I’m often asked which coaching model I use in my coaching practice.
A coaching model is a coaching road map usually outlined by an easy-to-remember acronym. It is a method, structure, outline, or framework that facilitates the set-up and process for a coaching conversation and the overall coaching journey. It helps to provide some consistency to the approach and often serves as a prompt or signpost to protocols, techniques, and variables that can ensure effectiveness and efficiency of the effort. It also is a kind of visual representation of a process that isn’t yet tangible or observable.
Yet, since coaching is about the coachee rather than the coach, I find myself working with a model that’s as unique as the coachee and the coaching intervention. (In my years of coaching experience, despite having personal preferences, I’ve seldom worked with exactly the same model twice – I somehow find the need to integrate elements from various models to develop one that works best for the coachee).
Here are some useful, action based models I draw upon from the multitude of models out there – they aren’t my own – but I use them often and interchangeably if necessary, depending on the coachee’s needs and issues, the nature of the coaching assignment, and the client’s expectations.
1. PURPOSE, PERSPECTIVES, PROCESS Model:
Purpose – Where are we going and why?
Perspectives – What does each have to journey together?
Process – How will we get there?
2. RESULTS Model:
R – Reflect
E – Evaluate
S – Strategize
U – Understand
L – Listen
T – Take action
S – Systematize
3. FUEL Model:
F – Frame the conversation
U – Understand the current state
E – Explore the desired state
L – Lay out a plan
4. GROW model:
G – Goal – What do you want?
R – Reality – Where are you now?
O – Obstacles and Options – What’s stopping you? What could you do?
W – Will – or Way Forward – What will you do?
5. TGROW model:
T – Topic – What’s the wider issue?
G – Goal – What specifically do you want to attain?
R – Reality – Where are you now?
O – Obstacles and Options – What’s stopping you? What could you do?
W – Will – or Way Forward – What will you do?
6. RE-GROW Model:
R – Review past session
E – Evaluate past session
G – Goal – What do you want from this session?
R – Reality – Where are you now?
O – Obstacles and Options – What’s stopping you? What could you do?
W – Will – or Way Forward – What will you do?
7. IGROW Model:
I – Issue
G – Goal
R – Root cause
O – Outcomes
W – What next?
8. COACH model:
C – Clarify the issue
O – Open up resources
A – Agree on the preferred future
C – Create the journey
H – Head for success
9. STEER Model:
S – Spot the opportunity
T – Tailor the intervention
E – Explain the task
E – Encourage
R – Review
10. CIGAR Model:
C – Current situation
I – Ideal situation
G – Gaps
A – Action
R – Review
11. CLEAR Model:
C – Contractin
L – Listening
E – Exploring
A – Acting
R – Reviewing
Every coach has a preferred model, and chances are that most experienced coaches eventually work with a unique model they can personally take credit for creating and developing. For me, a coaching model is a lightly held frame that moves with the shifting sands in a coaching session, in order to ensure the effort is as productive and successful as it could possibly be for the client.