Mgr Grow Coaching

---
name: mgr-grow-coaching
description: Prepares a GROW coaching conversation on one topic the person chose, with goal, reality, options and will questions, a notes page shared with them, and their own next step in their words. Use for "run mgr-grow-coaching", "coach instead of tell", "I keep giving answers in 1:1s", "GROW model questions", "coaching questions for my report", "help my report solve it themselves", "prepare a coaching conversation", part of the AI for Managers Pack by Polar Bear.
---

# GROW Coaching Model

## When To Use
You jump in with answers, and people stop bringing real problems. Someone on your team is stuck on a topic and wants to think it through with you. This answers one question: what do I ask, and in what order, so the next step is theirs and not mine?

## When Not To Use
If the person needs a decision, an instruction or a fact from you, give it: coaching someone who wants direction feels like a quiz. For the regular meeting shell use One-on-One Meeting Agenda, and for direction over years use Career Conversation.

## Inputs
- The topic, in the person's words if you have them, and whether they asked to talk it through
- What you already know about the situation, and the answer you are tempted to give
- Anything not open for change (a deadline, a budget, a decision made above you)
If you have none of this, I start from the topic in one line and mark the output as a first draft.

## Approach
GROW, as taught publicly by Google re:Work ("Coach using the GROW model"); it was developed in UK performance coaching. It moves through Goal, Reality, Options and Will with open "what" and "how" questions, and it works when the person wants coaching and picks the topic. The judgment is holding back. The classic failure: the manager asks two questions, hears the problem, and solves it at minute four, so the person leaves with your plan and none of the ownership.

## Workflow
1. Ask: what is the topic, and did they ask for help with it? What answer are you itching to give? What is fixed and not up for discussion?
2. Check fit. If they did not choose the topic or do not want coaching, stop and say so; this is the wrong tool. Write your own answer in a parked box so it stops leaking into the questions.
3. Goal: two or three open questions on what they want from this conversation, then what they want beyond it. Their target, not one you set.
4. Reality: questions on what is happening now, what they have tried and what got in the way. Facts before opinions; never "why didn't you".
5. Options: questions that widen the list before anything is judged ("what else could you try?"). Your parked idea comes last, if at all, offered as one option among theirs.
6. Will: what they will do, by when, how they will know it worked, and what support they want from you. Rewrite any question that starts "have you thought about" into a "what" or "how".
7. Build the notes page: their words in one column, the agreed step in another. It is shared with them afterwards and they may correct it.

## Output Format
```markdown
# GROW Coaching Plan
**Person:** [name] · **Topic (their words):** [topic] · **Date:** [date]
**Fixed, not up for discussion:** [constraint, or none]
**Parked (my answer, held back):** [idea]
## Questions and notes
| Stage | Questions to ask | Notes in their words |
|---|---|---|
| Goal | [open question] / [open question] | [notes] |
| Reality | [open question] / [open question] | [notes] |
| Options | [open question] / [open question] | [notes] |
| Will | [open question] / [open question] | [notes] |
## Their next step
| What they will do | By when | How they will know | Support they asked for |
|---|---|---|---|
| [their words] | [date] | [sign it worked] | [support] |
## Decision
[name] owns the step above and reviews it by [date]; [manager name] shares these notes with them by [date] and delivers the support asked for.
```

## Done When
- The topic is the person's, and they asked to think it through
- Every question is open and starts with "what" or "how"
- Options come from them first; the manager's idea is parked or offered last
- The next step has a date and is written in their words

## Quality Bar
- No leading questions that smuggle in the answer
- Questions are written fresh for this topic, never copied from licensed coaching material
- Constraints are named up front, so the options stay real
- Notes are shared with the person, never kept as a file about them
- The person owns the answer; Claude prepares questions and never assesses the person.

## Next
Run mgr-career-conversation (Career Conversation) when the topics point at growth.

## About the makers

This pack is made by Polar Bear, a consultancy built by ex-McKinsey founders with a dream to make AI work for People, not instead of them. We help our clients build people systems and AI-first ways of working, and we run our own company on Claude. If your team has outgrown the self-serve version, message Pauline (linkedin.com/in/paulinebertry).