Being known as someone who is a great sounding board is a powerful way to get noticed at work. The two key skills you need for this is the ability to ask great questions and really listen to the answers. And the attitude that will keep drawing people to you is one of openness and non judgement.
As a colleague of mine says “Opinions are like bottoms every one has got one”. The thing that is far more powerful than an opinion is an opportunity to explore what the person wants to chat about – the topic.Then what they want to achieve – the goal.What is currently going on – the reality. What could they do – the options. Then the actions and learning – the wrap-up to the conversation as it were.
As you may have spotted I am referring to to a great tool developed by Sir John Whitemore and widely used in business for coaching and productive conversations. It’s called T.G.R.O.W.
T Topic
G Goal
R Reality
O Options
W Wrap Up
Below I have outlined some example questions under each heading.
Topic
- What would you like to talk about? Tell me some more about it
- Is there anything else that is relevant about this?
- What is it you would like to discuss?
- What things are you doing now that you would like to stop or delegate to others?
- What is the most important decision you are facing?
Goal
- What would you like to achieve? What would you like to achieve in this session?
- If I could grant you a wish for this session, what would it be?
- What would you like to happen that is not happening now, or what would you like not to happen that is happening now?
- What outcome would you like from this session/discussion/interaction? Is that realistic?
- Can we do that in the time we have available?
Reality – What is happening at the moment?
- When does this happen? How often does this happen?
- How do you know that this is accurate?
- What effect does this have?
- How have you verified, or would you verify, that this is so?
- What other factors are relevant?
- Who else is relevant? What is their perception of the situation?
- What have you tried so far?
T.G.R.O.W is a great tool to help others, improve your impact through asking great questions in a structured way as well as providing you with a useful aid to explore work challenges on your own using the T.G.R.O.W.
questions.
Here’s to your success,
Hilary
