Strengthening GROW: how scenario-based practice and cognitive techniques elevate the Reality step
"So, what would you say is the biggest challenge right now?" Carlos asked, his tone open but slightly tentative. Across the table, Isabella shifted uncomfortably. "I don't know... maybe just feeling a bit overwhelmed," she offered. Carlos nodded, trying to probe deeper. "Can you give me an example—something specific from this week?" Isabella paused. "It's just everything. The new routes, the shift changes... it's a lot."
The conversation stalled. Carlos, a regional operations manager at a mid-sized waste disposal company in Valencia, had been enthusiastic about applying the newly introduced GROW model. But now, midway through this coaching session, he was stuck. The "Reality" step—meant to uncover concrete challenges—was quickly becoming vague and unproductive.
This wasn't just Carlos's experience. After years of overlooking coaching inconsistencies, the company's leadership had decided to bring in the GROW model as a standard for development conversations across the organization. In Spanish business culture, where personal rapport and tailored guidance are highly valued, the model promised structure without rigidity. The launch was successful: workshops were well-attended, and managers started scheduling one-on-ones with their teams.
However, it soon became clear that the "R" step—understanding the employee's reality—was a common stumbling block. Employees often offered generalizations instead of specifics. Without the right techniques, these conversations risked turning GROW into a box-ticking exercise instead of a tool for growth.
As this pattern emerged across the organization, the company responded by integrating role-playing practice scenarios grounded in cognitive psychology science into follow-up training. The goal: to help managers move beyond surface-level exchanges and create coaching experiences that were both structured and authentic.
Managers like Carlos were guided through AI-powered simulations designed to sharpen their ability to elicit specific, emotionally rich details from employees during the Reality step. These sessions provided immediate, personalized feedback and reflection prompts.
The two instructional designers on the L&D team built these simulations around five proven techniques drawn from cognitive science:
Timeline technique: "Let's walk through the situation step by step. what happened first?" this approach leverages sequential recall, which helps people retrieve more detailed memories by anchoring them to a logical progression.
Specific example prompt: "Can you describe one particular day or task where this issue felt especially tough?" asking for a concrete example activates episodic memory, prompting the brain to retrieve a vivid, context-rich incident instead of generic summaries.
"What were you thinking and feeling?" questions: "What was going through your mind when that happened? how did it make you feel?" these types of questions activate metacognitive reflection, which not only enhances memory encoding but also connects emotional states to behavior and decision-making.
Third-person perspective: "How would you explain this to a new team member who wasn't there?" psychological distancing through perspective-taking can help employees articulate experiences with greater clarity and less emotional defensiveness.
Layered questioning: "What was the biggest challenge?" "why was that difficult?" "what impact did it have?" this method mirrors the elaborative interrogation technique, which strengthens understanding by encouraging learners to explain and deepen their reasoning.
These techniques embedded into low-risk role playing simulations empowered managers to guide conversations that revealed the real, often hidden, barriers to performance.
Two weeks later, in their next coaching session, Carlos tried the Specific Example Prompt with Isabella again. "Can you walk me through what happened Monday morning with the new route?" he asked. This time, she lit up with specifics—delayed truck assignments, confusion over updated maps, missed handoffs. The fog began to clear.
More importantly, the coaching felt real. These weren't just steps in a framework; they were moments of shared insight. By combining scenario-based training with Surge9's AI-driven feedback, the company preserved the structure of GROW while making it resonate with emotional depth and cultural nuance.
In the ensuing weeks, the L&D team began to gain insight into how managers were mastering the Reality step. Previously, they had been largely blind to what was happening inside individual coaching sessions—relying on hearsay, scattered notes, or incomplete follow-up surveys. Now, Surge9's semantic analytics engine continuously reviewed the recordings and transcripts of hundreds of simulation sessions and surfaced summaries of patterns in manager behavior.
For example, the system noted a steady increase in the use of layered questioning, as well as more frequent follow-ups based on employee emotion cues—an indication that managers were not only applying techniques but adapting them fluently. The AI flagged particularly effective moments and shared anonymized best-practice snippets across the manager cohort. With each coaching simulation, the organization wasn't just training—it was learning about how its people learned.
By aligning training with hands-on practice and real-time feedback, the company transformed coaching from a static skill into a dynamic capability. Managers were no longer left to interpret frameworks in isolation. Instead, they were part of a learning system that actively supported their growth, helping them become the kind of coaches who could unlock real potential in every conversation.
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