Pre-Session Change in Solution-Focused Brief Coaching

In solution-focused brief coaching, pre-session change inquiry asks whether anything relevant has changed between arranging coaching and meeting. The coach then explores what the client notices, values, and wants to do with that difference. A compliment can acknowledge a specific contribution, provided the client recognizes it as accurate.

This is a useful opening when a client has already tried something. It also needs room for an honest answer such as “nothing has changed” or “things are worse.” The purpose is to understand where to begin today, rather than to establish that coaching is already working.

Coachful is our #1 recommendation for organizing client-chosen preparation, agreed coaching actions and later reflection. Use that workspace to support a careful conversation. Completing a form or receiving a compliment does not establish that a work problem has been resolved.

Understand the method’s origins

Steve de Shazer, Insoo Kim Berg and colleagues developed solution-focused brief therapy at the Brief Family Therapy Center. SFBTA’s 2025 treatment manual includes pre-session change inquiry: explore whether an earlier change is relevant and worth continuing.

This article adapts that conversational idea to a client’s chosen work or development concern. It is a coaching practice guide, not a clinical treatment protocol or evidence that this four-step adaptation produces a particular result. Its prompts, decision rules, records and cases are original illustrations.

A change after booking may reflect the client’s action, another person’s help, new information, or circumstances. Explore these possibilities together. The timing alone does not show that booking, paying for, or anticipating coaching caused the change.

Use a four-step opening

1. Invite an account. “Since we arranged this conversation, what, if anything, has shifted in the situation you wanted to discuss?” Add that no change is a useful answer. Let the client select the event, rather than suggesting an improvement.
2. Describe one moment. Ask when and where it happened, what the client did, and what others or the circumstances contributed. Stay with one exchange long enough to distinguish a concrete difference from a general impression.
3. Acknowledge what fits. Offer a short, tentative observation based on their account. Ask whether it captures what mattered. If the client corrects it, use their correction instead of defending the compliment.
4. Choose what follows. Ask whether any part is worth continuing, changing, or leaving behind. Agree one next action or a different focus for the session. An optional scale can clarify the client’s view, but a number is not required.

Useful detail might be “I asked the finance director to check the assumptions before sending the paper,” rather than “I became more confident.” Neither description needs to be turned into a claim about the client’s whole identity.

Decide whether the opening is useful today

Begin with permission rather than a compulsory round of good news. A useful introduction is: “We can briefly look at anything that has changed since we arranged this, or start with what feels most pressing now.” If the client chooses the pressing concern, follow it. Declining the opening does not mean the client lacks motivation.

When the client does identify a difference, check what they mean by it. “The meeting was calmer” might mean people examined the evidence, or that the client stopped challenging an important assumption. Those accounts lead to different coaching decisions. Ask what became easier, what remained difficult and whether any important concern was left unsaid.

Keep acknowledgment separate from endorsement

A specific contribution can be useful even when its result is disappointing. Equally, a desired result does not make every action used to obtain it appropriate. A coach can acknowledge that the client prepared carefully while still helping them examine an inaccurate claim in the paper. Do not use praise to endorse the claim before it has been checked.

Before choosing an action, identify who has authority over it. The client may control the next question they ask, but not a budget decision or another person’s response. State the review point in terms of what they will actually learn. “Find out who decides which work waits” is more reviewable than “Make the CEO appreciate me.”

Make compliments specific and easy to correct

The SFBTA manual distinguishes direct compliments, questions carrying a positive presupposition, and clients’ own positive self-observations. The following coaching examples use those distinctions without making praise compulsory.

For example, after a client describes correcting a mistake with a colleague, you might say, “You brought the error back to them even though the conversation felt awkward. Does that describe the part you value?” Or ask, “How did you decide what to say when you returned to the conversation?” The client might value accuracy more than courage. Follow that distinction.

Avoid comparisons such as “Most executives would never manage that.” They introduce a standard the coach cannot substantiate. Broad praise can also make it harder to discuss what failed. Keep room for “I did that, but I still missed the main issue.”

A question about what a colleague might appreciate is a possible perspective, not evidence of that colleague’s opinion. If their actual view matters to a decision, the client can seek appropriate feedback rather than treating an imagined compliment as confirmation.

Worked example: a COO and an unresolved budget dispute

In this fictional example, COO Mark has arranged coaching after repeated clashes with CEO Dana about a hiring freeze. He wants to make a clear operational case without turning every meeting into an argument. The freeze itself remains a commercial decision. All people, records, decisions and dates in this case are fictional, including the later events. Mark books on Monday 2 November 2026 and meets the coach on Friday 6 November. The earlier exchange he describes took place in Tuesday’s budget discussion.

The first fifty-minute session uses eight minutes to agree the focus, twelve to examine the pre-session exchange, twenty to develop and rehearse a risk statement, and ten to check the chosen action and close. This is the case’s allocation, not a required formula. Its opening includes the following conversation:

Coach: Since booking, has anything relevant changed, even if it has not improved?

Mark: We still disagree. But I sent her two options instead of saying the freeze was impossible.

Coach: Walk me through preparing those options.

Mark: Our finance lead checked them. I separated the service risk from the headcount request. Dana asked about the lower-cost option.

Coach: You made the trade-off easier to examine. Is that what you wanted from the paper?

Mark: Partly. I also wanted to stop sounding as if service mattered only to me. Finance did most of the costing.

Coach: So the shared costing and the way you framed responsibility both mattered. Which would be useful to carry into the next discussion?

Mark: A jointly checked risk statement. I still need to challenge the freeze if the service assumptions are wrong.

Coach: What would make that challenge clear and useful?

Mark: Name the assumption, show the likely consequence, and ask who will decide if the threshold is crossed.

The acknowledgment changes after Mark’s correction. It does not recast a genuine disagreement as a communication failure. His next step is a decision rule about service risk, with the authorized people involved.

Prepare an optional reflection before the meeting

An invitation can be brief: “If useful, note one relevant difference since arranging coaching, what contributed to it, and whether you want to discuss it. No change, uncertainty, or worsening are welcome answers. You can also bring this verbally.” Let the client decide whether advance writing helps.

If you use Coachful, prepare these as a short form or an appropriate coaching flow. Choose the intended client audience, preview the experience, and explain who can read submitted answers. For a private worksheet, use the normal Clients > the client > Worksheets & resources > Assign route. A copied private link alone does not grant access, and staff preview does not save a client response. Keep commercially sensitive details out of an invitation email. A generic reflection request does not need names, financial projections, or a transcript of a dispute.

For a recurring flow, set availability and reminders separately, and check its Home placement. Agree a cadence with the client. Completing a form should support the conversation, rather than become a condition for receiving help.

Keep a small record of the change

The following original record captures the 6 November first-session position, including its still-uncompleted next choice. Keep the date visible so that a later correction does not silently rewrite what was understood then. Use the same fields for a neutral or difficult change.

Record only what the client agrees is useful. A positive comment from Dana would be a separate observation; it is not implied by Mark’s account of the conversation. For a later review of what happened between meetings, use scaling and exception inquiry to examine context as well as the client’s contribution.

Follow the correction through the next two weeks

Check the paper before amplifying the compliment

Mark leaves the first session intending to draft a service-risk threshold with Finance and ask Dana to name the decision owner. On Monday 9 November, he works with finance lead Leah on a revised paper. A draft says there are twenty-four open cases and proposes that more than twenty should trigger a staffing review. Neither that threshold nor a staffing commitment has been agreed by Dana.

On Tuesday 10 November, Leah checks the underlying list. Six of the twenty-four entries were already closed. The validated count is eighteen open cases, not twenty-four. Mark removes the closed entries from the current count and labels the earlier paper as superseded. He keeps the reason for the correction, rather than presenting the revised number as if the first paper had always been accurate.

This is an important limit on the original compliment. Preparing two options made a discussion possible, but it did not establish that the supporting data was correct. Mark’s willingness to revise the paper is a separate contribution. It is not evidence that the coach’s acknowledgment caused him to find the error.

Accept that the proposed decision rule can be rejected

On Wednesday 11 November, Dana reads the corrected paper. She rejects the proposed twenty-case threshold because a count alone does not describe complexity or which work can wait. She retains the hiring freeze and asks Mark to bring a short priority assessment for five cases to their 18 November review. She agrees that she will decide which lower-priority work waits.

The 13 November coaching conversation starts with an answer that is not straightforwardly positive:

Mark: The number was wrong, and Dana rejected the threshold. I do not want us to turn that into a success story.

Coach: Then let us keep those facts clear. What, if anything, is useful to examine now?

Mark: We finally know she will decide what waits. I need to give her a clear choice without pretending the freeze has changed.

Coach: You have got Dana on board.

Mark: Not with the staffing proposal. She agreed to review priorities.

Coach: I overstated that. She agreed to a priority review and to making the decision about what waits. Is that accurate?

Mark: Yes. That is the part I can use.

The coach repairs the actual overstatement in this exchange. They do not defend it as encouragement or ask Mark to adopt a positive interpretation. Mark chooses a bounded action: prepare the five-case assessment with the relevant work leads, using the corrected list and clearly marked consequences of deferral.

At the end of this fifty-minute second session, the coach reads back the action and the distinction between priority review and staffing approval. Mark confirms the corrected account. The session has clarified what he will prepare, while Dana’s decision remains future work.

Inspect the decision that actually follows

Mark brings the five-case assessment to the 18 November review. These are five selected cases from the eighteen open cases; thirteen others remain in the operational queue. For this illustration, the selected cases are identified only as A through E. Dana asks him to return the proposed order and the work that would wait in writing. On 19 November she reads that record, approves A, B and C as the immediate priorities, and explicitly defers D and E under the current capacity. She keeps responsibility for that trade-off and retains the hiring freeze.

Mark checks that the decision is recorded as three immediate priorities and two deferrals, not five approved priorities. On 20 November, the work leads read and acknowledge the current order and its stated limits. This is an accepted priority decision. It does not establish that the cases have been completed or that every service risk has disappeared.

During their third fifty-minute coaching session on 20 November, Mark says the clearer decision was useful and the remaining capacity still worries him. The coach leaves both points in the account. Mark chooses to keep joint checking of the evidence and explicit decision ownership. He leaves behind the unaccepted count-only threshold.

Return the complete corrected coaching record

The coach returns this current record to Mark:

The two-option paper helped open a discussion. The later draft’s count was corrected from twenty-four entries to eighteen open cases after six closed entries were removed. Leah’s checking and the work leads’ input were separate contributions. The inaccurate draft is superseded, with the reason retained.

Dana rejected the proposed twenty-case staffing threshold. Among five selected cases, she subsequently approved three immediate priorities and two deferrals. Thirteen other open cases remain in the operational queue. She retained responsibility for that trade-off and kept the hiring freeze. My earlier phrase “got Dana on board” overstated her agreement and has been corrected to agreement on a priority review.

You want to keep jointly checked evidence and clear decision ownership. The current priority order has been acknowledged by the work leads. Completion of those cases and the effect on service remain to be reviewed; we have not described them as completed outcomes.

Mark reads the complete record and confirms it reflects his account. Three fifty-minute sessions total 150 minutes of coaching. That does not include every hour spent checking cases, preparing papers or attending business reviews. The case ends with a corrected account and an accepted work decision, while delivery and remaining risk stay visible.

Respond usefully when the answer is not positive

If Mark later learns that the service assumptions were inaccurate, the next session can address that evidence directly. Repeating his earlier framing technique may be less useful than revising the options with Finance. A useful earlier contribution does not make it suitable for every situation.

Review what the client wants to keep

At the next meeting, ask what happened when the client tried their chosen action and whether it served the purpose they named. Distinguish trying the action from getting the hoped-for response. Both can teach something.

In Mark’s case, the threshold was actually rejected and a different priority decision followed. At review, the coach can ask what he learned from that distinction. The record keeps the discussion about an actual choice, rather than whether Mark deserves another compliment.

An optional self-rating should name the same concern and anchors each time. “Four” is the client’s current description, not four-tenths of a successful relationship. Steve de Shazer’s Scales and Scaling discusses ratings in their subjective conversational context. The confidence-to-action guide explains how to separate confidence in an action from evidence that the action is appropriate.

Use four practices in manager conversations

1. Ask permission. Offer a brief review of what has changed. A manager’s authority can make an apparently optional exercise feel compulsory, so state how the account will be used.
2. Describe an event. Acknowledge a specific action or contribution without rating the person’s character. Let the employee correct the account or identify other people’s help.
3. Keep obligations visible. Concerns about workload, conduct, service quality, or safety still need their proper decision and reporting processes. A compliment is not a substitute for resolving them.
4. Agree the next conversation. Identify what, if anything, will be tried and when to review it. Share only an agreed work action in team records, rather than personal coaching disclosures.

In Coachful, place an agreed follow-up in the ordinary client plan and keep the record proportionate. Before a sensitive recorded or summarized session, review recording arrangements, recap audience, and approval settings. Session recaps are automatic by default. When review is needed, use Approve before sending and check session-type overrides. This can hold an unsent recap; it does not recall one already sent. Turning approval off does not release a recap already held. Check the current record before describing what the client can see.

Frequently asked questions

Does pre-session change prove that coaching has begun to work?

No. It identifies relevant change before the meeting. Explore the client’s actions, support, information, and circumstances without assuming what caused it.

What if the client dislikes praise?

Use a neutral description or ask what they make of their response. Specific acknowledgment is an option, not a requirement.

Should every first session begin this way?

Use it when it fits the client’s purpose. A pressing concern, urgent support need, or different preference may be a better starting point.

Can an indirect compliment involve a colleague’s view?

Yes, as a tentative perspective. Mark it as a guess unless the colleague has actually provided that feedback.

What if the compliment itself was inaccurate?

Correct the particular claim and check the revised account with the client. In Mark’s example, agreement to review priorities was different from support for his staffing proposal. The coach’s intention to encourage him did not make the original wording accurate.

Does a completed follow-up task prove the situation improved?

No. It shows that an action was completed under its own definition. A paper can be submitted while its recommendation is rejected. Review the response, the evidence and remaining choices separately.

Sources and further reading

• SFBTA Research Committee (2025). Solution Focused Therapy Treatment Manual for Working with Individuals, third edition. Selected sections on pre-session change, compliments, and collaborative practice. Clinical source adapted here for coaching.
• Steve de Shazer (2001). Scales and Scaling. Brief Family Therapy Center. Subjective scale meanings and conversational context.

Prepare resources and keep agreed follow-up organized with Coachful features.