Whitmore, a former
professional racing driver turned business consultant and partner
with Timothy Gallwey in his Inner Game business, writes about
coaching in a management environment, using illustrations from the
world of sport. For Whitmore, the key tasks of coaching are raising
awareness and responsibility in the coachee. A manager's task is to
get the job done AND to grow his staff, and this second task is
achieved by coaching which increases the subordinate's responsibility
and retention. In a time when change is the norm, a coaching culture
increases involvement and responsibility and reduces stress which is
caused by lack of personal control.
Awareness and
responsibility are raised by good questions, illustrated by the
tennis coach who asks “which way is the ball spinning” rather
than “are you watching the ball.” This compels the coachee to
watch the ball and to focus to a higher order. Whitmore introduced
the GROW sequence of questions in coaching: Goals, Reality, Option,
and What, When, Whom and the Will to do it. A chapter is dedicated
to each of these headings with guidelines and examples. Whitmore
goes on to discuss performance and its relationship with learning and
enjoyment; purpose and meaning, feedback, coaching teams and
overcoming barriers to coaching in corporations.
First published in
1992, according to Whitmore, Coaching for Performance is “widely
accepted as the definitive book on coaching in the business context.”
Whitmore is credited by other authors on the subject for developing
the GROW model, a widely used framework.
What I learned from
this book was the practical application of the GROW model,
particularly in a management environment. Throughout the book,
Whitmore gives examples of coaching dialogues that illustrate the
principles he is explaining in the text. What I will do with this
book is to go back to it repeatedly, not to memorize the questions,
but to increase my familiarity with the kind of coaching
conversations that increase awareness and responsibility in clients.
John Whitmore, Coaching
for Performance: GROWing People, Performance and Purpose, 3rd
Edition, London: Nicholas Brealey Publishing, 2002, 180 Pages.