Session 3: Supporting Professional Growth through Coaching

As it was mentioned, an important characteristic of a learning organization is to create a culture of inquisitiveness and generate strategies rooted from the process of conversing about the observations and inquires between observer and observee. The session will spotlight The GROWTH Model as a strategy that you can use in supporting the professional growth of your teachers and/or school heads. The GROWTH Model, as a framework for coaching will be discussed step-by-step so that you can ascertain how this will be used as part of your technical assistance or instructional supervision strategy.

Lets begin by describing what Coaching is.

When do you Coach?

Validate L&D needs before the implementation of the coaching activity by holding a conversation with the coachee and his/her immediate supervisor (if other than you), and reviewing latest Individual Development Plan which is part of the Individual Performance Commitment and Review Form (IPCRF).

• ascertain specific competencies for development and performance areas to which these are linked; and

• confirm if coaching is the most appropriate intervention to address the needs.

To assist us further in applying the coaching strategy, let us look at the 3 stages in the coaching cycle - Preparing, Conducting, Debriefing and Reflection.

The coaching cycle, particularly the observation on teacher student interaction (classroom teaching or interactions with students, lesson plans) should focus on no more than 2 goals which are previously agreed upon by the school head and teacher.

School heads and supervisors can use the coaching cycle starting with determining the length of each cycle (2 weeks, a month or more).

Let us go thru each stage.

GROWTH Model

DepEd and CSC adopts the GROWTH Coaching Model developed by John Whitmore, Graham Alexander, and Alex Fine in the 1980s. It is a flexible model that is applicable to specific supervisor-subordinate interactions in the context of performance management, as well as to coaching situations involving coaches (internal or external to the coachee’s office) and coachees in the context of broader human resource development and organizational improvement efforts.

Look at the GROWTH model and the Cycle side-by-side. Click the "+" beside the accronym to show a short description.

The image below show how the GROWTH Model corresponds with the Coaching cycle.

The article "From Relationships to Results: Coaching the GROWTH model" presents how Coaching is an "intentionally managed conversation."

From Relationships to Results: Coaching using the GROWTH model

Coaching conversations were described as intentionally managed conversations that employ active listening, skilful questioning and other coaching skills tempered with high levels of emotional intelligence, in order to raise awareness and encourage responsibility in the coachee (Munro, 2016). This article will focus on the use of the GROWTH model as one way to ‘manage’ a coaching conversation.

The GROWTH model

The GROWTH model as presented here (Campbell, 2016a) is an extension of the popular GROW model proposed by Sir John Whitmore (2009) in 1992. Aside from achieving a higher Scrabble score and forming another very apt word in a coaching context, the addition of the ‘T’ and ‘H’ serve to ensure that the conversation leads to clearly defined actions and that consideration is given to factors influencing the sustainability of new practices. Before outlining each stage of the model in turn, it should be noted that coaching conversations are rarely as linear as the model might suggest. The GROWTH model is certainly not intended to be interpreted as a six-question script or formula. Moreover, it is a conversational framework designed to enable productive coaching conversations – it was never intended to be reproduced as a form to be completed by passive recipients!

Goal

In short, the goal stage is about gaining clarity (for the coachee) around what’s wanted. The aim here is to establish a clear and compelling end point in relation to the topic that the coachee wishes to address. Regardless of how goals are defined, it is paramount that the coachee is encouraged to articulate their commitment and the potential benefits of following these through in their context. Maintaining a solution-focussed, rather than problem-focussed, stance is helpful here in order to help the coachee envision their desired future rather than concentrating on analysing the past. Some useful questions:

• Tell me about what you’d like to achieve by the end of this month/term/year?

• What would be the benefits of this? What would you notice? What would others notice?

• If this was working well, what would be happening?

• What else?

Reality

Where the goal phase seeks clarity about the desired state, the reality phase looks at the current state in order to establish a starting point for positive movement. The natural tendency for the coachee is to dwell on everything that’s not working. This is a time for active listening and empathising before bringing the focus back to what’s wanted instead. Again, a solution-focussed stance that looks to leverage strengths and existing resources can begin to build an increased sense of self-efficacy at this stage. From this perspective, the ‘R’ of the model can also be read as resources. Alongside this, the coachee might be encouraged to consider how to gain a clearer picture of the current reality. Data and sources of feedback could play a role here. Some useful questions:

• What’s working now?

• What skills/knowledge/strengths/experience/resources could you tap into to help move towards your goal?

• Tell me about times when this is not a challenge for you. What were you doing then?

• What else?

Options

This phase is a time for divergent thinking and generating as many options as possible. The aim here is to move the coachee beyond a sense of being ‘stuck’ and generate an increased sense of control by realising that they have some options within their sphere of influence that could take them a step or two closer to achieving their goal. This stage represents a key turning point where the coachee begins to take responsibility to act on their challenge. Provocative questioning and strategies to help the coachee to think ‘outside the box’ are essential at this stage. Some useful ‘ports of call’ in the search for options can be:

• Times in the past when they have successfully tackled this challenge, or a similar one

• Other people who they know have expertise in this area or have tackled the same or similar challenges successfully

• And, finally, suggestions from the coach.

The coach will almost certainly have ideas of their own. However, that’s just what they are – the coach’s ideas, based on their experience and contextual lens - who’s to say that they are the best ideas? Caution and restraint are required on the part of the coach at this stage. The aim is to keep responsibility and ownership with the coachee. The coach might ask, “Would you like some suggestions from me?“ and then introduce several suggestions with something like, “What I’ve seen work in the past is…” To some degree, this puts the ideas out there in neutral territory. A supplementary question that serves to make these suggestions even more provisional is, “How might those ideas work in your context?” This is very different from, “Well, what I think you should do is…” Whitmore (2009), sums this up nicely: “If I give you advice and it fails, you will blame me. I have traded my advice for your responsibility and that is seldom a good deal.”

Will

We are now getting closer to the ‘sharp end’ of the conversation – homing-in on the coachee’s preferred options and seeking commitment to taking them forward. Through choice, the sense of ownership and responsibility ramps up here. This is a significant shift in the conversation and can be quite confronting for the coachee. Typical leadership conversations often stop here. A potential issue with this is that the conversation is concluded at an insufficient level of clarity and precision about what the coachee will do next. In this case, the ‘W’ could stand for wishful thinking! Some useful questions:

• What options could you take forward in the next week?

• So, what are your first small steps?

Tactics

Having prioritised and selected from a range of options, and committed to actioning these, the tactics stage seeks precision about what the coachee will do, how, and when. Again, pursuing this level of precision can feel uncomfortable or challenging for the coach and the coachee. However, in the context of a trusting relationship and an expectation of challenge in the service of the coachee’s thinking and progress, this need not be viewed as ‘pushy’, as it might be seen in normal social conversation. Some useful questions:

• How and when, specifically, will you do that?

• Is that realistic?

• What do you need to put in place first?

Habits

The habits stage could be considered more holistic in nature, seeking to build support for sustained success. This stage needn’t take long but it is important for the coachee to consider the resources, attitudes and support that may be required to see their actions through, both in the short and longer term. Some useful questions:

• What strengths of yours will help you achieve your goal?

• What needs to be different about your attitude, behaviour or environment to see this through?

• Knowing yourself as you do, what advice would you give yourself going forward?

• What support/structures are needed to maintain this?

Loops, cycles and flexibility

Far from being a rather pedestrian and convenient acronym to be followed lock-step, the GROWTH model can be very flexible and responsive to the coachee’s needs. In reality, the process consists of several mini-loops and the coachee will range across a number of stages as their thinking develops. Typically, much more time is spent cycling around G-R-O than on the more convergent phase of W-T-H. Options can pop up at any stage in the conversation and a skilled coach will hold the model loosely in order to shape the conversation.

A conversation built on trust

By now it should be clear that the use of a snappy acronym does not, in itself, automatically result in an effective coaching conversation, but it can provide a very helpful scaffold for both the coach and coachee. Taking the ‘scaffolding’ metaphor further, it could be said that the use of a conversational framework such as GROWTH helps to maintain the structural integrity of the conversation as it builds with increasing clarity and momentum towards change. Taking this image one step further, the foundation on which this framework stands (or wobbles!) is a relationship based on mutual trust. Without trust, rooted in authentic engagement and investment in the process, the conversation runs the risk of becoming an interview or worse, an interrogation!

Not ‘just’ a conversation

‘Doing’ coaching can appear deceptively simple and we should not lose sight of the importance of strategically deployed coaching skills coupled with how the coach ‘shows up’ in the conversation. “In defining coaching as a form of ‘conversation’ it can be easy to trivialise and underplay the critical importance of effective coaching skill development training. Coaching is a specific kind of conversation, full of intention; subtle and not so subtle shifts in perspective; carefully nuanced language; and acutely refined listening among other things” Campbell (2016b).

you can access the online copy of the article in this link: https://www.growthcoaching.com.au/documents/10/Coaching_using_the_GROWTH_model.pdf

How do we ensure that the efforts made by SH/PSDS are effective after going through a process of monitoring, reflective thinking, and coaching intervention?

What evidences do the SH/PSDS need to look at to inform their efforts in the process of process of monitoring, reflective thinking, and coaching intervention?

Consider the examples of Evidences of Technical Assistance from the images below:

To end, we have seen that in our working framework through Theme 1 and Theme 2, we see how we are working towards transforming our schools into a learning organization. To this framework we add to our project initiative to improve literacy among the students.