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? ​

​Sometimes a client in a coaching session is not ready to talk about what they want, their goals or even to have a sense of what a better future might be like for them. That may appear to scupper the conversation if you are intent on goal-finding as your first coaching step. But there are other ways to proceed.

One option is to ask your client, ‘What are you already doing that's useful?’ to gain pointers towards from their current activities that might plausibly form part of a more fruitful future.

For a solutions-focused practitioner, this seems more about the danger of extrapolating too much from a single research project than about the value of visualisation. There’s obvious value for an individual or a team in the clarity gained by visualising the goal. The depiction of the Future Perfect in detail also provides useful signs by which to measure progress. And it encourages reflecting on the benefits of the various aspects of the goal – which again will provoke and boost motivation. I’m not sure how you would gain those benefits without somehow visualising what’s wanted in glorious detail.

Nor is the Future Perfect visualisation the end of the typical coaching process. First, in a detailed articulation of a vision, we not only see it, we speak it, unearthing more and more detail.  And then we also explore resources and consider the next small steps. Those additional elements should be more than enough to avoid any loss of motivation.

Have a look at all of our SF TOOLS on one page.

It’s a craft that may take practice, but it is basically simple. There are a few things we need to do as coaches or therapists. And it is a good idea to learn to do them well.
 
Then we can easily be tempted to add on various optional extras, which we hope look good. Yes, that is very tempting.
 
Or we may prefer to keep our practice pared down and minimal. And if that is possible, we can do so with an appreciation that the rest is decoration. The pure craft is enough.

​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.