The Solutions Focus: Making Coaching and Change SIMPLE

by Paul Z. Jackson, Mark McKergow

This is a new and updated edition of this acclaimed first business book on the powerful, simple yet subtle approach to positive change in people, teams and organisations. Used around the world by a wide range of people, professions and organisations, the first edition has now sold nearly 10,000 copies and been translated into 7 languages.

Including new chapters reflecting the increasing importance of coaching and the solutions focus movement in the business environment, this wide-ranging book is filled with all the most important ideas, case examples and practical tips for managers, facilitators and consultants. Proven in many fields and with a distinguished intellectual heritage, " The Solutions Focus " provides a simple and direct route to progress in your organisation. It focuses solutions - not problems; in the action is in the interaction; make use of what's there; possibilities - past, present and future; and language. Every case is different. The trouble with traditional approaches to people problems is that they assume a straightforward relationship between cause and effect, between a problem and its solution. A solutions-focused approach sidesteps the search for the causes of a problem and heads straight for the solution, showing you how to envisage your preferred future and quickly takes steps forward.

The authors present a set of practical techniques, including specific forms of questioning that lead to immediate action and results. They show how to identify what is working in your organisation and amplify it to make useful changes; to focus on what is possible rather than what is intractable and how to be solution focused, not solution forced.

Genres: Business, Nonfiction

228 pages, Paperback

First published December 14, 2006

Reviews

[JB Radcliff]

I used a number of the principles from this book in a high school classroom. Students enjoyed the experience from learning from a book that made sense! Students were engaged and motivated to know what the author was going to suggest next. We used a number of the concepts and worked out problems on the chalkboard. Great read!

[Rat Barrel]

This is a very good foundation book for solutions focused coaching. I found the model, and illustrations, to be useful during my first semester. At times, though, the language was a bit British. Nonetheless, this book should be on the shelf of any professional coach.

[Łukasz Lichota]

Really appealing school of thinking in coaching and therapy.

[Katieloowho]

As a birth coach i found this book interesting, although It was a bit more geared toward corporate consulting than the individual personal coaching I do. Helpful nevertheless!

[Ben Linders]

Must read if you want to know more about Solution Focused. We used the Solution Focused approach together with the Agile Manifesto, EVO, Open Space Technology, and Retrospectives when we developed our "Golden Rules for Agile Process Improvement": http://www.benlinders.com/2011/golden...

[Olli Sorje]

Good book about solutions focus. Gives you lots of tools to use solution focus in coaching and other situations.