‘More than half the effect is placebo: As a coach you can just hum along’. Well yes, and the other half is important too - the client’s attitude, the coach’s method, the context, for example.
 
At this year's Wales Coaching conference, Eric de Haan spoke about what we know about what makes an impact in coaching. He was presenting headlines from the quantitative research that finds patterns in data - usually after the coaching sessions. It’s the sort of research that sees the coaching work as a lab experiment, ideally comparing clients with control groups of non-clients.
 
Most of what we can say about coaching research is derived from the more extensive research on therapy. 

We’ve been at a conference in Leuven, Belgium, and our European colleagues tell us that more and more organisations are turning to Solutions Focus as their preferred method of change - for individuals, teams and even the organisational culture as a whole.
 
They like the focus on what’s wanted (rather than endless analysis of problems), the harnessing of resources (which is fast and economical) and the rapid progress with small, experimental steps (rather than a cumbersome three-year plan that’s daunting to implement and out of date before the ink is dry).
 
If you think you might be a suitable client to work along those lines with us, here are three good questions to decide which project will most benefit from our collaboration:
 

• What burning issues do you have, that you suspect a solutions-focused approach might well help with?
• Is this an issue really worth working on, so that the benefits of progress will outweigh the effort it’s going to take?
• Who do we need to get involved to make an engaging start?

 
Let us know your answers, and we’ll get the conversation going...

It was a routine training conference, about five years ago. Between sessions, there was a nice moment when a guy in shorts and long hair played some jazz on the piano at the side of the stage. We were waiting for a festival manager to lecture on the recruitment policy for a Danish arts festival. The pianist paused, stood up on the stage and began his presentation. He was Espen Bardsen of the Roskilde Festival.

As I look from my bedroom high over the magnificent quadrangle of Keble College, the signs are promising for a good day at the SOL2012 conference. 
Yesterday afternoon, 30 people gathered at Science Oxford for our pre-conference and enthusiastically learned our 12 Things You Need To Know about Solutions Focus.