🌳 GROW – O is for Options 🌳
Ruth Harrowfield – BA/BSc, MSc Hons, PGDip I/O Psych, PGDip Science (Cl. Psych)
How do you help your people figure out solutions to their problems? Once you’ve asked about their GOAL and established the facts of their current REALITY, what’s next?
Next is to help them explore all the OPTIONS.
Here, you ask questions to help them consider all of the possible ways they could get from their current REALITY to their GOAL. Help them generate as many good OPTIONS as possible and hold off critiquing at first. Once they’ve come up with a few OPTIONS, help them choose the one(s) they like best.
OPTIONS is the O in GROW model.
G Clarify their GOAL – the end point they want to get to
R Spell out their REALITY – where they are at now
O List their OPTIONS – all the ways they could get to their end point
W Decide what they WILL commit to – exactly what they will do
My favourite OPTIONS questions from the G.R.O.W. model:
🌱 What could you do to get the result you want?
🌱 What actions have you thought about already?
🌱 What have you seen or heard about other people doing in similar situations?
🌱 What is just one thing you could try as a first step?
🌱 What/who might be able to help you find a way forward?
You can suggest some ideas too, but not until they’ve brought all their own ideas. The point of the GROW model is to ask questions that generate awareness for the other person. Most people actually have a pretty good idea about how to solve their problem; even if their idea is to go get advice from someone else. If they can generate that idea themselves, then they’ll take ownership for it!
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I’m Ruth Harrowfield, an organisational psychologist based in Auckland, New Zealand. Together with my partner, Sam, we run Harrowfield People Development, a strategic learning agency. We help business leaders who are unsure how to grow the people they want to hold on to, for the purposes of engagement, productivity and organisational growth.
Working to a specific client brief, we draw on the disciplines of organisational and behavioural psychology to determine and execute strategic and tactical programmes for personal and team development. We help business leaders to bring out the potential that they see in their people by shaping habits of thinking, communication and action in the workplace. Talk to us today.
