The GROW Model

Definition

GROW is a four-step conversational sequence — Goal, Reality check, Options, Will — that moves a person from a fuzzy desire to a committed next action within a single conversation. Each step has a distinct job: define what "done" looks like, establish the objective facts of the starting point, generate several possible paths, then convert the chosen path into a specific, high-buy-in action step.

In the Book

Stoltzfus presents GROW as "the most widely used conversational structure in coaching," useful even in encounters as short as ten minutes, and cites John Whitmore's Coaching for Performance as its origin. He is precise about where each step can go wrong: the Reality step fails when the coach asks for subjective self-evaluation ("How often do you usually exercise?") instead of a concrete fact ("How many times did you exercise in the last week?"); the Options step fails when the coach supplies suggestions instead of making the coachee do the generative work; the Will step fails when a coach accepts a low-confidence commitment — he has the coach ask "On a scale of one to ten, how likely is it that this step will get done?" and troubleshoot any answer under eight rather than let a doomed action step stand. He also scopes the model's limits: GROW's objectivity and concrete-action focus suits outward, practical goals (a habit, a project, a performance target), while internal, meandering self-discovery issues "often work better with a more free-form approach" — which is exactly the gap the Coaching Funnel is built to fill.

Why It Matters

A structured four-beat sequence turns "help me think about this" into a repeatable procedure that reliably produces a committed action, without the facilitator ever supplying the content. The transferable move is separating stages that get conflated in ordinary conversation — establishing facts before generating options, generating options before committing to one — and attaching a concrete confidence check to the final commitment so intentions that won't survive contact with reality get caught before the conversation ends, not after the plan has already failed.