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Solution-focused coaching (OSKAR)
How can solution-focused coaching (oskar) support strategic choice or positioning?
Contents
A strengths-based coaching sequence that defines the desired outcome, recognises existing progress and builds practical next actions.
Solution-focused coaching helps a coachee define a preferred future, recognise strengths already in use and build on what is working. OSKAR is a prominent structure within this tradition. Mark McKergow and Paul Z. Jackson adapted solution-focused ideas from the brief-therapy work of psychotherapists Steve de Shazer and Insoo Kim Berg for coaching and organisational change.
When to use it
Use OSKAR for developmental coaching, particularly when the coachee has a reasonably clear goal and already possesses some experience or ideas that can support progress.
Origins
McKergow and Jackson developed solution-focused coaching by translating principles from de Shazer and Berg’s brief therapy into workplace conversations. The approach shifts attention from prolonged diagnosis of a problem toward the desired outcome, existing exceptions and small actions that the coachee can own.
What it is
OSKAR stands for:
- Outcome
- Scale
- Know-how
- Affirm and Action
- Review
The stages create a constructive conversation without implying that the coach supplies the answer. The coachee identifies the destination, notices current capability and chooses the next experiment.
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