Learning to do What Works with Clients
Creating Professional Effectiveness - Solutions for Success
by Colleen Gray

Creating Professional Effectiveness doesn't have to be so much hard work? In fact you may notice that the harder you try, the harder it becomes.

Like most people who desire professional success, you may find it difficult to decide how to do it and how much effort to put into it so that you can maintain your work and life balance.

Helping people be more successful in their lives doesn't require complex theories. Solution oriented approaches which focus attention on doing what works provide an elegant and useful roadmap to being more successful in our lives, and a way of ensuring situations and issues aren't more complex than they need to be.

The proven, simple, effective approach to change, which broadens the scope of possibilities and facilitates thinking outside the square, is a collaborative way of asking questions that aid reflection on what is really happening, and what needs to be changed. The ‘what would be useful to do’ approach, encourages and develops a person’s own innate abilities and potentials, and provides a smorgasbord of skills and strategies.

The Solution oriented approach to achieving organisational change originally had its roots in counselling and therapeutic practice frameworks that were devised by Steve de Shazer and Kim Soo Berg back in the 1980’s. Since then popularity of solutions continues to increase and graduates from solution counselling programs successfully apply solution frameworks and strategies in the areas of counselling and therapy, teaching, mentoring / coaching, private practice, working with young people, human services and disabled people.

The conversational nature of the approach is an effective problem solving framework for all types of professional concerns and human relationship issues. As well it is a strategic tool when applied in a range of organisational and business contexts such as facilitation, consulting and leadership. People benefits are evident from having more efficient and productive management systems and increased employee satisfaction and teamwork.

So how can you use solution frameworks to achieve success? Well first up, knowing what is working enhances confidence, and promotes a positive emotion and approach to the tasks ahead. Asking the questions about what is working, and how have you coped so far establishes past successes and competence.

So whether you are seeking solutions for personal, relationship or professional concerns, and you are ready to try a different conversation, these solution frameworks are a starting point for you to begin having a conversation to move on from what is missing, and a way of exploring possibilities and gaining new understandings.

Create a picture of what your perfect success looks like
Working to achieve success requires a clear idea of where you want to go and want to achieve. Goal clarity about what success looks like, and provides succinct steps for identifying what does and doesn’t need doing.

Solution Question:
What does perfect success look like for you?
When will you know you have been successful enough?
How will you know where you are on track for success?
Which small successes are you already doing, and might continue to do?
What are the next steps to take?

Enjoy discovering what resources you have to get there?
Recognising and knowing your personal strengths and resources saves the soul searching questions of ‘am I good enough’ and ‘can I really do this’? Self doubt thrives on those who aren’t in touch with their strengths and abilities. Confidence and motivation thrive on knowing what you do well and having a sense of self.

Solution Question:
How have you coped this far?
What has kept you on track?
How have you achieved the successes?
What is it that people notice about you when you are working well?
What else have you done, what else, and what else?

Package the solvable problems
Solvable problems are those for which a solution can be found, and there is a willingness and ability to make those changes. It is helpful to know the difference between needing and being able to find a solution and just wanting to change for change sake. There are times when the attempts to impose a solution, simply create problems. The issue of what is a problem, and how a problem is identified is never clear cut. What one person calls a problem another may call a solution and vice versa.

Solution Questions:
What would be different if the problem wasn’t happening?
What is the difference you want to achieve?
How have you coped with the problem so far?
When I introduce this solution, what will the consequences be?

Save the time you don’t need to spend
The pressure of being too busy to stop and smell the roses, and enjoy the successes takes it toll. Problem solving and decision making are aided by the space to think things through.

Solution Questions:
What would you be doing if you weren’t so busy?
What’s missing in your day?
What is the smallest thing you could change to include some fun or space in your life?
Where would you do it, how would you do it?

Invoke useful questions which discover solutions.
The power is in the solution vision, and a roadmap for directly moving toward it. Identify the small steps to take now, and what the next one will be, steadily moving ahead, step by step.

Solution Questions:
What is the solution that will be most helpful here?
Where have you already begun to do the solution?
What else will be helpful?
How will you know when you get there?

Creating effectiveness in your own life isn’t rocket science. Solutions and ways forward are the powers that come from aligning your conversational frameworks with useful questions that illuminate where you want to go, and show the way for how to get there. To have the right conversation and to find the right solution is to allow for the possibility of you making a difference to your life and how you experience and live it.