Reduce your stress and empower your team

If you have ever felt overwhelmed in one on one meetings, if you ever find yourself directing and telling more than listening, if you ever have received feedback from team members that you are overpowering or if you are looking for a template for brainstorms, GROW is for you.

Before I learnt to use GROW I used to dread one on ones, a used to tell people what to do more than I would listen, and I always received feedback that I dominated discussions. This is not the kind of person I want to be, GROW helped me change.

Learning to use the GROW framework will help you truly listen to your team members and colleagues, it will help you get far more out of a one on one or brainstorm and ultimately lead to happier, more empowered teams building better products.

I learnt to use the model from one of the experts whilst being trained as a performance coach. Since then I have used it almost every single day as a coaching tool, a goal setting tool, a conflict resolution tool and as a brainstorming tool.

How it works

GROW stands for:

• Goal: the goal of the team member or the team; where you want things to be in the future
• Reality: the present situation today
• Options: the options the team member / coachee or team can put on the table
• Will: the will of the team member / coachee / team to achieve the goal

Example: Coaching one on one

Say a team member comes to you with a problem: do we implement feature a or feature be? What is your instinct as a leader? Using GROW you can empower your team to take responsibility and ownership. You do this by asking a few questions:

Goal