Coaching Models
Coaching Models is a shelf of named frameworks (GROW, OSKAR, CLEAR and others) for structuring a session, and the discipline is choosing the one that fits the client in front of you, not defaulting to whichever one you learned first.
GROW, OSKAR and CLEAR sit as three separate cards, laid flat rather than ranked one above another.
Reach for this when…
- Every session gets run through the same model regardless of what the client actually brings.
- A client is already making progress and a goal-digging model like GROW slows them down.
- The coaching relationship itself is unclear and no model addresses that until the contract is fixed.
How to run it
- Name the presenting issue before picking a model.
- Match the model to the situation: GROW for goal-directed work, OSKAR when there is already progress to build on, CLEAR when the contracting needs attention first.
- Run the session in that model's own sequence rather than blending three at once.
- Notice when the model stops fitting and say so out loud.
- Debrief which model was used so the client can name it too.
A worked example
Situation. Anke Fischer leads a small internal coaching team at Fischer Logistik, a logistics firm in Leipzig, Germany, and every coach on her team had been trained on GROW and used nothing else.
Applied. She introduced OSKAR for clients who were already partway to a solution and CLEAR for cases where the coaching contract itself was the problem, and asked coaches to name out loud which model they were running.
Result. Sessions that used to stall on 'what's the goal' when the client already knew the goal started moving again, because the model matched the conversation instead of forcing it.
The catch
The models overlap more than the acronyms suggest, and switching between them mid-session without saying so confuses the client more than sticking with one imperfect model. A shelf of models can also become an excuse to avoid getting good at any single one.
If you can't say why you picked this model over another, you picked the one you always pick.
Origin: Various (Whitmore - GROW; Jackson & McKergow - OSKAR; Hawkins - CLEAR)