Do you have what seems to you to be an intractable problem which involves other people either professionally or personally?
In certain areas of life, such as, engineering, IT and medicine a problem focus is required so that weaknesses and what went wrong can be understood before a solution can be put in place.
Increasingly in life the most interesting and potentially significant problems are about people - especially their difficulties and challenges in communicating with each other.
Change programmes at work show that the Number 1 challenge is most often communication between the workforce.
Research also shows that when it comes to people issues analysis of the problem rarely assists in finding the solution.
Rather, by focusing on the problem you become problem-focused with an excellent strategy for defining it.
Understanding why things are like they are does little to help you to decide what to do next.
Negative emotions brought about by people interaction issues, such as fear, anger, frustration, feeling overwhelmed and misunderstood do not pave the way for a clear solution.
Following the 'What you focus on is what you get', neuroscience helps us to glean that focusing on what the solution is can help enormously with problems relating to people interactions.
The solutions-focused approach is used in all of our work. We start with some initial questions to elicit the issues as you see and experience them and then move forward to articulate specifically what you do want - your goals and objectives - in positive and measurable terms.
We move forward by scaling where you are now and identifying what is already good and what is already being done right.
This helps us identify what already works for you - so you can aim to do more of it - as well as highlighting resources, strengths which can be used to move further forwards to help you gradually achieve your goals and objectives at your own pace.
We also work on the premise that problems rarely happen in all contexts. Identifying times when problems do not occur for you helps us to think about transferring this knowledge, skills and so on to other contexts where the problem does happen for you.
One example of this came to light for a client of mine last night when he realised he felt calm and in control the days after a good night's rest when he was not up until 1am emailing.
This had the knock-on effect of him being calmer with his wife and children the next day which subsequently helped his wife feel warmer towards him, more supportive and so on.
The solutions-focused approach is a positive and pragmatic way to progress with people issues and problems communicating and interacting.
Your challenge is to apply this approach in your own life and if you so wish let us know how you get on.
Our mission is to teach you an approach which you will find useful again and again in your life.
If you would like to know more about receiving solutions focused coaching or counselling please visit our website to see our full range of services West of England Coaching and Counselling.
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