Performance Consultants International

Performance Consultants International is a UK-based coaching consultancy founded by Sir John Whitmore (1937–2017) in the early 1980s. The firm is best known as the originator and institutional home of the GROW Model, the four-stage coaching framework (Goal, Reality, Options, Will) developed by Whitmore and his colleagues that has since become the most widely-used coaching framework in the world.

Beyond GROW, Performance Consultants has been one of the foundational organisations in the development of executive and performance coaching as a discipline. The firm operates internationally as a coaching, training, and consultancy practice, working with corporate clients across leadership development, performance coaching, and organisational change. It remains the institutional steward of the GROW Model and continues to publish, teach, and develop the framework through Whitmore's canonical book Coaching for Performance.

At a glance

• Founded — Early 1980s, by Sir John Whitmore and colleagues

• Founder — Sir John Whitmore (1937–2017)

• Type — Coach Training Organisation / Coaching Consultancy (CTO)

• Headquarters — United Kingdom, with international operations

• Distinctive contribution — The GROW Model, originated and codified through Whitmore's Coaching for Performance

• Canonical book — Coaching for Performance: The Principles and Practice of Coaching and Leadership by Sir John Whitmore (1992, now in its 6th edition)

• Intellectual lineage — Inner Game tradition (Tim Gallwey) and the British human-potential movement of the late 1970s

History

Performance Consultants emerged in the early 1980s from Whitmore's collaboration with Tim Gallwey, the American sports psychologist whose Inner Game method had pioneered a non-instructional approach to performance coaching in tennis and skiing. Whitmore was an early convert to the Inner Game approach and partnered with Gallwey to bring it to a wider European and corporate audience.

The GROW Model itself emerged through this collaborative work in the 1980s. Whitmore and his colleagues at Performance Consultants distilled the Inner Game's open-ended inquiry into a four-stage conversational structure that could be taught and applied across coaching contexts. The model was codified in Whitmore's 1992 book Coaching for Performance, which became one of the foundational texts of the modern coaching profession and which is now in its 6th edition.

Across more than four decades, Performance Consultants has remained the institutional home of GROW and has continued to develop the model alongside its broader executive and performance coaching practice. Whitmore, who held the Whitmore baronetcy of Orsett Hall, passed away in 2017; the firm continues under the stewardship of its current leadership team and remains active in coaching, training, and consulting work internationally.

Programs and offerings

Performance coaching and executive coaching. Direct coaching engagements with corporate executives, leadership teams, and high-performing individuals. The firm's coaching practice has been a continuing reference point in the executive coaching field for more than four decades.

Coach training programs. The Performance Coach Certification teaches the GROW Model and the broader Inner Game-derived coaching methodology. Programs are recognised by the major professional bodies and are widely used in corporate coaching capability development and in management-as-coach training programs.

Organisational consulting. Leadership development, culture change, and high-performance team work, drawing on the same coaching philosophy. Work with senior leadership teams in large organisations is a continuing core offering.

Publishing and continuing development. Performance Consultants publishes books, white papers, and ongoing thought leadership on coaching, leadership, and organisational performance. Coaching for Performance, now in its 6th edition, remains the firm's canonical reference text and one of the most-cited works in the coaching field.

What makes Performance Consultants distinctive

Two structural facts distinguish Performance Consultants in the global coaching field:

Originator of GROW. Performance Consultants is the institutional home of the most widely-used coaching framework in the world. Every coach who has ever used GROW, whether in formal coaching or as a manager trained in coaching skills, operates with a model developed at this organisation. The reach of this contribution is difficult to overstate: GROW is taught in coach training programs across every major professional body, in management development at organisations of every scale, and in the curricula of business schools globally.

Inner Game lineage. The firm's coaching philosophy is rooted in Tim Gallwey's Inner Game tradition, which predates the modern coaching profession and brings a distinctively non-instructional, awareness-based approach to performance work. This intellectual lineage is unusual in the corporate coaching world and shapes Performance Consultants' continuing approach: coaching is treated as the practice of evoking the client's own awareness rather than as the application of expert instruction.

Recognition and influence

The GROW Model, which originated at Performance Consultants, is the most-taught coaching framework in the world. It is used in coach training programs across every major professional body and in management development at organisations of every scale. Coaching for Performance has been translated into more than twenty languages and is one of the most-cited texts in the coaching field. Performance Consultants continues to operate internationally as a coaching, training, and consultancy practice, with a particular focus on senior leadership and high-performance contexts.