Discover the most popular coaching framework, its strengths, limitations, and how to use it wisely.
In the coaching community, GROW is one of the best-known and most widely used coaching frameworks. No coach training programme would be complete without it.
GROW has been around since the early days of coaching and was popularised by Sir John Whitmore in his best-selling book Coaching for Performance (1988). Since then, it has been tried and tested across cultures and disciplines
So, what exactly is GROW? It’s an acronym that stands for:
- G: Goals – aspirations and intentions
- R: Reality – current situation, including inner and outer obstacles
- O: Options – possibilities, strengths, and resources
- W: Will, way forward and ‘what next’; actions and accountability
At each step, powerful questions structure the coaching conversation. Starting with the client’s goals, identifying the gap between where they are and where they want to be, and clarifying actions to get there, GROW supports goal-setting, problem-solving, improving performance, and unlocking potential.
Why is GROW so popular?
It’s simple, easy to learn, and gives beginners and experienced coaches alike a sense of direction and focus. GROW helps coaches keep sessions purposeful and avoid drifting into a casual chat.
But here’s the catch: if GROW becomes the only focus, coaching can become limited and mechanical. Over-reliance on structure can lead coaches to concentrate on following steps rather than truly listening and being present. It can feed the belief that asking questions is all there is to coaching. This is simply not true. When we fail to allow the client to fully explore what is important, they won’t be wholly committed to their actions and the result will rarely lead to meaningful or lasting change.
Real coaching excellence comes from shifting from ‘doing’ to ‘being’, developing coach presence, listening deeply, creating space for generative dialogue and developing reflexivity. This is where the true art of coaching flourishes, it takes time (maybe even a lifetime!) to cultivate and is a defining characteristic of coaching excellence.
Another criticism of GROW is its emphasis on behavioural change and performance, which can exclude deeper conversations about values, purpose, wellbeing, and ethics, topics that matter more than ever in today’s business world. Though it remains important, performance alone is no longer the holy grail; increasingly success is understood to not only be a matter of what you do, it’s also how you do it.
Any single tool or model brings its gifts and limitations. Used wisely, GROW is an excellent tool for structuring coaching conversations, especially for beginners. It helps keep sessions on track while coaches learn to embody deeper principles. That’s why we include GROW in our Foundations of Coaching course, and it’s why we introduce other frameworks, practices and perspectives in our Advanced Programme.