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Executive Coaching
Self coaching with “Inner GROW” By Martin Gillespie
Giving yourself a competitive edge – for free
Most executives are now aware that coaching provides a cost effective and time efficient means of accelerating their personal development. The payback in business and career terms is proven. What fewer are yet aware of, however, is that, with the investment of a little time and a modicum of self discipline, many of the benefits of the coaching process can be gained without having to invest in a personal coach.
Why should you bother?
In numerous articles and books, coaching consistently emerges as the development tool of choice for the ambitious executive. When time is short and the challenges great, it provides a tailored approach directly focussed on removing the obstacles to the delivery of superior business results. Effectively, it accelerates the achievement of personal mastery that in turn delivers both personal and organisational competitive advantage.
Your own personal workout routine
To be at your best you need to invest time in a regular physical workout, be that in the gym, on the football field or your recreation of choice. For the successful executive, it is even more important to devote time to engaging in a regular mental workout routine. This is where the mind-gym of coaching comes in.
At its best, it is a mental stretching routine that replaces flabby thinking with mental rigour. It both broadens thinking and at the same time gives a sharper focus. It provides a secure, supportive yet challenging space to reflect and gain perspective. It encourages the executive both to do things differently and to do different things, providing the feedback necessary to know where key business and personal changes need to be made.
Above all, coaching (DIY or otherwise) turns the executive back to engage with and face his / her personal and business challenges with renewed vigour and competence. It focuses on the key issues that need to be addressed to deliver sustainable change and demands absolute clarity on the outcomes and payback required. Through the coaching process, the executive faces up to their own role in both creating and transforming the current situation. It details and records the changes that will be made, facilitates the drafting of a personal business plan and holds the executive accountable for its ongoing delivery.
All this without investing in a personal coach
Whilst there are undeniable advantages to working with an experienced and accredited personal coach, the good news is that you can gain many of these benefits through working in an organised and structured way by yourself.
All you need is the discipline to set aside a little quiet time for focused thought. Stretching your brain and doing a little “joined-up” thinking is essential for personal and business success. Be honest though, how much time in your working day do you currently give over to real thinking? The good news is you are not the only one. If you find the discipline to do it, you will put yourself at a real advantage relative to most others.
So what do you need to do?
Initially, you need to find at least an hour in a quiet place, free from interruptions, at a time when you are sufficiently rested and alert to be able to focus fully on the task. Sat at a clear and uncluttered desk with pens / pencils and paper before you, you should then follow the instructions for the “Internal GROW” process set out below, writing down your responses to the questions. Take the time to work through each section in turn, writing down detailed and considered responses to the questions that seem most appropriate (it is rarely necessary to answer them all, choose the ones from each section which make most sense to you). Please avoid the temptation of just doing this mentally, the discipline of writing is essential to the success of the activity.
Do not spend more than one hour at the first sitting. It is difficult to sustain the required level of concentrated thought for longer than this. Equally, if you try to invest too much time you are unlikely to stick to it. Let’s face it, you are too busy.
Leave what you have written aside for a couple of days and then come back to it, spending around half an hour in revising and updating it. You need to revisit you action plan on a regular basis until you are happy with it (we will say more about action planning and goal setting in a forthcoming article). At this point it may be worth sharing you plan with a respected friend or colleague; a fresh perspective can be invaluable at this stage.
Now comes the hard bit, you must put aside 10 to 15 minutes on a regular basis to review the output of your “Inner GROW” and ensure you keep on track. Once a week would be ideal, preferably at a specific time. Once a fortnight is, however, perfectly acceptable.
The “Inner GROW” tool
The GROW model was initially developed by bestselling author John Whitmore, building of the work of “Inner Game” writer Timothy Gallwey. Many professional Executive Coaches use this tool exclusively and charge a great deal for the privilege. The best coaches will, however, use a variety of tools and approaches, flexibly responding to the needs and challenges of the person in front of them, rather than slavishly following a single model or technique. This said, the GROW model does have considerable merit, not least that it can be self administered!
The structure is clear and easy to remember. It is a tool that can be quickly learned and then applied to a variety of situations.
Where to start
You need to start your inner coaching exercise with a clear and specific topic, or issue, or set of issues that you wish to address. If you are already clear about this, please proceed to the next section. However, it usually pays to spend a little time making sure you have identified what are the key issues for you. You need to address causes, not symptoms, and you need to be sure that achieving your outcome will be worth the effort invested – ideally many times over.
Spend a few moments brainstorming onto paper a list of topics and issues you would like to address. Take time with this. Time spent working on the wrong or on minor issues is not well invested. Once you have a list you are reasonably happy with, ask yourself the following questions:
What common themes and issues seem to be emerging?
What issues should I really be working on?
What issue, if addressed, would make a substantial difference?
Which issues have the biggest payoff value?
Which issues have I both the will and courage to work on?
Which issues, if managed, will take care of other issues?
Which opportunity, if managed / developed, will help me deal with critical issues?
What is the best place for me to start?
If I need to start slowly, where should I start?
If I need the boost of a quick win, what issues or opportunities should I work on?
What is your GOAL?
Goals mobilise our resources, they get us moving. Carefully chosen, they get us headed in the right direction. According to Locke and Latham, setting specific and measurable goals for ourselves empowers us in the following ways:
It focuses our energy and attention
It mobilises out energy and effort
It helps us search for incentives to accomplish them
It helps increase persistence
What more incentive do you need to note down your answers to the following questions?
What is your goal for this exercise?
What exactly do you want to achieve (short / long term)?
Is any part of it measurable?
How will you know when you reach your goal?
By when do you want to achieve it?
How much of this is within your control?
Is the goal positive, desirable, challenging, achievable for you?
What intermediate steps are involved, and which milestones?
How would you rate your achievement so far in this respect?
Do you want to break down the overall goal into more manageable sub-goals?
What is the current REALITY?
At this stage, your only aim is to have the clearest and broadest understanding possible. Your objective should not be to try to fix, solve, and make the issue go away, or otherwise resolve it. There should be no problem solving or jumping to conclusions, just understanding.
Executives normally find this hard. They are much more comfortable with the “ready, fire, aim” approach of moving directly form problem, to solution, to action. Little concern is given to whether we are addressing the wrong, or a poorly understood challenge. What matters is that something is being done! If we are honest, immediate unfocused action is easier that rigorous thinking.
With this in mind, you need to respond in writing to whichever of the following questions seems to help your understanding.
What is happening now? (What? Where? When? How much?
What is the situation exactly?
What and how great is your concern about it?
Who are the parties involved?
What is the crux or essence of the problem?
What exactly are you concerned about with regard to the current situation?
What actions (if any) have you already taken to reach this goal?
What stopped you from doing more?
How much control do you personally have here?
Who else has control? How much?
What are the main obstacles in your path?
What resources can you tap into in order to overcome those obstacles?
What else do you need in order for you to reach this goal?
Who is affected by this issue other than you?
Do you know anybody else who seems to be successful in achieving this sort of goal? If so, what can you learn from them?
What constraints inside yourself are holding you back from this goal?
What resources do you already have? Skill, time, enthusiasm, money, support, etc.?
What other resources will you need? Where will you get them from?
What is really the issue here, the nub of the issue or the bottom line?
What are your OPTIONS for taking action?
The good news is that you can now move on to thinking about solutions. The bad news is that, before then moving to action, you need to generate an exhaustive and creative list of all the possible options that could be available to you. When you think your list is complete, you should ask yourself for “just one more”.
Most importantly, whilst compiling your list you must follow all the rules of creative brainstorming, especially with regard to suspending judgement and evaluation.
What are the different ways you could address this issue? Make a list of all the alternatives, large, small, complete and partial solutions.
What else could you do?
What else?
What else?
What would you do if you had more time, a larger budget, or you were the boss?
What would you do if you could start again with a clean sheet, with a new team?
Why not ask for suggestions from friends and colleagues?
What are the advantages and disadvantages of each of these in turn?
Is it possible to combine options?
What are your criteria for selecting the most appropriate option?
Which would give the best result?
Which solution appeals to you most?
What action WILL you commit to taking and keep under review?
OK, so the “W” for “Will” is a bit forced. Others have tried to tidy up the model, whilst preserving the mnemonic, by calling this stage “Wrap-Up”. The important point, however, is that this section is a call to planned and specific action. It is about choosing a clear course of action and ensuring that all the required support is in place.
What option or options do you choose?
When are you going to do that?
Who needs to know?
To what extent will that address your issue(s) / achieve your outcome(s)?
What are your criteria and measurements for success?
What obstacles do you expect and how are you going to overcome them?
What internal obstacles do you perceive within yourself?
Who else needs to know about your plan? How will you inform them?
What can your friends and colleagues do in order to support you?
How would you rate your own level of commitment to achieving this goal on a scale of 0 to 10?
If lower than 10: why not 10?
What can you do to make it a 10?
Good luck with your DIY Coaching! Keep trying different approaches and ideas - but above all, keep challenging yourself and being open to challenge from others!
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Written by Martin Gillespie, the UK based executive coach, facilitator, leadership development expert, trainer and speaker.
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