The scaling question is a practical method from the Solution Focused Brief Therapy, which was developed by Steve the Shazer and Insoo Kim Berg.
It is strongly future oriented, and aimed to be as brief effective and efficient as possible. Although it originates from the world of family therapy, it is widely used in other areas as well, such as coaching, team development and leadership situations.
With the scaling question you identify what is already working well. This helps to assess the here and now in a positive way, and prevents defense mechanisms from popping up when a situation seems very new or problematic.
In order for it to work, it is important to stick to the different steps, and the sequence in which they are described below.
How will this help
- Focusing on what is already available in the here and now, will create a more positive view. This will nudge towards a safe atmosphere.
- Feeling safe makes it easier to stay curious.
- Making people look at what is already there invites orientation to existing patterns (priming). New ideas will probably naturally connect to those, and will make acceptance of new ideas more easy.
1) Ideal situation
Describe the situation that you want to achieve as detailed and vividly as possible. This situation is 10 on a blank scale of 0 to 10. Make sure that reaching this situation is within the focus of influence of the person involved.
By inviting someone to describe a desired situation or a concept as detailed as possible, a treasure of concrete details comes up. This makes it easier to
- think about the matter
- find a handle for improvement.
2) Assess on the basis of gut feeling
As a next step you put a mark, where you feel you are between 0 and 10 (the perfect situation). This allows for intuitive decision making, based on implicit judgements. Irrational as this may seem, a lot of our decision making is based on this gut-level.
3) Put a figure to the mark
Putting a figure to your mark invites some more rationality. Don’t be surprised to see seemingly odd figures. Remember: putting the mark was based on gut feeling, is not always logical at first sight. The scale is not necessarily linear in people’s minds.
4) List all the reasons why it is not a 0
In general, people are more focused on what is not perfect, what is a problem, or what is missing. There is nothing wrong with that. But, approaching an issue from the positive side, i.e. what is already there, will help improve the atmosphere, and generally produces more diverging lines of thinking. This is especially handy when you are trying to solve a problem.
5) What is the smallest possible step towards the 10
Think of something so small, that it literally costs no effort, and is totally doable. If you
cannot come up with something, it means that you are still thinking too big. If you
think small enough, your system cannot get a grip on the change with its regular
resistance mechanisms.
Alternative version
Start with the right formulation of the question that you want to answer. Make sure the question is within the scope of influence of the person that is answering it. Some examples of good ways to start a scaling question:
- How good are you at …
- How easily are you dealing with …
Click here to download an A4 instruction on how to use the Scaling Question