I recently listened to an episode of the Toward Solution Podcast featuring Chris Iveson. It brought me back to one of the central ideas that first drew me to Solution Focused practice:
We must have a radical trust in our clients.
That trust is more than a belief that people are capable. It must be visible in how we listen, the questions we ask and the extent to which we resist imposing our own ideas about what a client should do.
This strongly reflects my own journey through professional training with BRIEF UK and SolutionsAcademy, and my continuing development as a Solution Focused coach.
Trusting the client to know best
As professionals, we are often trained to assess, interpret, advise and solve problems. Expertise matters, but it can also get in the way when we begin to assume that we know what would be best for another person.
Radical trust means accepting that:
- The client understands their life better than I do.
- The client decides what a worthwhile future looks like.
- The client chooses which changes matter.
- The client determines what, if anything, to do next.
- Progress belongs to the client.
This sounds straightforward, but it is one of the most demanding parts of the work.
Neutrality is not indifference
One of the most thought-provoking parts of the podcast was Chris Iveson’s discussion of neutrality.
Neutrality does not mean being cold, distant or uninterested. It means avoiding the temptation to encourage one particular choice, praise one outcome over another or steer the client towards the future we think would be best.
The aim is not to leave the client with our answer. It is to help them leave with a stronger sense of possibility, choice and agency.
This has been an important part of my own learning. Through BRIEF UK, I became increasingly aware of the discipline involved in listening carefully to the client’s language and resisting the urge to add interpretations, explanations or advice.
My training with SolutionsAcademy further strengthened my appreciation of coaching as a partnership in which the client remains the expert on their life, ambitions and preferred future.
The client’s answers create the change
Solution Focused practice is often described as a way of asking questions. However, the questions themselves are not the most important part.
The client’s answers are where the value lies.
Useful questions invite people to describe:
- Their best hopes from the conversation
- What they want instead of the current difficulty
- Signs that their preferred future is beginning to happen
- Times when parts of that future are already present
- Strengths, skills and resources they have already used
- People who might notice progress
- Small signs of further movement
The practitioner does not need to provide a clever interpretation. The task is to help the client hear and develop their own descriptions of possibility.
Simplicity requires discipline
One of the striking themes in the episode was the continued effort to make Solution Focused practice simpler.
Over time, unnecessary elements have been removed. The approach has become more focused on what is genuinely useful to the client.
This reflects my own experience. The longer I practise, the less interested I become in adding techniques and the more interested I become in asking:
- What does this client want from this conversation?
- What can I leave out?
- What assumptions am I making?
- Am I following the client’s preferred future or introducing my own?
- Is this question helping the client notice something useful?
Simplicity is not superficiality. It requires the practitioner to remain focused, disciplined and attentive.
The problem does not define the person
The podcast also reinforced the broad usefulness of Solution Focused conversations.
The presenting issue may involve employment, trauma, disability, workplace stress, confidence, education, health or career change. The circumstances matter, but they do not define the person or determine the whole conversation.
The core questions remain:
- What would the person like to be different?
- What would improvement look like?
- What is already helping?
- How have they managed despite the difficulty?
- What strengths and resources are visible?
- What might be the next small sign of progress?
This does not minimise hardship. It ensures that the problem does not become the only story available.
Resilience is often relational
The discussion of trauma and resilience was particularly relevant to my work.
People do not always cope simply because they possess an individual quality called resilience. Often, resilience is supported through relationships.
It can grow when someone:
- Notices us
- Listens carefully
- Believes in our capability
- Recognises our effort
- Remains alongside us
- Helps us identify what is already working
This matters in coaching, employment support, management and community work. A useful Solution Focused conversation does not always need to be long or formal. It may happen in an office, workplace, corridor or brief check-in.
Solution Focus also supports the practitioner
A further theme was the potential benefit of Solution Focused practice for professionals themselves.
When practitioners believe they must fix every problem, they can begin to carry responsibility that does not belong to them.
Trusting clients does not mean caring less. It means recognising that the client remains responsible for their own life and choices.
This can support:
- Healthier professional boundaries
- Reduced emotional exhaustion
- Greater confidence in clients
- Less pressure to have the correct answer
- More curiosity
- Greater satisfaction in the work
This has been significant in my own practice. The more I trust the client, the less pressure I feel to perform as the expert with the solution.
My responsibility is to listen closely, ask useful questions and help the person notice possibilities, capabilities and progress that may otherwise remain hidden.
A practical scaling conversation
The episode concluded with a useful scaling exercise.
The person identifies a project or change they are working towards.
The scale is defined as:
- 0 – when they first decided to begin
- 10 – when the project has been completed satisfactorily
They then identify where they are now.
The number is only the beginning. The practitioner asks the person to describe many things they have already done that place them at that point on the scale.
They might be asked to identify 10, 20 or even 25 examples.
This helps the person recognise effort, learning, persistence and progress that may previously have gone unnoticed.
The next question is not necessarily:
How will you move one point higher?
A more neutral question might be:
What might you notice if you had moved one point higher?
This invites description without prescribing action. The client remains free to decide what they will do.
Five reflections I am taking from the episode
1. Trust must be demonstrated
It is not enough to describe clients as experts in their own lives. Our behaviour and language must show that we genuinely believe it.
2. Neutrality protects agency
The practitioner’s role is not to choose the best future for the client, but to help the client describe possibilities and make their own decisions.
3. The client’s answers are the active ingredient
Questions create an opportunity, but it is the client’s description of hope, progress and capability that makes the difference.
4. We do not need to become experts in every problem
The difficulty matters, but we can still remain focused on what the person wants, what is already helping and what they are capable of.
5. Trusting clients also protects practitioners
When responsibility is placed appropriately, professionals can remain compassionate and engaged without carrying the burden of needing to fix another person’s life.
Final reflection
My learning with BRIEF UK and SolutionsAcademy has continually reinforced that Solution Focused practice is not simply a collection of questions or techniques.
It is a way of being with people.
It asks us to listen without rushing to interpret, to care without taking over and to use our professional skills without displacing the client’s expertise.
Its apparent simplicity is also its greatest challenge.
The purpose is not to leave our footprint on the client’s life. It is to help create a conversation in which the client can recognise their own footsteps, decide where they want them to lead and take ownership of what happens next.