Stop Solving Everyone's Problems: The GROW Framework for Managers

Key Takeaways

Want to know the fastest way to reclaim five hours a week as a manager? Stop being the person with all the answers. Now, I know that sounds completely backwards because you've been succeeding in your role and promoted to it specifically because you were good at solving problems, but here's what tends to happen. Your team ends up coming to you with every decision, every challenge that pops up, you get involved and you're spending your entire day giving answers and advice instead of doing the strategic work that you know would make the difference. I spent 20 years in corporate leadership companies like PepsiCo and Capri Schweps and I watched brilliant managers turn themselves into bottlenecks. And now as a leadership coach, I see the same thing everywhere. Managers who are exhausted, working late, stuck in back-to-back meetings while their teams wait for them with the latest challenge and pounce on them as they come out of that meeting to get the advice on what to do next. The managers who can break out of this urgent busyiness trap, they're the ones that master the skill of coaching and it transforms everything. In this video, I'm going to show you the exact framework that makes this possible. It's called the grow coaching framework and you can use it immediately in your next oneto ons. Now, here's why most managers struggle with coaching. we just jump to the answer too fast. Someone comes up to you with a problem and within 30 seconds you're telling them exactly what to do. And you know, I completely understand this because you are under a lot of time pressure and you have all this expertise and you know your solution would work. But if you think about the time in your week where you're suddenly responding to these issues and these questions and problems or jumping into those ad hoc issues that a team member has just brought to you, it adds up to an awful lot of time and there's a big big hidden cost. Your team never learns to solve the problems themselves. They become dependent on you. Every decision needs your input. You become the blocker in your own team's progress. And meanwhile, you are drowning in the operational firefighting of the day-to-day while that strategic work, the work that will actually get you promoted or move things significantly on is being left untouched in your calendar or maybe deferred week to week to week. The transformation you can get with coaching is that over time your team comes to you with solutions instead of problems. You will have a team that's confident, independent, and capable. And you you will reclaim maybe 3 to five hours every single week to focus on the leadership work that actually matters. That's what coaching gives you. And it all starts with the grow framework. Growth stands for goal, reality, options, and will or also way forward. It's a four-step structure that guides any coaching conversation from start to finish. Goal is about understanding what the person wants to achieve. The reality is finding out where they are right now and what the gap is to achieving that goal. Options helps them explore what they could do to close that gap. and the will or the way forward is the action plan and commitment step. So what are they actually going to do? Now here's why this framework is so powerful. It gives your brain a structure to follow so you stay asking questions instead of jumping to answers. You know, most managers know they should coach more. And the problem isn't knowledge. It's that in the moment when someone comes to you and you're already busy, your brain defaults to just tell them what to do. It's a communication habit and it is not serving you well. So, grow stops that pattern. It gives you a road map. And this isn't about you having all the answers. It's about asking the right questions so your team can find their own answers. And when they do, they own the solution. they're committed. They will deliver better results because it's their plan, not yours. Let me show you how to make this work. What I've done is I've got three questions for each stage. So, even with just these questions, you could have a fantastic coaching conversation. So, let's start with goal. The first question of grow is what would you like to focus on? And this is your opening question and it is completely open. It lets the person um think about and define their topic, their challenge, their goal. You're not guiding them. You're inviting them to think. Question two, how will you know you've achieved your goal? This makes the goal specific because someone's normally says something like, I want to get better at presenting. You see, that's too vague. So, you ask, well, how will you know you've achieved that? What will be different? and suddenly they're painting a picture. I'll be confident leading the monthly team meeting without notes. Now you've got something concrete to work with. So question three is what will you be doing when you can do this? And this brings the goal to life even more. It gets them visualizing success. It might sound something like when I can do this, I'll be standing in front of the room making eye contact, fielding questions without panicking. The more specific you make the goal, the easier it is for them to commit to that plan later. You're asking questions. You're listening. You're probing. Tell me a bit more about that. Why is this important to you? And then you summarize. You take everything you've just heard and reflect it back in one or two clear sentences. It would sound something like, "So, what I'm hearing is that you want to achieve X." and then ask is that right? That summary does two things. First, it shows the person you've actually listened, which builds trust. Second, it creates alignment. You're checking you've understood correctly that you're on the same page before you move to the next stage. You now move to reality. So in reality, remember this is where they are right now and what's the gap between them and achieving that goal. So question one, what's working already? Start with the strengths. What are they already doing well? This builds confidence and gives you a foundation to build from. Question two, what's holding you back? And this is where you find the real barrier. And it's there's a critical distinction. Is it a skill issue or is it a will issue? And by that I mean do they not know how to present without notes? That's a skill gap and that will need training and practice. Or do they know how but lack confidence? That's a will issue. And then they're going to need encouragement and small wins to build belief. These are very different problems with very different solutions. So really dig down here and find out. Question three, if you scored yourself out of 10, where are you now? This gives you perspective on how big the gap is. So if they say three out of 10, you know, this is going to take time and support. If they say, I'm an eight, you're just closing a small gap. Again, ask questions like, what would it take to move you from a six to an eight? What's the difference between where you are now and where you want to be? And then summarize. Now you move on to the options. So options is possible ways uh they could solve this things they could do. Question one is okay. So what could you do to address this? This is where it's so tempting to tell them what to do. Don't stay in the questions. Let them explore. Then question two, who could help you? What this does is open up resources that maybe they haven't considered. Maybe there's someone on the team who's just brilliant at presenting who could help. Maybe there's a course they could take. Help them see they're not solving this on their own. Question three is anything else. This is such a magic question because you want people to really think of as many ways that they may address this challenge as possible. And people almost always add something when you ask this. It's like giving them permission to think one layer deeper. Now, here's what to do if they haven't mentioned something you know would really help them. Don't just tell them. Ask for permission. You might say, "Can I share an idea?" And then offer it at a high level. Don't go into massive detail and and then ask what they think. So, how do you think that could help you? This keeps the ownership with them. They're still building their plan, not just moving over and following yours. Again, you want to summarize the options. So, that might sound in this case like, uh, so you could practice with a colleague, start with smaller meetings, and maybe record yourself. Then I normally say something like, "Does that sound like a good plan for you?" And they'll say yes or no. And if they say yes, you're ready to move on to will and way forward. Question one, so what are you going to do? Get specific. Not I'll practice more. You want to if they say things like that, you want to go, what does that actually mean? You want them saying things like I'll practice my next presentation out loud three times this week. Question two is, what support do you need from me? This is where you find out how you can actually help them. Maybe they need you to give feedback on a practice run. Maybe they just need you to check in next week. But let them tell you. This is such a timesaver for you. That clarity and the alignment means you truly can support that person and you're not constantly just second-guing in your own head. Then question three, how confident are you about doing this? This is your commitment check. If they say, "I'm really confident." Great, they're ready. If they hesitate, probe a bit more. What would make you feel more confident? You might need to then adjust the plan. If they come up with something, the goal of this stage is crystal clear commitment. They know exactly what they're going to do when and what support they need from you. And you both feel confident they're going to follow it through. So you can summarize one last time. So you're going to practice out loud for three times this week. You'd like me to listen to a run through on Friday and you're feeling about eight out of 10 confident at the moment. Does that sound right? Yes. Perfect. That is a coaching conversation done well. Now, this is all brilliant. The framework works. The questions work. But here's the one thing. None of this matters if you don't make time for it. And I think this is where many managers fall down. They know they should coach, but they don't block out their time in the calendar to actually do it. And this is why coaching sits inside a bigger system, what I call a manager operating system. It's about reclaiming your time and allocating it to the work that actually matters. Coaching happens in your one-to ones. And if you're notuling regular one-to- ons with your team or if those one-to- ons are just status updates, you're missing the biggest leadership opportunity you have. That's where you develop your team, build trust, and stop them needing you for every single decision. And here's my challenge to you. practice grow in every onetoone for the next 12 weeks or pick one person on your team and commit to coaching them properly using this framework because the magic happens in the doing. You will feel uncomfortable at first and that's because you're learning and changing your communication habits but I promise you after 12 weeks this will feel natural and your team will be transformed. Coaching is just one piece on the leader ladder which is the framework that I use for all my leadership development. There are four foundational skills, mindset, systems, influence, and coaching. Coaching is how you empower your team. But if you don't have the systems to make time for coaching, it just doesn't work. And that's why I created the leaders ladder assessment. It shows you where you are across those four skill sets and you can see the full picture and prioritize what to work on next. So, if you click on the link below and you'll get access to a free assessment. It takes about 5 minutes and it will give you a personalized plan on where to focus your development. If you want to know more about the leaders ladder and how coaching fits in, then I'd watch this video here where I explain it in detail and show how it all fits together to accelerate your leadership.