Alan Fine's Blog

Shortly after launching BC&P – her second financial training company – Anne-Marie was sitting down for lunch with a friend. Her friend was looking for advice about the best way to manage his pension – specifically, he wanted to know how to better manage those who were managing his money. Coincidently, Anne-Marie recently had picked up a copy of Alan Fine's new book, You ALREADY Know How To Be GREAT.

She was delighted to discover that the book contained so much of the insight that she'd received from Alan years ago. Having just read about the GROW™ model – a powerful process that provides a simple way to create focus, reduce interference, and improve performance in any area of life – Anne-Marie decided to use this method as a framework for coaching her friend. She was interested in exploring what steps he might take to clarify and articulate his goals and become better equipped "to advise his advisers." As she witnessed firsthand how the GROW method helped her friend, Anne-Marie had a startling idea that had significant implications for her budding new venture; she could use the GROW method to both develop new products for her business and as a tool to teach and coach clients.

Anne-Marie had been looking for a way to build new business around a series of seminars that would appeal to high net worth individuals and the GROW method provided her with just the breakthrough she needed. Through using this process she was able to solve the nagging problem of how to create a new product offering to meet the needs of this niche market. She could also use GROW as a framework for developing and structuring the seminars.

At the end of the day, Anne-Marie is in the business of educating people in finance. Her company's new seminar will enable investors to gain greater clarity and control over their investment portfolios. Through GROW, she'd found a new tool to help expand her business and, in the process, empower her clients to articulate their own goals and more confidently work with their investment advisers.

Anne-Marie's story is about more than the trajectory of a successful entrepreneur. It's about finding a way to reach breakthrough performance in every aspect of life.

Jason Kean is the Manager of Consumer Services and employee number 42 at AutoTrader.com. As the 42nd employee in a company that's ballooned to over 2,000, Jason has seen a lot of change over the years. Founded in 1998, AutoTrader.com is now attracting more than 15 million unique monthly visitors. Sure, there have been some growing pains along the way. But you don't grow into a multi-million dollar company by fearing change. In fact, it's something AutoTrader.com has come to expect. It has set its sights on becoming a billion dollar company within the next 10 years. And though that's nothing to run from, it does require some serious preparation.

One step AutoTrader.com has taken to prepare for the exciting years ahead is to focus on improving the company's organizational performance. As part of a new initiative to unite leadership, improve customer service, and prepare for the future, AutoTrader.com has trained over 100 of its supervisors on the Inside-Out method for reaching breakthrough performance. By keeping the process in the hands of the individuals who know the systems best, employees become the champions of improvement. Jason Kean knows this firsthand.

Jason calls it "analysis paralysis." Whatever the term, we've all experienced it; that stuck feeling… you can't move forward because you're bogged down in too much data and information. That's exactly how Jason was feeling just before meeting InsideOut founder Alan Fine. For weeks Jason had been putting off making four major decisions that were important to his department. In meeting with Alan, he learned a simple and repeatable process for eliminating outside interference and reaching breakthrough performance. We call it the GROW™ model, and it equipped Jason with the ability to accomplish something that had stumped him for weeks – he was able to settle on a decisive Way Forward for each of his decisions. At the first break, when he shared his thoughts, his boss gave him the green light to move ahead.

"It was something I had been fretting over for weeks," said Jason "After listening to Alan, it was literally solved in a minute and a half." The powerful strategies presented in the InsideOut method gave Jason the tools to make the necessary decisions and help move the company in the right direction. It wasn't long before he began to apply the power of the GROW model to other areas of business and even his personal life.

One of the most significant aspects to the GROW model is its adaptability. Jason discovered this through working with a co-worker who was struggling with a problem. His coworker was having a conflict with a manager. The trouble had been going on for months and was only getting worse. Conflict in the workplace, especially with a manager, can be emotionally draining but it can also hinder productivity. As they were discussing options, it suddenly occurred to Jason that the GROW model could be used to break through hostilities and re-open channels of communication.

Using the coach for performance approach that Jason learned of the GROW training, he was able to help his coworker by providing a method to eliminate interference on the path to creating stronger professional relationships. In only one day, they were able to resolve an issue that had been steadily deteriorating productivity and morale for months.

"They didn't have the tool they needed to resolve the dispute in their tool belt," said Jason "I was able to provide that tool. Their relationship was strengthened and they were able to grow for the company. Everyone is now moving full steam ahead."

Jason has found that he can apply this powerful tool at home as well as the workplace. Getting your four-year-old to settle down for the night can be a lot of fun. But it can also be a real struggle. And for Jason, a father of twins, bedtime can feel twice as difficult. The GROW method allowed Jason to approach bedtime with a whole new mentality, which is leading to more rest for the girls and, thankfully, more rest for mom and dad.

"If my twins were the only ones who benefited from my training, I would consider it a success. But I've really been able to use it throughout many relationships," Jason said "I'm thrilled about all that I've learned."

In this case, what's good for Jason is also good for AutoTrader.com. When its people grow as individuals, the entire organization benefits. And by allowing employees to engage in assessing and aligning organizational systems, the employees become the champions of their own improved processes. AutoTrader.com isn't a billion dollar company yet. But it's getting closer each year. With the help of InsideOut, it is more prepared for all the growth and success that's certain to come its way.

Enjoy this year's final Insider stories!

Keeping an organization performing is a constant battle. Every organization is trying to overcome its inertia, to gain momentum, and to become more productive. This battle with inertia means there is constant change—change that people often resist, deny, and frequently become angry about.Ultimately, everyone in the organization wants higher performance. This occurs at its highest levels in spite of resistance to change when people are clear what their team or personal goals are; understand the business outcome that their team or personal goals contribute to; and ensure that each task they do supports these goals. One way to raise the performance of an organization is to help all individuals become more efficient and effective in their daily tasks.

Historically, leaders have tried to develop this effectiveness and efficiency in their people by using two approaches:   

A command-and-control approach: Controllers lead their people as if they are herding sheep. Their mind-set is to train their people well enough to be able to control them. It works, but it costs a lot of time and energy. 
A knowledge-based approach: It is often assumed that if people have more information, they will be able to do things better based on that information. This is the organizational equivalent of reading a book on golf and expecting to be able to play at the level of a professional. More often than not, it is not a lack of knowledge that blocks performance, but a lack of consistent, accurate implementation of the knowledge that people already have that blocks individuals, teams, and organizations from performing at their best. People in organizations are rarely stupid, but they often suffer interference that blocks their performance.

Fine sees the GROW Model as a powerful change agent that enables both individuals and organizations to effectively focus on “the critical variables” of decision-making. “By focusing on each stage of the GROW Model, we gain greater awareness,” he says. “This in turn accelerates our ability to become what Stephen R. Covey calls ‘response-able.’ In the final analysis, this ability to avoid internal distraction and act consciously is what drives genuine change.”

Fine discovered at a tender age the barriers that internal performance inhibitors can create. He was a painfully shy child with severe asthma. Despite these inhibitors, his brother entered him in a school tennis tournament in elementary school when Alan was 11 years old. Though Fine had been on a court only a few times in his life, he recalls, “Somehow I got to the final, and found myself playing against the 13-year-old school jock; he was captain of the rugby team and already had facial hair.”

Leading 6-4, 4-0, Fine heard a voice in his head saying, “You have to win only two more games, and you are the school champion.” He froze and did not win another game. This experience and others like it became latent seeds that ultimately bloomed into a profusion of performance insight within him. Tennis and coaching became fixtures in Fine’s life. He began coaching at 13, and received remuneration for his efforts at the early age of 15.

“Coaching was an easy and natural thing for me to do,” Fine says. Eventually he began working with regional and national coaches; he used what he earned to pay his way through college as a tennis player and coach. Fine went to college with the intention to become an optometrist, but he was so focused on playing and coaching tennis that he dropped out in his second year and started his own coaching practice, complete with pro shop and sporting goods store, in his home town of Cardiff, the capital of Wales. He was the first full-time tennis coach in Wales. With scant resources, Fine and fellow Welsh native Paul Daly built their club into a hub of Welsh tennis, attracting and developing national-caliber players.

“It was an exciting time for me, one in which I saw first-hand the benefits of coaching,” Fine says. “We were able to create a culture that seemed to excite a high level of energy and enthusiasm about tennis, which translated into a fairly high level of skill in the region.”

As Fine worked with promising students who struggled with pressure and learning challenges, he developed a growing interest in sports psychology. “The impact of internal processes on performance rose to the forefront of my awareness during this time,” he says. Fine’s interest in sports psychology led him to explore Tim Gallwey’s The Inner Game concept. He developed a long-time friendship and collaboration with Alexander and Whitmore. The three worked together for three years in the early 1980s before co developing the G.R.O.W .Model that has had such a lasting impact on the world of athletic and corporate coaching.

Fine sees the GROW Model as a powerful change agent that enables both individuals and organizations to effectively focus on “the critical variables” of decision-making. “By focusing on each stage of the GROW Model, we gain greater awareness,” he says. “This in turn accelerates our ability to become what Stephen R. Covey calls ‘response-able.’ In the final analysis, this ability to avoid internal distraction and act consciously is what drives genuine change.”

Fine discovered at a tender age the barriers that internal performance inhibitors can create. He was a painfully shy child with severe asthma. Despite these inhibitors, his brother entered him in a school tennis tournament in elementary school when Alan was 11 years old. Though Fine had been on a court only a few times in his life, he recalls, “Somehow I got to the final, and found myself playing against the 13-year-old school jock; he was captain of the rugby team and already had facial hair.”

Leading 6-4, 4-0, Fine heard a voice in his head saying, “You have to win only two more games, and you are the school champion.” He froze and did not win another game. This experience and others like it became latent seeds that ultimately bloomed into a profusion of performance insight within him. Tennis and coaching became fixtures in Fine’s life. He began coaching at 13, and received remuneration for his efforts at the early age of 15.

“Coaching was an easy and natural thing for me to do,” Fine says. Eventually he began working with regional and national coaches; he used what he earned to pay his way through college as a tennis player and coach. Fine went to college with the intention to become an optometrist, but he was so focused on playing and coaching tennis that he dropped out in his second year and started his own coaching practice, complete with pro shop and sporting goods store, in his home town of Cardiff, the capital of Wales. He was the first full-time tennis coach in Wales. With scant resources, Fine and fellow Welsh native Paul Daly built their club into a hub of Welsh tennis, attracting and developing national-caliber players.

“It was an exciting time for me, one in which I saw first-hand the benefits of coaching,” Fine says. “We were able to create a culture that seemed to excite a high level of energy and enthusiasm about tennis, which translated into a fairly high level of skill in the region.”

As Fine worked with promising students who struggled with pressure and learning challenges, he developed a growing interest in sports psychology. “The impact of internal processes on performance rose to the forefront of my awareness during this time,” he says. Fine’s interest in sports psychology led him to explore Tim Gallwey’s The Inner Game concept. He developed a long-time friendship and collaboration with Alexander and Whitmore. The three worked together for three years in the early 1980s before co developing the G.R.O.W .Model that has had such a lasting impact on the world of athletic and corporate coaching.

Fine sees the GROW Model as a powerful change agent that enables both individuals and organizations to effectively focus on "the critical variables" of decision-making. "By focusing on each stage of the GROW Model, we gain greater awareness," he says. "This in turn accelerates our ability to become what Stephen R. Covey calls 'response-able.' In the final analysis, this ability to avoid internal distraction and act consciously is what drives genuine change."

Fine discovered at a tender age the barriers that internal performance inhibitors can create. He was a painfully shy child with severe asthma. Despite these inhibitors, his brother entered him in a school tennis tournament in elementary school when Alan was 11 years old. Though Fine had been on a court only a few times in his life, he recalls, "Somehow I got to the final, and found myself playing against the 13-year-old school jock; he was captain of the rugby team and already had facial hair."

Leading 6-4, 4-0, Fine heard a voice in his head saying, "You have to win only two more games, and you are the school champion." He froze and did not win another game. This experience and others like it became latent seeds that ultimately bloomed into a profusion of performance insight within him. Tennis and coaching became fixtures in Fine's life. He began coaching at 13, and received remuneration for his efforts at the early age of 15.

"Coaching was an easy and natural thing for me to do," Fine says. Eventually he began working with regional and national coaches; he used what he earned to pay his way through college as a tennis player and coach. Fine went to college with the intention to become an optometrist, but he was so focused on playing and coaching tennis that he dropped out in his second year and started his own coaching practice, complete with pro shop and sporting goods store, in his home town of Cardiff, the capital of Wales. He was the first full-time tennis coach in Wales. With scant resources, Fine and fellow Welsh native Paul Daly built their club into a hub of Welsh tennis, attracting and developing national-caliber players.

"It was an exciting time for me, one in which I saw first-hand the benefits of coaching," Fine says. "We were able to create a culture that seemed to excite a high level of energy and enthusiasm about tennis, which translated into a fairly high level of skill in the region."

As Fine worked with promising students who struggled with pressure and learning challenges, he developed a growing interest in sports psychology. "The impact of internal processes on performance rose to the forefront of my awareness during this time," he says. Fine's interest in sports psychology led him to explore Tim Gallwey's The Inner Game concept. He developed a long-time friendship and collaboration with Alexander and Whitmore. The three worked together for three years in the early 1980s before co developing the G.R.O.W .Model that has had such a lasting impact on the world of athletic and corporate coaching.

Fine sees the GROW Model as a powerful change agent that enables both individuals and organizations to effectively focus on "the critical variables" of decision-making. "By focusing on each stage of the GROW Model, we gain greater awareness," he says. "This in turn accelerates our ability to become what Stephen R. Covey calls 'response-able.' In the final analysis, this ability to avoid internal distraction and act consciously is what drives genuine change."

Fine discovered at a tender age the barriers that internal performance inhibitors can create. He was a painfully shy child with severe asthma. Despite these inhibitors, his brother entered him in a school tennis tournament in elementary school when Alan was 11 years old. Though Fine had been on a court only a few times in his life, he recalls, "Somehow I got to the final, and found myself playing against the 13-year-old school jock; he was captain of the rugby team and already had facial hair."

Leading 6-4, 4-0, Fine heard a voice in his head saying, "You have to win only two more games, and you are the school champion." He froze and did not win another game. This experience and others like it became latent seeds that ultimately bloomed into a profusion of performance insight within him. Tennis and coaching became fixtures in Fine's life. He began coaching at 13, and received remuneration for his efforts at the early age of 15.

"Coaching was an easy and natural thing for me to do," Fine says. Eventually he began working with regional and national coaches; he used what he earned to pay his way through college as a tennis player and coach. Fine went to college with the intention to become an optometrist, but he was so focused on playing and coaching tennis that he dropped out in his second year and started his own coaching practice, complete with pro shop and sporting goods store, in his home town of Cardiff, the capital of Wales. He was the first full-time tennis coach in Wales. With scant resources, Fine and fellow Welsh native Paul Daly built their club into a hub of Welsh tennis, attracting and developing national-caliber players.

"It was an exciting time for me, one in which I saw first-hand the benefits of coaching," Fine says. "We were able to create a culture that seemed to excite a high level of energy and enthusiasm about tennis, which translated into a fairly high level of skill in the region."

As Fine worked with promising students who struggled with pressure and learning challenges, he developed a growing interest in sports psychology. "The impact of internal processes on performance rose to the forefront of my awareness during this time," he says. Fine's interest in sports psychology led him to explore Tim Gallwey's The Inner Game concept. He developed a long-time friendship and collaboration with Alexander and Whitmore. The three worked together for three years in the early 1980s before co developing the G.R.O.W .Model that has had such a lasting impact on the world of athletic and corporate coaching.

Shortly after Fine and his collaborators developed the GROW Model, the partners went their separate ways, each utilizing his own approach to the model. Since then, Fine has steadily refined and built upon the original model. A host of significant innovations to the GROW Model occurred at InsideOut Development, which Fine founded in 1985 in the UK and eventually relocated to Utah in the United States.

InsideOut Development is a professional services firm that provides leadership, management, and front-line employee training programs; executive coaching services; team performance workshops; and reinforcement services to a large global clientele. The company, recognized as a leader in developing manager-as-coach skills, trains tens of thousands of people annually using the GROW Model and other innovative tools and programs developed by Alan Fine and the InsideOut Development team. The company also provides instructional certification and has certified thousands of facilitators in its program offerings. During the past two decades, Fine and his collaborators at InsideOut Development have created targeted products and services that use the GROW Model tailored to a wide array of clients, applications, and contexts.

Fine's approach has led him to become a prominent performance trainer and coach for leaders in diverse fields of endeavor–from corporate executives and entrepreneurs to educators and professional athletes. In the organizational arena, InsideOut Development has worked with some of the world's most respected organizations, including BP, Cadbury Schweppes, IBM, Proctor & Gamble, NASA, and the U.S. Navy. Fine has received considerable attention in the U.S. and throughout the world for the often-dramatic performance improvements of prominent athletes, including former Davis Cup tennis star Buster Mottram and Professional Golfers' Association (PGA) golfers Stephen Ames, Bradley Dredge, Paul Lawrie, David Llewellyn, Colin Montgomery, and Philip Price.

Ames has publicly credited Fine for accelerating his emergence from relative obscurity to win the 2006 Players Championship by an astounding six strokes. "When I started working with … Alan … in 2004, there was a noticeable difference in my game," Ames said in a 2009 Golf Digest interview. "After that, every year has been a great year." According to Ames, Fine's guidance helped him remove internal performance interference and "play more naturally, like Stephen Ames the instinctive player rather than Stephen Ames the technical player."

The GROW Model is virtually universal in its application. The model's efficacy transcends boundaries of culture, discipline, and personality. "I've seen this help people in large corporations and small companies; from high-tech to finance; and in government, education, and athletic settings on multiple continents," Fine says. "It just works."

Written by Jacques Bazinet, Director of Marketing at InsideOut Development

InsideOut Development founder, Alan Fine, began his career as a tennis coach working with up-and-coming tennis professionals. As he worked with athletes, he realized that the biggest performance challenge wasn't that people didn't know what to do, but rather that they didn't do what they know. In other words, performance breakthroughs come from the inside out.

From these experiences, in mid- to late-1980, Fine and two other collaborators, Graham Alexander and Sir John Whitmore, developed the GROW Model–one of the world's most recognized and influential coaching models today.

GROW is an acronym representing the four core components in any significant decision-making process. The meanings of the first three letters are shared by all major iterations of the model. "G" represents the "Goal" the individual seeks to achieve; "R", the "Realities" a person should consider in the context of the decision process; and "O", the "Options" open to the decision-maker. "W" has been interpreted in a variety of ways. But Fine defined it as "Way Forward"–a specific action plan that he feels maximizes the precision and proactivity of the GROW Model.

The GROW Model is constructed upon a deceptively simple insight–that breakthrough performance comes more often, not from acquiring additional knowledge, but from removing internal interference that allows the person to act on what they already know. Good decisions lead to effective actions which lead to productive results. Fine calls this phenomenon "Decision Velocity"–the speed and accuracy of decisions that drive individual and organizational performance.

Written by Jacques Bazinet, Director of Marketing at InsideOut Development

Albert has noticed an immediate improvement in performance within his team after implementing the GROW™ model into his work interactions. He has also used the process in his personal life. The day after attending the workshop, Albert incorporated GROW™ into an unexpected situation with his 12 year-old son. An avid free diver, Albert took his son A.J. to the ocean for a swim. A.J. expressed an interest in seeing how long he could hold his breath under water. On his first attempt, he stayed under the water for only 12 seconds. Disappointed, A.J. made another attempt and recorded only 11 seconds. As Albert saw his son feeling defeated and frustrated, he thought about Alan's teaching and recognized the opportunity to use the GROW™ model in helping his son achieve success. Albert engaged his son in a breakthrough conversation. He first had A.J. define his Goal—he wanted to hold his breath for 30 seconds. Then he asked his son about the current Reality. What had he tried so far? What worked and what didn't? A.J. told him that when he was under water he noticed the cold. Then they talked about Options for improvement and created a Way Forward. Albert asked A.J. if he could focus on the temperature of the water and rate it on a scale of 1 to 10, with 1 being warm and 10 being frigid. With this plan in place, A.J. dove under the water again. Each time he surfaced he would tell his father how cold the water was on a scale of 1 to 10. By the fourth dive with this intense focus, A.J. surfaced to report the temperature. Then Albert asked him, "Would you like to know how long you were under water? 42 seconds." A.J., of course, was elated. He had achieved a 266% increase in performance in just under 5 minutes! As a father and coach, Albert was excited to see his son achieve success with breakthrough performance. The InsideOut Coaching approach has positively impacted not only his professional, but also his personal relationships.

Reviewer: Angela (Library Girl Reads)

I found You Already Know How to Be Great a pretty easy read considering it is non-fiction and often seemed aimed at people in the business world.  It is written in a very conversational tone and Mr. Fine uses a lot of examples to illustrate his points.  I found these examples very helpful to understanding the concepts he was discussing.

Chapters are split into shorter sections and there are many text boxes along the way with great information to back up what Mr. Fine is saying.  He also gives reflective questions at the end of each chapter which can be used to think through the ideas on a personal level.

I have already used his G.R.O.W. process to think through an issue that was overwhelming me and I have been able to break it down to a more manageable level.  Although I have not solved it completely, I am seeing measurable progress which is more than I had before reading this book.

The only thing that I did not like about this book, and I think it was mainly because I was not expecting it, is the focus on coaching others.  Based on the title and description, I thought this would be a book on finding a way to reach my own personal goals.  While that is certainly one component of this book, it felt like there was a greater focus on helping other people to reach their potential by guiding them through this process.

Source: Library Girls Reads

We're consistently forming beliefs about ourselves and other people that limit performance.

For example:

At work when we see . . .

The boss who always has to have her way (We say she's arrogant. She doesn't care about what the rest of us think.)

At home when we see . . .

The teenager who won't fulfi ll her responsibilities around the house  (We say she's lazy. She doesn't care about the family.)

In critical performance moments when we see . . .

The musician who plays well in practice and freezes up on stage (We say she has too much "stage fright" to ever become a top performer.)

In the classroom when we see . . .

The teacher who struggles to deal with a student's learning style (We say she's stupid and lazy; she just wants to do what's comfortable for her.)

In the performing arts and sports when we see . . .

The golfer who keeps saying, "I'm a slicer!" (We say she's got a negative attitude. She'll always trail the pack.)

We form these beliefs about others. We form them about ourselves. And these beliefs not only limit performance; they also limit the way we try to help ourselves or others improve.

 What is your experience?

 Please enter your comments below.