Coaching seems to be one of those disciplines that everyone likes to invent their own process.
I’m not sure if it’s because I like systems, or I like to collect, or I’m just a coaching ‘geek’, but I have been collecting coaching process acronyms ever since I did my first coaching training with Sir John Whitmore in the late 1990s. So here’s a survey of some of my favourites:
One of the first, one of the simplest and one of the best: GROW
Developed by Graham Alexander, Alan Fine and John Whitmore, GROW is fully described in ‘Coaching for Performance
Goal
Reality
Objectives
Will – Way forward
ACHIEVE
Dr Sabine Dembkowski and Fiona Eldridge developed the ACHIEVE Model to make the details of the steps more explicit. It is one of many, many variants on GROW.
Assess the current situation
Creative Brainstorming of alternatives
Honing goals
Initiating Options
Evaluating Options
Valid action plan design
Encouraging momentum
OSKAR – a Solution Focus Approach
In their book, ‘The Solutions Focus: Making Coaching and Change SIMPLE
Outcome
Scaling
Know How
Application
Review
Don’t confuse this with Worth Consulting’s OSCAR model
Outcome
Situation
Choices and Consequences
Actions
Review
Many, Many More
Here are some more I have inventoried – you may like to look some up on your favourite search engine: WHAM, OUTCOMES, PIDREF, STEPPA, FLOWS, CLEAR, ACHIEVE, ARROW, ACE. I don’t have the space to spell them all out for you, but if you get really stuck, do feel free to ask in the comments.
Two more – called COACH
Coincidentally, our very own Pocketbooks have two more models to offer you, that are both called COACH.
The Coaching Pocketbook, in the Management Pocketbooks series offers:
C – competency – assessing current level of performance
O – outcomes – setting outcomes for learning
A – action – agreeing tactics and initiate action
Ch – checking – giving feedback and making sense of what’s been learnt
.
And my own current favourite (if it isn’t a little disloyal to the Pocketblog) comes from the Teachers’ Pocketbook series, and The Coaching & Reflecting Pocketbook:
Clarify the Issue
Open up Resources
Agree the preferred future
Create the Journey
Head for success
.
Add your own …
If you have a favourite coaching model or process, please do add it, using the comments section below.
So here’s the deal
No one process is better than the others, so you pays your money (or you get the basics free, online) and you makes your choice.
Another acronym, which applies when coaching individuals through a process or developing their skills, is EDIP.
Its origin lies in Instructional Techniques – with the military, I believe – and stands for:
Explanation (putting the segment in context), Demonstration (going through the sequence at normal pace and with a running commentary), Imitation (the learner has their go and provides the commentary too) and Practice (where the learner continues to apply the sequence, under diminishing degrees of observation, until it becomes second nature).
That commentary is all important as it can identify whether the underpinning knowledge is there or not.