Using Solution-Focused Techniques to Enhance Your Mentoring
Solution-focused techniques are a powerful way to support mentees in identifying and leveraging their strengths, setting achievable and motivating goals, and making progress.
Unlike problem-centred approaches, solution-focused mentoring emphasises what is already working, rather than what is wrong, helping mentees build confidence and motivation. It is particularly effective in mentoring relationships because it encourages positive change without dwelling on barriers or past difficulties, helping mentees to create a sense of the future and of the possibility of what they can achieve.
In this article, we explore four key solution-focused techniques that can enhance your mentoring practice: positive exceptions, tangibles, scaling, and the miracle question.
1. Positive Exceptions: Finding What Works
Rather than focusing on what isn’t working, positive exceptions help mentees recognise times when they have successfully navigated challenges. By identifying past successes, mentees can uncover useful strategies and strengths that can be applied to their current goals.
As a mentor, we look out for absolute phrases, such as, I ‘always’ or I ‘never’. This language is a clue to us that the mentee has created a storyline for themselves, a storyline where exception or change is impossible. Our role then is to help them identify the exception, because they usually do actually exist.
Sometimes we just need to simply repeat the words ‘never’ or ‘always’ in a questioning tone of voice to break the storyline. If that’s not enough on its own, the next step is to ask explicitly about a time when the exception didn’t exist (you did well in a presentation, spoke up at a meeting, got recognition for your work etc).
Once we have got that exception, we stay there, encouraging the mentee to explore it further. That may seem easy, but it is likely that the mentee will try to return to the problem, because that feels more comfortable for them, and more in line with the storyline they have created for themselves. So, as mentors, we ask questions about the exception, we help magnify and explore it, and we help our mentee to use it to build a sense of capability and potential for progress.
Example Question:
"Can you think of a time when this issue wasn’t a problem? What was different, and what did you do that worked well?"
2. Tangibles: Making Success Measurable
Mentees often have abstract goals such as ‘being more confident’ or ‘improving communication.’ Tangibles help make these goals more concrete by defining what success looks like in practical, observable ways.
As a mentor, our role is to help our mentee take time to fully explore those goals, clarify what that really means to them and create meaningful and individually specific goals. By focusing on tangible actions and behaviours, mentees gain clarity and direction in their development.
Example Question:
"If you were more confident, what specific things would you be doing differently? What would others notice about you?"
3. Scaling: Measuring Progress and Motivation
Scaling questions help mentees assess where they are and where they want to be on a numerical scale (e.g., 1 to 10). This technique provides a clear way to track progress and identify small steps toward improvement.
What’s different about this technique is that as mentors we not only accept whatever number our mentee says without criticism and judgement, but we celebrate it as well, helping them to see what has brought them to that point.
The next step is to ask what the next point on the scale might look like for our mentee, and what would help them to get there. We don’t ask how they will get to 10, instead we focus on moving in that direction using small steps.
This method shifts the focus from large, daunting changes to small, achievable steps, making progress feel manageable.
Example Question:
"On a scale of 1 to 10, where 1 means no progress and 10 means you have completely achieved your goal, where would you place yourself today? What has helped you to get there? What would help you move up just one point?"
4. The Miracle Question: Envisioning the Ideal Future
The miracle question is a powerful tool for helping mentees imagine their ideal future and identify the changes needed to get there. It encourages forward-thinking and helps mentees picture their success in a vivid and motivating way.
This technique is at the heart of solution-focused approaches, helping the mentee to create a picture of their desired future, rather than their undesired present. When we ask this as a mentor it encourages the mentee to move away from focusing on their problems and challenges, and how difficult making changes can be.
This question helps mentees step beyond current obstacles to be able to visualise a successful outcome. Once that is done, it is much easier to plan concrete steps toward their goals.
Example Question:
"Imagine that overnight, a miracle happens, and your challenge is completely resolved. When you wake up, what is the first thing you notice that tells you the miracle has happened? What else is different?"
Conclusion
By integrating these solution-focused techniques into your mentoring conversations, you can help mentees recognise their strengths, set clear and achievable goals, and stay motivated to take action. Encouraging positive exceptions, making success tangible, using scaling questions, and engaging with the miracle question all contribute to a constructive and empowering mentoring experience.
As a mentor, your role is not to provide all the answers but to guide mentees in discovering their own solutions. A solution-focused approach ensures that mentees leave each conversation with a sense of progress and confidence in their ability to move forward.
If you are a mentor interested in enhancing your mentoring technique, or an organisation who would like support to introduce, embed or strengthen mentoring get in touch.
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