Paul Z Jackson's Page

It’s ten years now since the publication of The Solutions Focus.  We wanted the book to spread the ideas, and ten years later it’s succeeded to some extent – there’s a flourishing world-wide community of practitioners, a great annual conference, and thousands of people who have used SF in their lives and work.  The OSKAR coaching model pops up in many organisations, and it’s fun to recognise elements of SF in some unlikely places.

I heard yesterday, for example, that at Wembley Arena,…

In a brilliant introduction to his presentation on Microanalysis, Harry Korman told his audience, “Give me feedback or I die.  When I look at you I need you to nod.”

If you are ever lucky enough to be handed one of my business cards, as well as my pretty face on it you’ll see a question:  it asks, ‘What do you want?’ 

It does so because this is a central question in any solution-focused (SF) conversation.  As a question it may seem an obvious one to ask in many contexts – it is difficult, for example, to imagine getting very far as an organisational consultant or as a coach without it.  

But in other settings, such as medicine, that’s not…

Notes from a discussion led by Paul Z Jackson and Joost van Iersel, at SOL Summer Retreat, Fontana Passug August 2012

We say that good Solution Focus practitioners 'stay on the surface'. And we treat this as a good thing. What do we mean by staying on the surface?

If we read we Bateson and Dilts (to pick but two), we get tempted to talk about ‘identity’ and other mentalistic, psychological…

Anton Stellamans led a sparkling session, in which he took us on a quest for a different kind of philosophy, suggesting that perhaps SF itself is a different kind of philosophy.

I’m not sure I understood all of what was said, but here are my more or less useful…