Coaching models compared: GROW, OSKAR, CLEAR, OSCAR and four more

This guide gives a short account of eight models, a table that compares them, and a way to choose one.

The eight models side by side

GROW

GROW has four stages: Goal, Reality, Options and Will. Some versions call the last stage "Way forward". Performance Consultants, the firm that Sir John Whitmore co-founded, says he and his peers created the model in the late 1980s and early 1990s. His book Coaching for Performance took it to organisations around the world in 1992. Graham Alexander and Alan Fine are also credited with the early work.

Some versions add a T at the front, for Topic, and call the model TGROW. The coach and the client agree what the conversation is about before they set a goal for it.

Use it when you are new to coaching and want a shape that you can hold in your head. Questions for each stage and a worked session are in GROW model questions, with a worked example.

OSKAR

OSKAR stands for Outcome, Scaling, Know-how and resources, Affirm and action, and Review. Mark McKergow and Paul Z Jackson developed it around the year 2000, for a coaching programme at a food company. It uses the solution-focused approach. The coach asks what the client wants, where they are on a scale of 0 to 10, and when the outcome already happens, even a little.

Two things set it apart. The model has room for know-how from other people, and even from the coach, as well as questions. And its makers say that a coach can use it as a set of tools. A session does not need every step.

Use it when a client is stuck in the problem and talk about what works will help more than more talk about what doesn't.

OSCAR

OSCAR stands for Outcome, Situation, Choices and consequences, Actions and Review. Andrew Gilbert and Karen Whittleworth developed it. Their page for the model carries a 2002 copyright date. They say it builds on GROW and suits managers who want to coach their team.

It differs from GROW in two places. The options stage asks about the consequences of each choice. And the model ends with Review, where the coach and the client agree how they will check progress.

Use it when you coach the same person again and again, and each session needs to pick up from the last.

CLEAR

CLEAR stands for Contract, Listen, Explore, Action and Review. The model is credited to Peter Hawkins. We found no page by Hawkins himself that describes it, so we give no date for it.

CLEAR starts with the contract. The coach and the client first agree how they will work: how often they meet, for how long, and what the client needs from the coaching. Goals can come out of that stage. Listen comes next, and it is a stage with its own name. The coach's first job is to hear the client.

Use it when the terms of the conversation are not yet clear. That is often the case in a first session, or when a manager coaches someone who reports to them.

ACHIEVE

ACHIEVE has seven steps. In short, they are: assess the current situation, brainstorm creative alternatives to it, hone goals, generate options, evaluate options, design a valid action plan, and encourage momentum. Stephen Palmer's list shows where the letters come from. He calls the second step "creative brainstorming" and the fourth "initiate options".

Sabine Dembkowski and Fiona Eldridge built the model from observation. They studied transcripts and video recordings of executive coaches in the US, England and Germany, and they wrote down what the effective coaches did. Palmer dates the model to 2003.

Use it when you want more steps than GROW gives you. ACHIEVE splits the options stage into "generate" and "evaluate", and it adds a last step for what happens after the session.

FUEL

FUEL stands for Frame the conversation, Understand the current state, Explore the desired state, and Lay out a success plan. It comes from The Extraordinary Coach by Jack Zenger and Kathleen Stinnett, a book for leaders who coach.

The first stage sets it apart. The coach and the client agree the purpose, the process and the desired outcome of the conversation before they look at the situation. The authors call the model "a framework, not a cage".

Use it when you are a leader or a manager, and the conversation needs a clear frame from the start.

PRACTICE

PRACTICE has seven steps, and their first letters spell the name: Problem identification, Realistic and relevant goals, Alternative solutions generated, Consideration of consequences, Target the most feasible solutions, Implementation of the Chosen solutions, and Evaluation.

Stephen Palmer developed it in 2007. He adapted a seven-step problem-solving sequence from 1984 and added solution-focused methods. The model starts with the problem, but Palmer says the coach steers toward solutions and away from long talk about the problem.

Use it when the client brings a clear, concrete problem and wants to leave with a plan.

STEPPPA

STEPPPA comes from Angus McLeod's book Performance Coaching, published in 2003. McLeod spells it with three Ps. Some writers drop one and spell it STEPPA. A review on the publisher's page gives the letters: Subject, Target objective, Emotional context to the subject and the target, Perception and re-evaluation of the target, Plan, Pace, and Adapt or act.

It is the only model on this page that names emotion as a stage. The coach asks how the client feels about the subject and the target before any plan.

Use it when the client knows what to do and has not done it. The feeling about the goal is often the thing to look at.

How do you choose a coaching model?

The models have more in common than their letters suggest. Almost all of them ask the same four things: what the client wants, where they are now, what they could do, and what they will do.

Three questions separate them:

1. Where does the session start? GROW, OSKAR and OSCAR start with what the client wants: a goal or an outcome. CLEAR and FUEL start with an agreement about the conversation. PRACTICE and ACHIEVE start with the problem or the situation. STEPPPA starts with the subject.
2. Does it look at the problem, or at what already works? OSKAR looks for what already works. PRACTICE names the problem first and then moves to solutions. GROW and OSCAR give the present situation a stage of its own.
3. Does it end with a review? OSKAR, OSCAR and CLEAR name a Review stage. PRACTICE ends with evaluation. GROW ends with the commitment.

If you are new, start with one model and use it until you no longer need to think about the letters. GROW is the usual first choice because it is short. Add a second model when you meet a session that the first one does not fit.

A model is not coaching

A model gives a session its order. It does not listen for you. Performance Consultants quotes Whitmore's own warning that "any dictator can use GROW". The model works only together with coaching skills.

The professional bodies take the same view. The ICF Core Competencies describe what a coach does in a session, and they name no model. EMCC Global's competence framework has a category called "Use of Models and Techniques", and it does not tell a coach which model to use. A coach can follow every letter and still miss the client. For the skills under the models, read the 8 ICF Core Competencies, explained with session examples.