Performance Consultants International

Performance Consultants International is the UK-based coaching consultancy that originated the GROW Model, the world's most widely-used coaching framework. Co-founded by Sir John Whitmore in the early 1980s, the firm has been one of the foundational organisations in the development of executive and performance coaching as a discipline. It operates today as a coaching, training, and organisational consulting practice in 43 countries.

Sir John Whitmore (1937–2017) was the co-founder of Performance Consultants and the pioneer of performance coaching. He defined the theory of the GROW Model in the 1980s, published the foundational coaching text Coaching for Performance in 1992, and wrote five books on leadership, coaching, and sports. He held the Whitmore baronetcy of Orsett Hall. He passed away in 2017; the firm continues under the current leadership team.

GROW stands for Goal, Reality, Options, and Will. Developed by Sir John Whitmore and colleagues at Performance Consultants in the 1980s, drawing on Tim Gallwey's Inner Game philosophy, GROW is the most widely-used coaching and goal-setting framework in the world. It is taught across every major professional coaching body, applied in management development at organisations of every scale, and used by institutions including Harvard and Google. The model is a structured conversational framework, not a mechanical checklist, for evoking the coachee's own awareness and capability.

The Inner Game is the performance philosophy developed by Tim Gallwey in his book The Inner Game of Tennis (1974). Gallwey observed that the main obstacle to performance is not lack of technical skill but interference from the performer's own inner critic and judgment. Performance coaching in the Whitmore tradition works by reducing that interference, evoking the coachee's own awareness and natural capability rather than directing or instructing.

Coaching for Performance, originally published by Sir John Whitmore in 1992, is the foundational text of performance coaching and the canonical guide to the GROW Model. Now in its 6th edition (co-authored by current CEO Tiffany Gaskell), it has sold over one million copies and been translated into more than 20 languages. It is used by coaches, leaders, and organisations worldwide.

The Performance Coach Certification is Performance Consultants' flagship training program, a five-module pathway to the GROW-based coaching methodology. The Silver level (modules 1–3) is ICF Level 1 accredited for the ACC credential. The Gold level (all five modules) fulfils the ICF PCC requirements via the Portfolio path. The program is also recognised by EMCC and AC.

Performance Consultants works in 43 countries across more than 20 languages. The firm delivers open-enrolment programs for individual coaches and custom in-house programs for organisations, including a Train-the-Trainer option. Clients have included Mastercard, Medtronic, IKEA, easyJet, Linde, and Davines.

The current leadership includes Tiffany Gaskell as CEO and David Brown as Founder and Chairman. Gaskell is an international authority on performance coaching who co-authored the 6th edition of Coaching for Performance. Brown has spent 30 years working on transformational leadership and global high-performance cultures.

It tells you the coach has been trained in the GROW Model by the organisation that originated it, the direct institutional line from Sir John Whitmore's work at Performance Consultants in the 1980s. The Silver level of the Performance Coach Certification is ICF Level 1 accredited (eligible for ACC credentialing); the Gold level satisfies ICF PCC requirements via the Portfolio path. The certification does not tell you whether the coach has formally applied for and received an ICF credential. Those are separate steps. Ask specifically whether they hold an ACC or PCC, and how many coaching hours they have logged since completing the programme.

Ask which certification level they completed: Silver (three modules, ICF Level 1) or Gold (five modules, ICF PCC Portfolio path). The Gold level involves substantially more supervised practice. Ask whether they hold an independent ICF credential (ACC or PCC), since programme completion qualifies a coach to apply but does not confer the credential itself. Ask how they use GROW in practice: a good coach will be able to describe concretely how the four stages shape an actual session, not just recite the acronym. Ask what kinds of clients they work with most often, since Performance Consultants trains coaches across executive, corporate, and performance contexts, all distinct orientations.