Reviewing the book Solution-Focused Coaching by Jane Greene and Dr Tony Grant — and how lessons learned stack up against reality
The Christmas break has been good for me. I’ve been reading between bouts of eating, napping, and family time. Despite these relaxing, most welcome times, there is a small downside. My sleep clock is out of whack given my too many naps today. Cue violin music for me now. So I’m writing about what I’ve been reading.
Even though I now hardly remember what day it is, I miss my work. Organisational change projects and private practice client work can be demanding. But both lines of work captivate my attention.
Organisational and individual change alike is fascinating, complex and fraught with risk. My reading list reveals the love of my work. Books on therapy modalities, business problem solving and coaching. Each topic has a rightful place on my bookshelf.
What do my books of interest have in common? Each is a study in the art and science of change.
“Well, technically chemistry is the study of matter. But I prefer to see it as the study of change.”
Walter White, Breaking Bad
One book is from one of the greatest psychologists I’ve ever had the pleasure of meeting. The late Dr Anthony Grant made a big difference in the psychology world. He was one of the pioneers of coaching psychology, and I’m grateful for his work. One of his books sits beside me now.
Solution-Focused Coaching: Managing People in a Complex World explored the principles and techniques of solution-focused coaching. Jane Green and Anthony M. Grant wrote this book in 2003.
This coaching approach emphasises finding and building upon an individual’s strengths and resources. Do clients have the answers inside them to achieve goals? This solution-oriented approach assumes that individuals can find solutions to their valued goals. Thus the coaching process should be collaborative and client-centred, involving:
1. Goal setting. There is an art to helping clients set clear and achievable goals. Sound goal-setting helps clients imagine their desired future.
2. Identifying and building upon existing strengths and resources.
3. Co-creating action plans.
4. Supporting clients in making progress. Encouragement and feedback is a valuable part of coaching.
Coaches have practical strategies and techniques at their disposal: 1. Open-ended questions: keeping the conversation between coach and client flowing. Questions can focus on what is already working well for a client. Clients give you hints about how ready they are for change too.
2. Reframing: a subtle shift in how a client perceives an obstacle. Reframing challenges the meaning a client gives to a situation.
3. Scaling: asking the client put a subjective number on a given situation. This helps assess a client’s commitment to a goal or to help them self-rate a given challenge. The beauty of scaling is that the coach and client can assess their progress over time. Even if the self-reported ‘number’ from the client is subjective, clients may enjoy a sense of progress.
4. The Miracle Question: helping clients create and bring to life an action plan.
Steve de Shazer and Insoo Kim Berg pioneered solution-focused brief therapy. The Miracle Question was part of this form of therapy, which now extends from clinical psychology to coaching. Here’s an example of the Miracle Question:
“Suppose tonight you go to bed and go to sleep as usual. And during the night, a miracle happens. And the problem vanishes. And the issues that concern you are resolved, but you’re still asleep. Therefore, you don’t know that the miracle has happened. When you wake up tomorrow, what will be the first things that will tell you that the miracle has happened? How will you know that the transformation has occurred?”
- Steve de Shazer and Insoo Kim Berg
What practical lessons does this book share? I flip through the book and find many lessons, including helpful research evidence. Beyond coaching intervention models like variations of the GROW model, one model comes to mind.I’m impressed by the ‘roadmap of change’ model designed by the authors. I see the application of this three-step nuanced model to both organisational and personal change.
1. The client’s discontent with the present. From unfulfilled dreams, external feedback or when the client recognises missed opportunities. You can leverage this discontent by exploring it with clients.
2. Vision of the client’s future. What beliefs and values underlie the client’s vision? What is it about this future that excites them? How is this future vision aligned with the client’s values? You can enjoy exploring a client’s strengths and values throughout this exercise.
3. Skills to get there. This is where you co-design an action plan with the client. Yet you also need to see how willing the client is to adopt this plan. Once the plan begins, watch and magnify what is working. Minimise what isn’t working. Explore the client’s assumptions (including negative thoughts and fears). While looking at these ‘negatives’, also look at the ‘positives’ (celebrating success).
Another helpful takeaway is the idea of “asking, not telling”. Yet how do these lessons and concepts go down in real-world practice? The short answer: well, but not in a bulletproof way.
A private practice client may be severely depressed and have significant trust issues. These trust issues may be from previous abuse or trauma. Sometimes they may arise from a distrust of health professionals. Or it could be something about my demeanour or appearance as a provisional psychologist that unsettles them. I don’t know. All I know is that the usual way I engage a client needs to slow down while we establish a basic level of trust.
Trust precedes everything else in organisational change and private practice alike. Trust is a bedrock for asking more questions — including understanding the client’s discontent. The same trust issue applies to organisational clients. Sometimes previous change has been poorly-managed. Or the client has a political agenda that contradicts the ethos of a given organisational change.
Individual clients may chafe at reflections on their strengths and values. They see this reflection of strengths (or protective factors in helping them fix their distress) as “compliments”. They may feel uncomfortable with “compliments”. This dynamic in itself is worth exploring.
Scaling is quite effective in both organisational and individual client work. Organisations may have a fuzzy vision (another concept in this book). This fuzzy vision is an abstract idea of where a team wants to be. For instance, “we want to work in a more agile manner”, or “we want to be more customer-centric”. Transforming a leader’s vision into changed employee behaviour is a nuanced art. Scaling is one technique that helps bring this change to life. I ran an online workshop for dozens of leaders a while ago. This workshop explored topic [X] (it doesn’t matter what the topic was — it could be customer-centricity, how innovative our team is, or whatever).
This single workshop posed the question, “If we were to place a number out of 10 on our current capability of [X], what would it be?”
Of the several groups involved in the workshop, we locked down a broad number — in this case, a “six out of ten”. Great. The next question in this workshop:
“If we were to move the needle just one point — from a six to a seven — what would our team be thinking, feeling and doing in three months?”
Why one point? Small, practical progress over perfection.
Why three months? An arbitrary timeframe soon.
Both kept participants focused on small, practical steps and solutions. The ideas spilling from this question provided these small practical steps and solutions. I ranked participant feedback to this question by the frequency that each solution was raised. Over a dozen similar ideas were grouped, with three leading ideas standing out due to their popularity.
Scaling also applies to individual clients in therapy. Yet I use this question sparingly. Exploring the client’s discontent with the present is a bigger part of individual therapy work — compared with organisational. With individual coaching clients, a more forward-thinking focus applies.
When should you introduce various techniques? As with everything, “it depends”.
Managing the soft stuff is increasingly the key to hard results.
- Jane Greene and Anthony Grant, Solution Focused Coaching
The “it depends” answer ties into a client’s temperament, agenda and fears.
Coaching is not about being a pushover or soft touch. You might sometimes have to work hard to keep people on track.
- Jane Greene and Anthony Grant, Solution Focused Coaching
I can see — and enjoy — the distinct art of coaching and organisational work. The art also exists in therapy, yet there is also a need to link up diagnosis, assessment and “the science” of practice.
Want to learn more about my organisational work? I wrote my book The Change Manager’s Companion. It’s available now. You can also check out my online course on Change Management.