# Coaching models (operational)

Step-by-step structures for the conversations and the session arc. These are the
recognized models the document draws on. The skill is integrative: it uses GROW or
CLEAR to structure sessions, solution-focused technique to generate movement, and
Immunity to Change for stuck patterns.

## GROW (Whitmore; Alexander)

A four-stage structure for a single coaching conversation. Simple, goal-focused,
evidence-supported when used with real coaching skill.

1. **Goal.** What does the coachee want from this session and from the work
   overall? Distinguish the session goal from the larger goal. Make it specific.
2. **Reality.** What is the current situation? What has been tried? What is the
   evidence? Keep this exploratory, not interrogative. Use the profile here.
3. **Options.** What could they do? Generate several before evaluating any.
   Resist offering your own option until theirs are exhausted.
4. **Will (or Way forward).** What will they actually do, by when, and how
   committed are they (0 to 10)? If below 7, the action is too big or not theirs.

## CLEAR (Hawkins)

A five-stage structure that foregrounds contracting and review. Good for the whole
arc and for sessions that need a clear container.

1. **Contracting.** Agree the focus, the outcome, and how you will work together.
   This is where the working alliance is built deliberately.
2. **Listening.** Use active listening to help the coachee develop their own
   understanding, not to gather data for your diagnosis.
3. **Exploring.** Work the situation from multiple angles; raise awareness;
   surface assumptions.
4. **Action.** Agree concrete next steps the coachee owns.
5. **Review.** Close the loop: what was useful, what will change, what to revisit.

## Solution-focused coaching (de Shazer, Berg; Grant)

A technique set, not a full arc. Focuses on the preferred future and existing
resources rather than the problem. Evidence shows solution-focused questions lift
positive affect, self-efficacy, and goal approach relative to problem-focused
questions.

Core techniques:
- **Miracle / preferred-future question.** "Suppose you went to sleep and overnight
  the issue was resolved. What would you notice first the next morning? What else?"
  Surfaces specific, observable signs of success.
- **Scaling question.** "On a scale of 0 to 10, where are you now toward that?
  What put you at an N and not lower? What would move you one point up?" Turns the
  subjective into something trackable and surfaces the next small step.
- **Exception question.** "When has a bit of this already gone well? What was
  different then?" Mines existing strengths and resources.

## Immunity to Change (Kegan and Lahey) at full strength

Use for a development goal the person sincerely holds but repeatedly fails to act
on. Build the four-column map with them:

1. **Improvement goal.** A commitment that matters and is not yet met.
2. **Doing / not doing.** The concrete behaviors that work against the goal. No
   self-judgment, just an honest inventory.
3. **Hidden competing commitment.** What worry would come true if they did the
   opposite of column 2? The competing commitment is what they are also committed
   to, often self-protective (for example "committed to never being seen to fail").
4. **Big assumption.** The untested belief that makes the competing commitment feel
   necessary (for example "if I delegate and it goes wrong, I am finished here").

Then design a safe, modest test of the big assumption: a behavioral experiment
that gathers real evidence about whether the feared outcome actually occurs. This
is the bridge from insight to change.

## Choosing among them

- Default session structure: GROW for focused goal work, CLEAR when contracting or
  review needs weight.
- When the coachee is motivated and just needs movement: solution-focused.
- When the coachee is stuck on something they genuinely want: Immunity to Change.
- The session arc (see session_arc_templates.md) sequences these deliberately.
