GROW coaching model questions as box prompts: building a GROW template in Ember Console

The GROW model questions are the four sets a coach asks in order: Goal, Reality, Options, Will. Performance Consultants’ guide runs them from the outcome the client wants to the step they take.

Ember Console is in closed beta, and in it one of those questions becomes a box’s prompt in your template.

Typing the question in is the quick part, and the box still needs a test. The one I would argue over is the Options test: that box lists what the client said they could do, and chooses none of it for them.

What are the GROW model questions?

GROW stands for Goal, Reality, Options and Will, and each stage asks for something different. Two per stage, in my wording:

• Goal. What do you want to be different by the end of this? How will you know?
• Reality. What is happening now? What have you tried?
• Options. What could you do if nothing stopped you? Which is cheapest to test this week?
• Will. What will you do first, and when? What would make you drop it?

I wrote those from Performance Consultants’ guide to the GROW model, which publishes example questions by stage. Pick the one you ask most.

How do GROW questions become box prompts in Ember Console?

One question goes in as a box’s prompt, and the test under it is what that box must pass.

1. Load your letterhead into the template.
2. Give each GROW stage its own box.
3. Paste in one question as that box’s prompt.
4. Write the test the box must pass.
5. Run the session through the AI you already use.

Box	Prompt	Test
Goal	What do you want to be different?	Names one outcome in the client’s words.
Reality	What is happening now, and what have you tried?	Repeats what the client said they tried.
Options	What could you do if nothing stopped you?	Lists the client’s options and picks none of them.
Will	What will you do first, and when?	One step and a date the client named.

Every time an AI fills and builds the report it receives every prompt in the template and the eval system, then reworks each box until it passes the minimum standard you set. The Ember landing page puts it this way: “Get tailored AI output for every section of your template, while Ember learns from your edits and checks each result against your own criteria.”

The AI you work in does the writing, and the landing names ChatGPT, Claude and Littlebird; the workflow around it is the part ChatGPT alone leaves to you. Rewrite the Will box in Ember’s editor and the next report is built with that edit in mind.

What is not stated yet?

Two things about a GROW template I have not published.

1. Whether Ember Console ships a GROW starter template, or you type the boxes yourself.
2. Whether boxes can be added, removed or reordered once a template exists.

The table above is my template, not a default of Ember’s. Build it, send one report, then read the Options box as the client will: their options, and no pick of yours among them.

Questions people ask next?

What questions do you ask in each stage of GROW?

Goal asks what the client wants different and how they will know. Reality asks what is happening now. Options opens what they could do with nothing in the way, and Will pins the first step and the date.

What goes in the test behind a box?

A standard you can read the box against. Mine say whose words belong in it, how many items it lists, and what it must not do. The Options test forbids a recommendation.