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, we find that working with a model is always as unique as the coachee and the coaching intervention.
Here are some useful, action based models we draw upon from the multitude of models out there – they aren’t our own – but we 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 – Contracting
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 us, 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.