What difference did publishing 'The Solutions Focus' book make?

[Paul Z Jackson]

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, 10,000 ‘Gamesmakers’ – our Olympic volunteers – were asked to imagine it was a week into the Olympics and everything was going tremendously well… what would they be doing that day, what would they be achieving, what would they be getting out of it?...

Sounds to me like a great example of a Future Perfect activity.

And at the same time, there is scope for so much more.  Only a tiny fraction of the world’s coaches, managers, change-makers and leaders have experience of SF, and there is much to do to build the skilled practitioner base that could make an impact on making positive difference in societies that greatly need it.

Our subtitle for the first edition was ‘The SIMPLE way to positive change’, a bold claim for a radical new approach in the world of organisations.  For the second edition, five years later, the subtitle was ‘Making Coaching and Change SIMPLE’, reflecting a greater emphasis on coaching.

While the second edition was packed with new case studies, we changed virtually nothing in our description of the principles of Solutions Focus.  They rightly stayed SIMPLE:

Solutions not problems

Inbetween – the action is in the interaction

Make use of what’s there

Possibilities – past, present and future

Language – simply said

Every case is different

Of course, there are many ways in which one could convey the ideas and practices of SF.  These six still provide a really handy and accessible framework for those keen to learn about what’s distinctive and valuable about the approach.  With these principles, along with the six Solutions Tools – the conversation-based devices which anyone can pick up and use straight away, its stories and case studies, the book remains the flagship intended by the authors and publisher.

Oh, and it’s now available on Kindle!