Blog

Hard problems, easy solutions

13/11/2017

The problem might be hard, but the solution can be easy. That’s a central insight of a solutions-focused approach. If we get too tangled up in thinking about the problem, analysing it and talking about it, we might miss the simplicity of doing something different – which may well be unrelated to the problem in any obvious way, yet improve things quickly. A nice example here, in this Guardian Weekend column by Oliver Burkeman.

What’s the best question to start with in a workshop or coaching session?

30/10/2017

Our opening words inevitably contain assumptions, destiny-filled assumptions which can shape the rest of the conversation.

What if we start with ’What’s the problem?'. That assumes a problem, which we’ll now have to talk about and then try to solve.

Bulgarian solution-focused practitioner Plamen Panayotov proposes, ‘What question brought you here today?’

The Solutions Focus Book

‘The client is the expert’. What?!

17/10/2017

In our Solutions Focus practice we like to say that our clients and customers are the experts, by which we acknowledge that they know their lives and work better than we ever can, and are therefore best placed to decide how to use their resources to solve their problems.

So, if the client is the expert, how do we let them know that, while still adding value in our job as coach, therapist or workshop leader? How do we empower clients in practice during a workshop or a coaching session?

Positively Speaking

How can a coach come up with useful questions on the spot?

7/8/2017

How do you know what to say when a client answers your question? Most of the time you did not know what your client was going to say. That was why you asked the question.

Knowing what to do next at that precise moment has a great deal to do with paying attention to language. And what we say will depend on our assumptions.

The Solutions Focus Positively Speaking

I’d love to take a solutions focus, but I can’t let go of the problem

12/6/2017

Many clients have difficulty in letting go of their problem. It’s not surprising. They have lived with the problem for a while; the problem is giving them trouble and it’s worthy of respect. Yet the solution-focused practitioner pops up to say the problem may have nothing to do with the solution – and remind them that it’s the solution that the client wants. That may make sense logically, but from the client’s perspective that can be tough to accept emotionally.

Solution focused conversations

I hear your pain

27/3/2017

People sometimes suspect that Solutions Focus practitioners underestimate the seriousness of their clients’ issues. People have problems, dammit, lots of problems. And these problems profoundly affect them. They are troublesome, nasty, frightening. So don’t ignore our complaints or our pain, as you start questing for solutions, they say.

Historic England

15/8/2016

Historic England looks after the country’s heritage. It’s almost a solutions-focused organisation by definition as its very purpose is to look for what’s worthwhile in the past and do what needs to be done now to preserve it for the future. That’s what we do with our clients too: help them appreciate the resources that they have which will fuel their progress to the future they want.

What your clients want – part 2 | Paul

31/10/2011

In part one, we saw why 'What do you want?' can be considered the primary question in the solution-focused approach to change. Yet sometimes practitioners are reluctant to ask, because they suspect that they won’t be able to deliver what’s wanted.