WOW Coaching Model
#Simples. And Trademark Pending!
A random bonus post because I’ve had a moment of inspiration!
Part of my reflective practice this week is the feeling that Executive Coaching is difficult (to do well, multi dimensional, EQ as well as IQ, shades of grey and ambiguity in spades) but it is in my humble opinion not complicated (multiple process steps, dependencies and go/no go moments, A leads to B to C to D etc until you get to the end of the alphabet and start again).
Yet the executive coaching world is chock-full of models that, frankly, make it all sound more complicated than it really is. So many of the coaching models conflate difficult with complicated by coming up with endless acronym-based, multi-step versions of what is essentially the same ruddy thing. As if complexity or comprehensiveness creates a better end outcome. I mean it might do, but equally it might not.
You can be coached through the (relative) simplicity of GROW, or FUEL, or WOOP, or you can add more letters and steps and go for ACHIEVE, or OSCAR or STOKERS or CLEAR or RIGGAR or any number of other things. And each of these does have something to offer, and different things work for different people and contexts, for sure.
But to me the coaching process is devastatingly simple, no matter how you dress it up.
You’re here.
You want to be there.
What’s the path from here to there.
In a 121 with a fellow coach in training this week, he helped me better articulate my USP as a coach, which ended up along the lines of helping people achieve Clarity, Courage and Cut-Through. So much of what I do is about helping people cut through the noise and the complexity, to find what matters, and to step away from theory or navel-gazing to reach simplicity, clarity and practical next steps (this is why I am a coach and definitely not a therapist!).
Earlier in the day, I also had a half-jokey conversation with another trainee about just inventing my own acronym-based coaching model. So I combined these two insights and did exactly that.
Therefore, I give you my (genuinely UK trademark pending) new coaching model called WOW! I’ve not found a coaching model with less than four steps. Mine has only three, which even an idiot like me can remember. Only three letters in my acronym, and two of them are the same 🙌 Super-low cognitive load.
Here it is :-
W Where are you now?
O What’s the (different ) Outcome that you’re looking for?
W So What (or WTF if you prefer the sweary version) are you going to do to get from here to there?
I can, of course, endlessly add layers of detail and further probing questions about what and when and who and how. But fundamentally it’s just these three elements that you need to nail as a coach, or as a line manager or leader adopting a coaching style to get someone unstuck.
How I’m going to expand my simple model into an 80,000 word tome such that I can become published and famous and earn an endless passive income so that I can lie on a sunbed in Nice and never actually work again, I have yet to figure.
If only someone had a simple three-step model to help me work that out…