New third edition of The Solutions Focus book out this week (in UK and on Kindle)
This fully revised and expanded edition comes 22 years after the first edition - proving that the book is a classic!
It’s an exciting week here; the new third edition of my book The Solutions Focus (with Paul Z Jackson) is published in the UK and on Kindle on 9th May 2024 - buy it here. International readers who want a print copy can pre-order for 3 September 2024, when an audio book will also be available.
This new edition, subtitled Transforming change for coaches, leaders and consultants, feels like a lifetime achievement award. The book that Paul and I wrote well over two decades ago, the very first book about SF coaching and use in organisational settings, is still relevant and still creating waves.
“This book will help us deal with the challenges of our times in intelligent and innovative ways.”
Dr Ivan Misner, BNI Founder and New York Times bestselling author
About the new edition
Solutions Focus is in widespread use by consultants, coaches, facilitators and managers. It can be applied at one-to-one, group or organisational levels. Applications include health and wellbeing, sales and negotiation, team building and leadership, performance management, organisational strategy and even peace-building and climate resilience.
“Mark and Paul’s work has stood the test of time – because it works!”
Raymond Aaron, New York Times bestselling author
Revisions to this acclaimed book include updates throughout to position it in the contemporary landscape. Next generation developments are fully covered including new research on embodiment and experience, the role of hosting rather than directing, and the importance of detail.
“The Solutions Focus has been a constant go-to resource for me. This third edition is packed with new ideas, approaches, and techniques to add to my coaching toolbox.”
Dan Abrahams, bestselling sports psychology author
New case studies from around the world including Tate, Sky TV, the Austrian parliament. a school in Australia and a prefecture in Japan continue the book’s legacy of learning from real cases by looking closely at what happens and how it works. New material exploring improvisation and co-constructed stories completes the update and will ensure this book remains the leader in its field for generations to come.
“The world has never needed rapid change for the better than it does now; for anyone looking for solutions to the problems that surround us, this book is a great place to start.”
Sir Michael Barber, Author of Accomplishment: How to Achieve Ambitious and Challenging Things.
Preface to the third edition (from the book)
When it appeared, The Solutions Focus was the first book to introduce solutions-focused (SF) ideas to the worlds of coaching, management, and organizational change. During the past two decades change makers have applied SF around the world in settings from schools to city authorities, hotels to hospitals, personal development to industrial reorganization. The SOLWorld network, founded around the initial publication, has organised over 50 international events. Our OSKAR coaching framework, introduced in the second edition, has galvanized the coaching world.
We have radically updated this third edition to reflect international applications, new developments in the SF community, and the greater appreciation overall for engaging emergence (rather than fighting it), working with difficult and “wicked” problems and the growth of dialogic (as opposed to diagnostic) methods. It feels like the world has been catching up with SF since 2002, and we are happy to reaffirm the value and the values of this work.
We’ve made changes on almost every page, added many new case studies, and tweaked the questions and tools to make them even more effective. For the first eight chapters, this is their first and long overdue revision.
The new subtitle, Transforming Change, works on different levels. You can use this book to transform your work as a change agent, coach, consultant, leader, manager, or facilitator. And we propose (again) a new view of change itself, working with complexity, invoking imagination, focusing on details, and using small steps to foster impactful and lasting change. This has been our view all along. We may have been guilty in the earlier editions of leaving it somewhat unsaid, expecting that readers would discover it for themselves. Many did. Others may have missed the overarching message in their enthusiasm for miracles and scales. And countless more, mistaking the title for positive thinking, appear to have bypassed it completely.
Of course, you can initiate useful change by simply using SF questions on their own. As our friend and SF colleague Elliott Connie says, you are just one question away from making a difference. And the more you use these questions and other methods with awareness of the bigger frame of SF, the more difference you will make. We are thrilled that The Solutions Focus has gained classic status.
Read it, put the pieces together, and enjoy the energy and engagement you create. Learn as you go and keep going. Search out an SF event to meet like-minded practitioners. There are many online opportunities with SOLWorld, SF in Organisations (SFiO), SF24, and more. SF is more joyous and more effective when you’re learning and reflecting with others.
What is the Solutions Focus?
The Solutions Focus is a powerful, practical, and proven approach to positive change with people, teams, and organizations. With this approach of radical simplicity, you sidestep the often fruitless search for the causes of problems, take the direct route forward, and use small steps to build toward the better future— the “solution.” The focus on solutions (not problems), strengths (not weaknesses), and what’s going well (rather than what’s gone wrong) leads to a positive and pragmatic way of making progress.
What is so radical about it? Focusing on solutions (that is, defining and acting on what is wanted and what is better) rejects conventional approaches that share the widespread assumption that focusing on problems (by analyzing, reacting to, and talking about them) is the best way to solve them. This reflects the difference between a complex problem (with many unknowns, fuzzy boundaries, and interconnections) and a complicated problem (where analysis and experience can be helpful).
William James, the father of modern psychology, said, “The art of being wise is the art of knowing what to overlook.” The art of the coach, manager, or consultant using a solutions-focused approach is as much about the disciplines of what you don’t do— delving into problems that are more productively overlooked, for example—as it is about the solutions that you do focus on. This book reveals how you—as a coach, leader, facilitator, or manager—can apply a set of fundamental principles and an elegant box of tools to transform how you approach and deliver change.
Whether you are dealing with difficult people at work, aiming to get the best from a team, or unraveling tricky strategic issues within your organization, the book will show you how to:
Redefine projects and problems so that you can make pragmatic progress.
Notice and harness valuable events and resources around you.
Avoid major pitfalls and obstacles along the route.
Define and take small steps with the maximum chance of success.
Keep things as simple as possible, but no simpler.
Change is happening all the time, our role is to identify useful change and amplify it. Drawing on the systems heritage and its development in complexity theory and social constructionist thinking, The Solutions Focus presents a new wave of change technology—truly transforming change.
Fundamentals of the Solutions Focus
Here are the fundamental assumptions and principles that underpin solutions-focused work:
Change is happening all the time: Our job is to identify and amplify useful change.
There is no one “right” way of looking at things: Different views may fit the facts just as well.
Detailed understanding of the “problem” is usually little help in arriving at the solution.
No “problem” happens all the time: Direct routes lie in identifying what happens when what you want happens (even a tiny bit) or when the problem does not happen.
Clues to solutions are right there in front of you: You need only recognize them, and this book will enhance your detective skills to do just that.
Small changes in the right direction can be amplified to great effect.
It is important to stay solutions focused, not solutions forced.
You may be surprised by aspects of these principles at first glance. The idea that detailed understanding of a problem is of little help in making progress goes against the grain of much modern thinking, for example.
Conventionally, in many fields a huge amount of time and effort is spent on analyzing problems and often this is rewarded with success. A software engineer improving an app may parse faulty code to sort out the bugs; a mechanic typically employs problem- solving skills, looking to replace a defective part to fix a machine. Much of the success of modern medicine is founded on the great problem-analysis method known as diagnosis. If you have a painful leg, you expect the doctor to search for the cause and apply the appropriate treatment: a cast for a break, bandages and rest for a sprain.
In fact, a problem focus has been so successful in so many arenas that it is the automatic response for many experts when faced with any difficult situation. You may think that detailed understanding of a problem is essential to work out what to do next. The more certain you are of this, the more you are likely to be locked into this traditional problem-focused mode of thought.
Yet while this problem focus has its place in many domains, it is less productive when the issue involves interactions between people. SF offers a more direct route to what works and what fits—for you and your clients.
Paul Z Jackson and Mark McKergow
For more information and to order the book, go to http://thesolutionsfocus.com
Find out more about the book
Mark and Paul spoke about the book live at the SF24 online conference last week. You can catch up with the informative session here, including some great background to how the book first came to be written in the late 1990s.
Please help us by sharing the news!
Paul and I would love it if you would share news of the new book with your colleagues, contacts and social media connections. Please use the hashtag #TSF3 so we can amplify you and your posts.
You can download a small package of graphics here to make things easier. Feel free to copy bits of this Substack and/or say whatever you like about your enthusiam and support for The Solutions Focus.
Dates and Mates
There only two key dates this time:
Thursday 9th May 2024: The Solutions Focus third edition is published in the UK (in print) and on Kindle (around the world). Buy it now at Amazon.co.uk (and all good bookshops).
Tuesday 3 September 2024: The Solutions Focus third edition is published in print in the USA and internationally. It’s already available for pre-order at Amazon.com and Amazon.com.au (where you can now buy Kindle editions).
Normal service at Steps To A Humanity Of Organisation will be resumed next week. :-)