Lead People Through Change With Solutions Focused Coaching

Title

Solutions Focused Coaching: Managing People in a Complex World

Author

Jane Greene and Anthony M Grant

First Published

2003

Edition

1st Edition

ISBN

ISBN13: 9781843040286
ISBN10: 1-843-04028-X

Overview

Solutions Focused Coaching focuses on how the world of work is changing and how coaching as a management style is a tool to help managers lead people through change. It is a book which attempts to explain the psychology that underpins coaching. It also focuses on coaching being about solutions rather than problems. The book first focuses on theories of change including Kurt Lewin’s “Forcefield Analysis”, Bridges “Transition Model” and Prochaska’s “Transtheoretical Model of Change”. It suggests that understanding the individual and change coupled with a structured conversation can help people move through change. The theories covered to structure the coaching conversations are GROW, I-GROW, REGROW and CIGAR

Who Would Benefit From Reading This Book And Why?

You’ll like this book if you are a manager who works in an environment where change is happening frequently as it focuses on helping people through change into positive action. It’ll help where being problem focused has meant that people are discussing the same problems time and time again and not really moving forward. This book offers a different approach by focusing on solutions but at the same time explaining the theory behind it. So if you like a bit of theory / evidence you’ll enjoy this book.

Reviewer’s Opinion

In many ways "Managing People In A Complex World" covers basic material about coaching that you can find in any coaching book. I think the strength of this book is that it focuses more on explaining why coaching is a great leadership tool and the psychology behind it. I like the “What does the research show?” summary boxes that are used to back up the theory. I really liked the clarity offered in Chapter 2 “Focusing on Solutions” rather than problems. The benefits of a solutions focused approach are evident and easy to understand. The other strength of this book is that it explains change theory really thoroughly. I can see how powerful it could be if managers understood change theory more when having conversations. As a coach understanding where a coachee might be regarding change is very powerful. Equally being able to discuss the change theories with coachees can be useful.