Progress-focused

In 1965, psychologist Hadley Cantril wrote an article describing an intervention he called The Cantril Self-Anchoring Striving Scale . This intervention can be considered a precursor to what has now become one of the most popular techniques used by coaches: the scaling question. The scaling question came to fruition by the developers of the solution-focused approach, Insoo Kim Berg, Steve de Shazer, and their colleagues at the Brief Family Therapy Center in the United States. They added important new elements to the question of scale. Over the years, its application in coaching practice has been further refined and its applications have become broader. Scaling questions are among the most flexible and versatile techniques coaches use today.

The circle technique is an easy and flexible technique for making progress more visible and for helping people make further progress. It can be used individually but also in coachings and in team facilitation. It works like this. First you draw to two circles on a big piece of paper, an inner circle and an outer circle. The inner circle represents progress which has already been made; the outer circle stands for progress which has yet to be made. You can use these circles by going through the following 4 steps: What is the topic you want to use the circles for? Write down what that topic is and why it is desirable and/or important for you to make progress with respect to that topic. What progress have you already made since you started working on that topic? Write everything you have already accomplished on small post-it notes down and put them in the inner-circle. Take your time to think of every little step forward you have taken; nothing is too small. What further progre...