Why the smallest ask you can make is often the most powerful one

It’s 2018, every workshop I run hits the same moment. The room is fired up, the flipchart is full of good ideas, and someone asks the question that quietly kills all that energy: “So what do we actually do now?”

The instinct is to hand people everything. The whole action plan, every insight from the day, every improvement worth making. It feels generous. It’s actually the opposite of helpful.

This is where Solutions Focus coaching earns its keep. I’ve built the model, developed by Paul Z Jackson and Janine Waldman, into my facilitation work for since 2019, and it comes down to four moves: get clear on the future you want, work out where you already sit on the way to it, name what’s already working, and then ask the only question that matters. What’s the smallest step you’re 100 per cent committed to taking? One step. Not the whole plan – without the first step, it’s dust.

A small ask case study

Tracey White, Senior Advisor at Victoria State Emergency Service, put that idea to the test at the 2025 Royal Melbourne Show, in a presentation I coached her through for the AFAC26 conference. Instead of a full emergency preparedness checklist, VICSES asked visitors to choose one thing and commit to it.

Over eleven days, 591 people made a commitment, 77 per cent agreed to follow-up, and 27.2 per cent later reported they’d actually done it. That’s not just a busy stand. That’s measurable behaviour change, and it earned VICSES a Gold Ribbon for Community Connection for the ‘Do 1 Thing‘ campaign.

Applying the solutions focus

The pattern holds whether you’re running a strategy workshop, a stakeholder session or a community campaign. A big ask gives people something to admire and nothing to do. A small, self-chosen ask gives them somewhere to start, and starting is what builds the confidence to keep going.

Next time you’re designing a session, resist the urge to end on a five-point action plan. End on one question instead: what’s the one thing you’re prepared to commit to before we leave this room? Then watch what happens when people actually do it.

If you’d like help building this kind of momentum into your next workshop or campaign, get in touch and let’s talk.