Coaching practices for Focus on Solutions Not Blame

Describe almost anything you are working through and IX Coach finds the practices whose real-world fit is closest. For Focus on Solutions Not Blame, these are the strongest matches in the current practice library.

Does this sound like the set of challenges you might be facing?

• The whole thing has become a tug-of-war over whose fault it is
• Somewhere in this I stopped seeing a problem we both have and started seeing the other person AS the problem
• Every time this conflict flares my mind races to how they’re at fault, and I keep noticing I never once turn the question around to my own expectations and reactions
• All day my attention goes straight to what went wrong
• It feels like this is just how I am

Practices that may help

1. Move from blame to contribution
   Ask how each side contributed to the situation instead of who is at fault.
   Difficult Conversations, Made Practical
2. Solution-Focused Brief Therapy: Building On What Works
   Solution-focused brief therapy (SFBT), developed by Steve de Shazer and Insoo Kim Berg, directs attention to what already works — client strengths, past successes, and desired futures — rather than to analyzing problems. Meta-analyses report small-to-moderate positive effects across a range of presenting issues, with particular strength in behavioral problems and depression in adult populations.
3. Separate the person from the problem
   Treat the conflict as a problem you face together, not a contest you fight each other.
   The Third Alternative, Made Practical
4. Drive all blames into one
   When conflict arises, examine how self-grasping is the root, rather than blaming the other person.
   Lojong: Tibetan Mind Training
5. The Formula First-Session Task and Between-Session Noticing
   Assign between-session observation tasks that direct attention toward what’s already working.
   Solution-Focused Brief Therapy: Building On What Works
6. Exception Finding: When Is the Problem Already Less Severe?
   Identify times when the problem was absent or less severe — these are evidence that solutions already exist.
   Solution-Focused Brief Therapy: Building On What Works
7. Ask "What do we need to do to move forward?"
   Forward-facing questions shift energy from arguing about the past to solving for the future.
   Calibrated Questions, Made Practical
8. Correct blaming by adding accountability for self
   When blaming, add an honest account of your own contribution to the problem.
   The Satir Model
9. Listen before diagnosing
   Resist the urge to solve until you can restate the problem in terms the other person agrees with.
   The Trust Equation, Made Practical
10. Take extreme ownership
    When the team fails, the leader looks first at what the leader did or failed to do.
    Extreme Ownership, Made Practical

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