Solution Focused Competence Hunting: A Practical Guide

Solution focused competence hunting means examining what a client actually did, what helped and which part may be useful again. It can give a more accurate account than either “I failed at everything” or “You handled that brilliantly.”

The useful output is a supported description of an action in context, followed by a practical decision. A person can show good judgment during one part of an event while making a mistake elsewhere. Recognizing the former does not erase the latter.

This guide offers an original coaching inquiry and a complete fictional handover example. It develops a specific skill, checks what transfers and preserves the limits of the evidence.

Look for a useful action the client can recognize

The Solution Focused Brief Therapy Association’s 2025 treatment manual describes a resource-oriented approach that starts from clients’ understandings and desired changes. It also discusses compliments: direct recognition, questions implying something positive and clients’ own positive observations. These are clinical source concepts, not a qualification to provide therapy or evidence for a standardized competence-hunting coaching protocol.

Here, competence hunting is a practical description of a coaching orientation. The sequence below is an original workplace application, not an official diagnostic instrument, a proprietary assessment or a test of occupational competence.

Specificity gives recognition its value. “You are a natural leader” does not identify a repeatable action. “You separated confirmed observations from explanations in the handover” supplies something the client can inspect, correct and possibly use again.

Ask whether the description fits before building on it. A compliment the client rejects is information about the conversation. Repeating it more warmly does not make it accurate. The client may have a different account of what helped, including an action someone else performed.

For the broader approach, see solution-focused brief coaching. This article concentrates on describing and testing a particular contribution.

Make four distinctions before calling something a strength

An action is different from an outcome. A clear handover can help the next responder understand an incident without restoring the service. The outcome depends on other people, systems and decisions. Describe the contribution at the level the evidence supports.

One useful instance is different from a stable capability. Finding a checked, time-stamped note shows that the client produced that note. It does not establish that every future note will be accurate or that the client meets a professional certification standard. Repeated observations can strengthen a practical judgment without making it universal.

Personal contribution is different from sole ownership. A colleague may supply the crucial observation, a manager may authorize a pause and an existing template may organize the information. Ask what the client contributed within that arrangement. Recognizing collaboration is more precise than assigning the whole result to one person.

Coping is different from a sustainable method. Working through an unplanned overnight shift may have kept a service operating. That does not mean the next plan should depend on the same exhaustion. Keep the useful judgment while examining the staffing, time or authority needed to repeat it reasonably.

These distinctions also protect the inquiry from becoming a flattering performance rating. The coach can help the client describe evidence. The organization’s authorized process still determines technical standards, role requirements and accountability.

Use a six-step inquiry with a concrete output

1. Agree the useful change. Ask which future situation the client wants to handle differently and what today’s conversation should produce. A clearer handover is a workable output; proving the client is a good person is not an observable work task.
2. Select one event. Use an actual episode the client is willing and permitted to discuss. Locate a moment where an action may have helped, even if the overall result was poor. Do not require a success story.
3. Reconstruct the contribution. Ask what the client did, in what order, using which information and with whose help. Separate a remembered impression from an available record. The coach does not need confidential operational data to explore the client’s learning.
4. Invite correction. Offer a tentative description and ask what is missing or overstated. Examine mistakes, costs and contributions from others before deciding what the example demonstrates.
5. Choose a conditional transfer. Decide which element to repeat, what must change and whose authorization or support is required. Turn “be more confident” into a feasible action or request.
6. Review the next evidence. Agree a small occasion for use and a check that fits the goal. Record what happened, including a failed attempt. Decide whether to retain, revise or stop the proposed practice.

The sequence is a conversation aid. Move between steps as information changes. If the client cannot identify a useful contribution, explore the missing information or support rather than treating the answer as resistance. A direct request for training may be more useful than another reflective question.

Begin the fictional case with an unresolved incident

Priya leads a small software support team. Following a 29 October service incident, she tells coach Rowan that the response proves she should not lead incidents. The technical investigation remains open, and the coach has no role in determining its cause or assigning fault.

They agree two coaching sessions, on 2 and 16 November. Priya’s purpose is to prepare a handover that lets the receiving person distinguish current observations, open questions and the next responsible person. Between sessions, she will use her employer’s authorized training exercise and an ordinary support handover.

All people, events, messages and results in this example are invented. The handover contents are synthetic teaching material, not a real customer record or technical response procedure. Workplace authorization belongs to Priya’s manager, Nila.

Priya brings a permitted, nonconfidential description of the incident. One colleague said her log helped at the shift change. That is a useful lead for inquiry, not proof that the whole response was effective.

Replace an attractive label with an accurate description

Rowan: What did the receiving person find useful?

Priya: The list showed what we had checked and when. I still felt completely out of control.

Rowan: I was about to describe you as calm. That would not fit your experience. What did you do even while feeling out of control?

Priya: I put confirmed observations in one section and possible explanations in another. Jules checked two entries against the shared log.

Rowan: Which part was yours, and which part depended on Jules?

Priya: I made the distinction and asked for a check. Jules spotted that I had copied an earlier observation as if it were current.

Rowan: What description would be fair?

Priya: I organized a checkable handover and used another person’s review. I also made a copying mistake that the review caught.

That final description includes initiative, collaboration and an error. It is more useful than a confident personality label because it identifies a practice Priya can examine. It does not imply that feeling distressed prevented every useful action or that distress itself was beneficial.

Rowan asks whether Priya wants to use that distinction in her next handover. She does. She does not want a general strengths inventory or a list of compliments. The coach follows the agreed work.

Check the conditions that made the contribution possible

The original log had a shared location, time-stamped entries and a colleague available to review. Priya had permission to request that check. These are part of the explanation, rather than incidental details surrounding an individual strength.

There was also a cost: Priya had stayed beyond her planned shift. She does not choose to repeat that. She asks Nila for a handover review inside the next shift’s allocated work, with a named receiving colleague.

On 3 November, Nila approves a short training exercise and a ten-minute review with Jules during their normal working time. Nila also confirms that the team’s existing operational procedure governs actual incidents. The exercise is for practicing the handover, not for testing technical recovery or changing that procedure.

Customer communications were another gap in the original event. Priya had assumed someone else owned them. Nila confirms that the incident lead must name an authorized communication owner in the operational record. Priya can record that allocation; she cannot grant a colleague new authority through a coaching worksheet.

The transfer decision is therefore conditional: keep the observation-versus-explanation structure and a second-person check, add explicit ownership and timing, and use an allocated review. Do not carry forward the unplanned extended shift.

Show the first attempt and the defect it reveals

On 5 November, Priya practices with this short synthetic handover:

“Confirmed: at 09:00, the test service returned an error. Possible explanation: a recent change may be involved; this is not confirmed. Next: Jules will check the relevant test record. Customer update: Nila.”

The distinction between observation and possible explanation is visible. But the receiving colleague, Amira, cannot tell when Jules will report or whether Nila has accepted the communication role. A name beside an activity is not a completed handover agreement.

Priya initially calls the attempt a failure. In their scheduled workplace review, Jules gives more precise feedback: the sections are readable, while the ownership and next-update information are incomplete. The team retains the first version as the training record rather than replacing it with a polished version and claiming it worked immediately.

Priya adds fields for accepted owner, next update and receipt. Nila confirms the communication assignment for the exercise, and Jules agrees a reporting time. These decisions come from the people with the relevant responsibility, not from Rowan.

The practical learning is narrower than “Priya is now good at handovers.” She has shown that she can separate observations from hypotheses and respond to specific feedback. She still needs to complete the receiving person’s information needs.

Produce the revised handover and check its receipt

On 6 November, Priya runs a second authorized practice. The complete revised output reads:

“Training exercise only. Prepared at 09:10.

Confirmed observation: the test service returned an error at 09:00. Jules checked the observation against the exercise log at 09:08.

Open question: whether the recent change contributed. No cause has been confirmed.

Next check: Jules has accepted the test-record review and will update this exercise log by 09:30, including an unresolved status if necessary.

Communication owner: Nila has accepted the exercise update. She will use the agreed team channel after the 09:30 check. No real customer message will be sent.

Receiving person: Amira. Please confirm you can identify what is known, what remains open and who supplies the next update.”

Amira replies at 09:14: “Received. The 09:00 error is the checked observation; the cause remains open. Jules owns the next check by 09:30, then Nila owns the exercise update.”

At 09:30, Jules records that the exercise has not established a cause. Nila posts that unresolved status in the agreed training channel. The handover succeeds at communicating uncertainty and responsibility without producing an invented diagnosis or recovery result.

The second attempt is better for the agreed task because the recipient can explain the state and next owner. This check is useful local evidence. It is not a validated score, proof of readiness for every incident or a reason to close the original investigation.

Review use in ordinary work without overstating the result

On 12 November, Priya uses the approved structure in an ordinary support handover. She records the current observation, a remaining question and the accepted next owner in the company system. Amira acknowledges receipt and correctly names the next update time.

A later update arrives after that time. The record shows that Jules posted an unresolved status and a revised time, rather than leaving the recipient to infer that the issue was solved. The structure made that delay visible; it did not eliminate the underlying delay.

At the 16 November coaching review, Priya and Rowan distinguish three observations: the first practice was incomplete, the revised practice communicated the required information, and the ordinary handover had a clear receipt while a later check still overran. They do not convert two exercises and one work event into a general success percentage.

Priya chooses to retain the structure and allocated peer review. She asks Nila to review the late-update arrangement through the ordinary team process. That follow-up remains a workplace action, not a completed coaching result.

The original incident’s technical cause is still outside this evidence. Priya says she no longer treats one difficult event as a complete account of everything she can do, but she still dislikes how the incident unfolded. Both statements remain in the review. The agreed two-session coaching service closes.

Keep a competence record that another person can understand

For another client, reuse the fields rather than Priya’s answers. A useful record contains enough detail to explain the decision without becoming a copy of an employer’s confidential incident file. Ask permission before using any client example for a team resource or marketing story.

A contrasting case: the right next step is instruction

In a second fictional case, Andre is newly assigned a reporting tool he has never used. His coach asks whether anything similar has gone well. Andre explains that neither he nor the coach knows the required technical procedure.

They stop looking for evidence of a skill he has not yet learned. Andre asks his manager for an authorized demonstration and supervised practice. The manager schedules training; it has not yet taken place.

The completed coaching output is the request and confirmed training arrangement. Competence in the tool remains unassessed. Past skill in another system may help Andre ask questions, but it is not a substitute for instruction or access.

This also distinguishes competence hunting from exception-seeking inquiry. Finding a better moment can open a conversation. Here the central work is examining exactly what that moment demonstrates and what would be required to use it again.

Understand the research without borrowing a larger promise

Anthony Grant’s 2012 randomized study compared sets of solution-focused and problem-focused questions in 225 Australian university psychology students. The online study examined immediate responses, including affect, self-efficacy, perceived goal approach and generated action steps.

The solution-focused condition produced stronger changes on several measured outcomes and more proposed actions. This was a question exercise, not a complete workplace coaching engagement. The paper notes that there was no follow-up testing whether participants actually achieved their goals.

It therefore does not validate this article’s six steps, establish occupational competence or predict a percentage improvement in incident handling. Priya’s recipient checks provide local information about her chosen handover task. They cannot establish that coaching caused a wider organizational result.

Support reflection and a chosen action in Coachful

Coachful is our #1 recommendation for keeping the client’s reflection, agreed action and follow-up together. Use it to support the actual coaching relationship, while operational approvals and technical evidence remain in the employer’s authorized systems.

Rowan can create an original optional worksheet with prompts for the event, contribution, support, correction and transfer decision, then deliberately deliver it to Priya. Rowan is the sole authorized coaching staff member in this case. The intended audience is Priya and Rowan, not Jules, Nila or the whole employer.

Priya uses their private Coachful conversation for a short preparation update before the second session. Rowan replies in that same conversation about preparation arrangements within two working days, Monday to Friday, Europe/London. This agreed channel does not include incident-response advice or technical approval between sessions.

After discussion, they explicitly add Priya’s chosen request to her client plan. Marking the request sent is different from recording training held, authority granted or a problem resolved. At review, they update the action against the actual response.

The form-builder image illustrates structured prompts; its demo wellness content is not this inquiry. The goal image illustrates linked tasks and reflections, not a competence assessment. Explore Coachful’s features for the wider client workflow.

Troubleshoot recognition that does not help

The client rejects praise. Ask which part is inaccurate and withdraw the label if necessary. In Priya’s case, “calm” was wrong even though a useful organizing action occurred.

The account depends on someone else. Name that person’s contribution and the conditions for obtaining support again. Do not convert collaboration into evidence of independent mastery.

The example required unsustainable effort. Keep the useful element separate from the working conditions. A next step may be a staffing or authority request rather than an additional personal habit.

The next attempt goes poorly. Retain the actual record, identify what changed and revise the transfer decision. Do not explain away contrary evidence to protect a strengths narrative.

The conversation becomes clinical or evaluative. Return to the agreed role and consider appropriate support or a different service. The ICF Code of Ethics sets relevant expectations for ICF professionals concerning agreements, competence and boundaries; client consent alone does not supply a missing qualification.

Frequently asked questions

Is competence hunting a standardized assessment?

Not as presented here. This is an original practical inquiry about specific actions and conditions. It does not produce a certified ability score or replace an employer’s authorized assessment.

Can I use it when the overall project failed?

Yes, if the client finds the inquiry useful. Examine an actual contribution while retaining the failure, consequences and remaining responsibilities. No positive conclusion is required.

What if the client cannot identify a useful action?

Allow that answer. Explore what information, instruction or support is needed now. Repeatedly demanding an exception can make the conversation less accurate.

Does recognizing competence replace root-cause analysis?

No. Technical, safety and accountability processes retain their own purpose and expertise. A good handover contribution does not establish why an incident happened.

How do I know whether a skill transfers?

Describe its original conditions, select a suitable next occasion and inspect what happens. Use a recipient check or work record appropriate to the goal, and retain mixed evidence rather than assuming transfer from praise.