Brian Gubernick breaks down the GROW coaching model (Goal, Reality, Options, Way forward) and shows how asking better questions instead of giving answers saves time and strengthens relationships. He walks through examples in sales, parenting, and dinner planning to show how the same framework works everywhere.
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Thank you for joining me today. It's Brian Gubernick, and welcome to the No Days Off podcast, where we believe that every day brings a new opportunity to get better. So let's get right into it. Today we're going to be talking about a coaching model a conversation model known as GROW, the GROW model, G-R-O-W, it's an acronym, okay? Before I get into it, this is somewhat piggybacking on a previous episode around asking better questions. This is kind of the next step once you've established a foundation or an understanding for how to ask better questions. Now, this model, this GROW model, is putting those questions into action on a regular basis. See, a secret for me, and if my wife and kids are listening today, they're going to say, "Okay, now I know what Brian, or what daddy's been up to." I operate, or I use this model every single day in nearly every conversation I have. My conversations aren't scripted, But there is structure to the way that I'm having certain conversations. I shouldn't say every conversation, but every conversation where we're looking to solve for something. See, over the years of owning a handful of different businesses and coaching salespeople around the nation, I've had to lead and coach many different types of people. And one of the most important things I've learned is to ask more questions and frankly give less answers. It's exhausting to attempt to give all the answers, and by the way, I don't even have them, right? Like, I don't have all the answers, and I'm sure you probably feel the same. So understanding this GROW model actually has saved me time and more importantly has empowered those around me, and it's helped to build stronger relationships or stronger teams and just drive things forward. Right, so my intention is to talk through this model, and it's a leadership model as well. So let's get into it, okay? The GROW model, G-R-O-W. The G stands for goal, the R stands for reality, the O stands for options, and the W stands for way forward. So let me explain how this works in a conversation. Okay, let's make believe that I have a salesperson who comes to me and is having some challenges with business creation. Okay, so I may say to that person, instead of, you know, asking them, well, why aren't you generating business? Instead of doing that, I'm going to ask more powerful questions to find out where they're at, where they wanna go, and what's the path we could potentially find to getting there without me being the solution, without me having the answer. So let's role play this. In this salesperson conversation, if I was to ask them about their goal, what are you looking to achieve, right? What problem are you aiming to solve? So if I was to say, what are you looking to achieve? I'm likely to get, an outline for some sort of sales objective. Maybe it's an amount of dollars they'd like to make. That's the G. When I say R, reality, now the question would be, well, if that's your goal, where do you currently sit right now? Where do you sit right now relative to that goal? So you told me your goal was X, tell me what your present reality looks like. And the answer I'm gonna get is, you know, a number that's clearly below goal or off pace from goal. To which I then move to the next portion of this model, which is the O, options. Okay, I know where you wanna go, I know where you presently sit. So let me ask you a question. What options are available to help you close that gap? How do you get from your current reality to your goal? What are the options? Let's go through those options together. And we allow some time. I'll break script. We allow some time to go through those options. And then finally, that W, that last part. Okay, what's the way forward? What option of all the things you just outlined for me that we worked on together, what option makes the most sense moving forward? Goal, reality, options, way forward. I just gave you the, the sales conversation. Now, this applies very much so with my family or my kids. Let's say specifically when one of my kids comes to me and says, "I really, really want to complete my reading goal. I have to get a certain number of points in order to achieve my reading goal. They get points for the books they read, and when they pass or when they finish reading that book, they take a quiz and they get points for that, right? So she has a reading goal. So your goal is to get, let's say in this example, 30 points, and you need to do that over the course of the school quarter. Okay, cool. So what's your— what's the reality? Like, where are you at right now? Well, I'm only at 3 points, but I've got to get to 30. Okay, so you're at 3, but you're 27 points away from your goal. Yes, that's correct. And how much time do we have? Okay, we've got a couple months. Great. So let me ask you a question. How do we get from where you're at right now to where you want to go? What are our options? And as we run through the options, right, I'm gonna hear things like, "Well, I can read every night." Okay, great, what else? "Well, I can read on the weekends." Okay, cool, what else? "Well, I could read before I go to school every day." Okay, what else? "Well, I can have books, like I could read the same books that my friends are reading, and then we could talk about it." and then we're all doing it together. Okay, great. So now of all of those options, what option makes the most sense, or what do you think the combination of these options could be? What's, what's our way forward? How do we go achieve the goal? And the goal is, you know, get to 30. And so in this example, maybe the way forward is, you know what, I'm going to read for 5 minutes every day before school, and I'm going to read the same book my friends are reading so we can all talk about it. "Okay, I love it. So our goal is to get to 30. Our present reality is that we're at 3. The options that close the gap of 27, we just went through them. And the way forward is to read before school and read some of the same books that your friends are reading." "Yes." "Okay, cool. We've got a great plan." And that's a real conversation at home. Now, that's a rather detailed one. I know this might sound silly, but when we have conversations like, "What would you like to have for dinner?" What's our goal? I wouldn't say it this way, but we want to have a good meal. What's our reality? We have no plans. What's our options? Okay, here's the options we have. Cool, which one do we want to select? What's the way forward? You can see GROW, this framework applies universally. So the question for everybody today, the focusing question, is how could you leverage a, a model like GROW or something similar to improve the quality of the conversations you're having and the output of those conversations? How can you ask questions in a way such that you're not providing what you believe to be the answers or the solutions, but you're empowering those around you to solve for whatever the challenge may be and take ownership over that result. That's all I have for you today. Remember, uh, No Days Off podcast— every single day brings a new opportunity to get better. So let's go get after it. Thank you so much.
