Blog - The Solutions Focus

Answer and question sessions

4/9/2017

In many forms of coaching and therapy, the practitioner has a plan. The course of the conversation depends relatively little on what the client wants. That makes it predictable and thus easy for the coach. But is the comfort of the coach or the therapist (rather than the client) the goal of the session?

In taking a solutions-focused approach, you do have to listen to the client, and the questions you ask depend a great deal on what the client has to say.

We have a favourite SF training exercise, in which you practice with a partner and your next question must include a significant word or phrase from the previous answer. So the pattern shifts from ‘Question, answer, question’ to ‘Answer, question, answer’.

Positively Speaking The Solutions Focus

In SF coaching sessions, we start by asking what the client wants. That’s the plan, and that’s as far as the plan goes. The rest depends upon the answer you get and whatever is needed to get a more detailed description of what’s wanted, descriptions of resources and descriptions of progress.

And the value of that? These questions will produce change. And they will keep you as the coach in the moment and on your toes.

What if your coaching client isn’t ready to talk goals?

21/8/2017

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.

The Solutions Focus Resilience Pocketbook

Another is to start with highlights from the past - proud achievements, better periods in their life or their work - to get a sense of what’s important to them, their talents and their experiences.

Then, when the time is right, you can have a more informed conversation about what’s wanted in the future.

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

What’s the impact of visualisation on motivation?

24/7/2017

A participant on a recent webinar cited a study he’d heard about, saying that visualising a goal can be counter-productive to one’s motivation. Apparently, there’s a danger of feeling that you’ve already accomplished your objective, so you put less effort into doing it ‘again’ for real.

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.

The Solutions Focus Future Perfect

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

Is Solutions Focus a science, an art or a craft?

10/7/2017

At a recent conference, SF practitioner Chris Iveson reminded us that SF is neither a science nor an art, but a craft.

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.

The Solutions Focus Book

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

The logical thread of better conversations

5/6/2017

We are all familiar with tricky conversations in our organisations - the ones you put off for as long as possible or perhaps never have at all. But suppose you could handle these conversations in the best way imaginable, what difference would that make?

What difference would it make it to you, to your team and to your organisation? Each conversation has an impact on your ultimate results, as there is an inevitable logical thread between you, your team and your organisation’s performance.

Difficult Conversations

5 Top tips for building your resilience | Janine

24/4/2017

“A good half of the art of living is resilience.”
― Alain de Botton

It’s tempting to think that resilience is a fixed personality trait, maybe even something that we are born with. But be reassured, the ability to bounce back from failure and to cope with everyday difficulties is something that can be learned and developed by anyone.

Here are five top tips that can help you build your resilience.

The Solutions Focus Resilience Management Pocketbook

What happens when you accidentally give people a taste of Solutions Focus? | Paul

10/4/2017

I was running a two-day course in Facilitation Skills, teaching a bunch of tips and tools, especially those neat processes into which you can put pretty much any content.

This particular format was a series of rotating pairs. It was near the end of the programme, so I quickly made up a few questions which each set of paired partners could ask each other.

Improvisation Academy Advanced Facilitation Masterclass

The activity ran smoothly and the participants raced back to their chairs to make notes. ‘What were those questions we just asked?’, they demanded. ‘What do you remember them to be?’, I parried - still in facilitator mode.

It so happened that my questions were all flavoured with a solutions focus. That’s because SF is the way that I think, even though in terms of the format we were learning the wording of the questions was irrelevant...

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.