Solutions Focus

It might sound obvious that to improve people's performance we need to focus their thinking on solutions, rather than problems. Yet it’s surprising how little we do this in practice. Somehow people always prefer to go straight to the problems.

There's nothing inherently wrong with focusing on problems. The issue is that there is simply a more useful place to put our attention, which is onto solutions.

Focusing on problems leads us to the past. It leads us to try to change what can't be change. Focusing on problems leads to blame, excuses, and justifications. It's complicated, slow, and often drains our mental energy. Focusing on solutions, however, immediately creates energy in our mind. We open up ideas and possibilities. If we want people to come up with great ideas, to think well, to reach their potential as financial planners, we want them focused on solutions most of the time. This doesn't mean we don't address problems—far from it; it means we address them by analyzing the way forward, instead of their causes. Let me illustrate this with the following examples:

Why didn't you hit your targets? (Problem)
What do you need to do next time to hit your targets? (Solution)

Why did this happen? (Problem)
What do you want to achieve? (Solution)

Where did it all start to go wrong? (Problem)
What do you need to do to move this forward? (Solution)

Why do you think you're not good at this? (Problem)
How can you develop strength in this area? (Solution)

What's wrong with your team? (Problem)
What does your team need to do to succeed? (Solution)

Why did you do that? (Problem)
What do you want to do next? (Solution)

Who is responsible for this? (Problem)
Who can achieve this? (Solution)

Why isn’t this working? (Problem)
What do we need to do to make this work? (Solution)

You might notice the word “why" in many of the problem-focused questions, yet there's no use of that word around solutions. Being conscious of removing the word why" from our conversion can be a great way to remember to focus on solutions.

Looking at the examples above, even though there's only a slight difference in the wording of the questions, when you take a solutions focus, you end up having very different conversations than when you focus on the problem.

Research from the field of solutions-focused therapy is showing that focusing on solutions is a fast and effective way of addressing quite real problems. Take a look at this quote from The Solutions Focus: It is often easier to start something new than to stop something. Anything that is a habit, it is by definition difficult to stop. And, if change is encouraged by positive reinforcement, it is much easier to be aware of when you are taking the reinforceable action than to know when you are not doing whatever it is that you want to give up.”

Problems disappear into the background as solutions develop. This makes sense when you go back to the principle that our wirings drives our perceptions: the more we focus on the solutions, we see these solutions becoming real.