a problem. If, however, I can afford a taxi, it stops being a problem and turns into a ‘project’.

Thus, a problem is not like a project, where there may be obstacles but the way forward is clear and can be planned. What GROW does so effectively is to turn problems into projects.

Gallwey was a tennis coach who was frustrated by the limitations of conventional sports coaching methods. He noticed that he could often see the faults in a player’s game, but that simply telling him what to do to improve did not bring about lasting change.

For instance, if a player were not keeping his eye on the ball, most coaches would give advice such as: ‘Keep your eye on the ball.’ When a player received this sort of instruction he would try to do what the coach was asking him and watch the ball more closely. Unfortunately, no one can keep instructions in the front of their minds for long, so players usually slipped back into their old habits and both coaches and players grew increasingly frustrated.

So one day, instead of giving an instruction, Gallwey asked:

`Can you say “bounce” out loud when the ball bounces and “hit” out loud when you hit the ball?’

In order to do this, players had to keep their eyes on the ball but no longer had a voice in their heads repeating the words ‘I must keep my eye on the ball.’ At this, their play started to improve markedly and the Inner Game method of coaching was born.

From then on, whenever Gallwey wanted a player to change, he no longer gave instructions but would, instead, ask questions that would help the player discover for himself what worked and what needed to change.

The first stage in this process would be to set a target for the player. For instance, in a situation where a player was serving out a lot of the time, Gallwey would ask him how many first serves out of ten he would like to get in. In this way, together, they created a clear Goal.

Then he would ask the player to serve ten balls and see how many he got in. In this way he helped the player define his Reality.

The next stage might be to ask him to observe what he was doing differently when the serve went in from when it went out, thereby helping the player to get in touch with his Obstacles. The player for instance might observe that when he threw the ball up to a certain height it tended to go in whereas if he threw it lower it tended to go out.  Once an Obstacle was identified it became straightforward to identify Options to get around them.

In this way by really looking at what was actually happening, rather than getting stuck in trying and getting frustrated, players learnt for themselves what they needed to change in order to meet their serving targets. This gave players a clear Way Forward.

In the example using Gallwey and his tennis players, the basic methodology of GROW was present from the start.

A number of principles have been developed out of Gallwey’s experience with tennis players. While they originate from sport, the same principles can be applied to many learning situations. For example:

1        It is more effective to focus your attention on a relevant aspect of what is actually happening while you are learning, instead of what you ‘should’ be doing or trying to get it ‘right’ according to someone else’s perspective. This may seem blindingly obvious; however, in practice it rarely happens. In our tennis example the player would probably be focusing on trying to remember what the last coach said about serving and would then become more and more frustrated if his attempts at improvement did not work.

2        The best learning happens when we are focusing on the present. This means we are not struggling to prove or remember something but rather making discoveries as we go along.

3        We can easily interfere with the learning process by, for instance, trying to look good or using a lot of unfocused effort. The less we interfere with our learning, the faster we progress.

While the Inner Game was developed in sport, the coaches using it realised they could apply the principles in other learning situations. GROW was developed to provide a structured framework to use the principles of the Inner Game to achieve Goals. The originators saw that, just as in sport, many individuals were struggling to achieve their Goals because they were not learning from experience and were not aware of the knowledge within themselves that would help them.

Firstly let me say that I really like the fact that this model exists on the web and it is free to use for school students. The philosophy which is written on the website espouses that students should learn to think for themselves and solve problems by using questions rather than being given answers is very laudable.

I think it is designed more as a collaborative problem-solving tool, rather than just one on one, as GROW is often used for. Also the scenarios that the students work through, all predefined with the possible points of view built in. In that way it is different from GROW where any situation can be dealt with.

Let’s have a look at it and compare it to GROW. SCAN stands for stop, clarify, ask, and now. Each of the stages as questions built in and an opportunity to summarise and others to add in a very similar way to GROW.

Where it differs is that it does not start out with the end result in mind. With GROW the first step is always to decide what you want is the end result both to solve the problem and for the session. With SCAN there is a more open agenda which is more about exploring the issues.

I have to say I prefer GROW in this respect because there is a big danger in problem solving that if you do not define in the first instance what you want is an end result you can head off in a lot of wrong directions.

In addition with SCAN there is no specific part of the process which addresses what obstacles there might be to potential solutions. This means that any ideas or action steps that might come out of the process could flounder if the obstacles have not been thought out and addressed.

Where I think SCAN could have an advantage over GROW, is a section where students are asked to think of an issue from another person’s perspective. I think this is very good training in a number of ways. Not only does it help with mental agility but it could also bring to light solutions which would not be developed otherwise. GROW comes a little close to this in the options section where the client is asked to consider how another person, who could solve this issue well, would go about it.

So they are not exactly the same and perhaps are designed for slightly different purposes. I would certainly like at some stage to produce a free version of CoachMaster my online coach training tool which uses GROW for the use of school students.