Solution-Focused Management (eBook)

Preface 6
Contents 8
Introduction 12
Solution-Focused Management: Towards a Theory of Positive Differences 12
Summary 12
A concept spreads in the world of consulting and management 12
Towards a Theory of Positive Differences 13
The Principle of “Finding Differences” – what is different when it works? 14
The Interactional View 17
Social Construction of Meaning 20
Solution-Focused Management 20
REFERENCES 24
Principles of Solution-Focused Work in Management and Organisations 26
Steve de Shazer – a Different Kind of Cleverness 28
Constructing the Roots of Solution-Focused Practices 30
Summary 30
Becoming a both/and practitioner 31
Complex response processes 32
Conclusions 36
REFERENCES 36
“SF-Topology”: mapping manageable solution components & contexts–
Summary: 38
Maps of maps and territories– 38
What’s “a solution”? The linear parts – 39
Model Questions (for the linear part) 41
Multiple causes and effects 42
Solutions - the reciprocal part – 43
Towards the core topology: combining the parts – 45
CORFU-questions 47
Some examples of applications: 47
Possible extensions of the model: 48
Conclusion 49
REFERENCES 50
Solution-Focused Transverbality: How to keep the Essence of the Solution-Focused Approach by extending it 52
Summary: 52
I ] 52
II ] 53
III ] 53
IV ] 54
V ] 55
VI ] 55
VII ] 55
VIII ] 57
IX ] 58
X ] 58
XI ] 58
XII ] 59
XIII ] 62
REFERENCES: 63
Creating Attraction – Is there a hidden secret in the miracle question? 66
Summary 66
1. Establishing attraction: Creating a preferred future by distinguishing outcome, effects and benefits. 66
2. Experiencing attraction: discovering our own influence and impact 69
3. The fuel of attraction: creating and maintaining positive” states of minds” 70
4. Creating and maintaining a big attractive picture: bringing( a new) “sense” into our lives 70
REFERENCES 71
Solution-Focused Situation Management: Finding Cooperation Quickly 72
Summary 72
Introduction 72
Method 73
Ask for a behavioural description: 74
Discussion 75
Practical exercise 77
REFERENCES 77
If it doesn’t work, be someone else! 78
Summary 78
The background 78
The Be-Do-Have Model 79
The practical part 82
Conclusion 85
REFERENCES 85
Learning how to act simply in complex situations 86
Summary 86
Introduction 86
Simplicity 86
How is simplicity useful – to managers? 87
Simplicity and Solutions Focus 87
Simplicity in action 88
How to be simple 89
Conveying simplicity 90
A functionalist perspective 91
Staying focused on what’s wanted 92
A linguistic perspective 92
Our workshop 93
REFERENCES 93
Creating Comfort Places in Discomfort Situations 94
Introduction 94
REFERENCES: 97
Research on Effects of Solution-Focused Work in Organisations 98
Effects of SF training on productivity and leadership behaviour 100
Introduction 100
Evaluation and solution-focused training approach 100
Training goals 101
Structure and timetable of the leadership training and evaluation instruments 101
Results of the evaluation study 102
Conclusion 108
REFERENCES 108
Solution-Focused leadership: The range between theory and practical application 110
Summary 110
The claim to work in a solution-focused manner 110
Description of solution-focused leadership (in literature). 111
The initial Pilot Study 113
How managers describe solution focus 113
Where solution orientation shows up 114
Results of the observations 115
Conclusions 118
REFERENCES 119
Appendix 1: 120
Observation manual 120
Appendix 2: Overview of the observation results 121
Solution-Focused Leadership 132
Solution-Focused Leadership through Appreciation 134
Introduction 134
The SF-Approach 135
To give and to receive appreciation 138
Different forms of appreciation 139
Appreciation in human evolution 141
REFERENCES 144
"Dancing with your boss” – A Solution-Focused Management Development Program 146
Summary 146
The title 146
To get the job 146
Reflection on my presentation 147
The expectations from the Management Team 148
Preparation on the training 149
The program 149
The program for the first module: “Learning how to learn” 149
The program for the second module: Solution-Focused approach of 150
management and coaching 150
The pilot 152
Evaluation scores including all the groups 152
Conclusions 152
REFERENCES 156
Advanced training for basic leadership skills 158
Introduction 158
More leadership and less management 158
Stimulation by acknowledgement 161
Stimulation by asking good questions 161
Types of questions 162
Examples 163
Stipulating by feedback and sharing responsibility 163
Solution-Focused leadership training 164
Conclusion: Advanced training methods for basic leadership skills 165
REFERENCES 166
Marketing and Sales 168
Meanings affect the heart – SF questions and heart coherence 122
Summary 122
Introduction 122
“Emotion” 122
Heart Rate Variability 123
HRV and emotion 123
The Heart/Brain System 125
Arousal vs relaxation 125
The HeartMath method 127
Heart Coherence and Solutions Talk 128
Conclusions 130
REFERENCES 130
The Use of Solutions Focus in Branded Customer Experience Implementation 170
Introduction 170
Devolving decision making to the front line 171
Solutions Focus and amplifying change processes 173
Solution Focus and the Roundtable 174
Solution Focus and Implementing Change 174
Solutions Focus and business goals 175
Solutions Focus and building on existing capabilities 176
Solutions Focus and follow-through 177
Conclusion 178
REFERENCES 179
Staging of Strategic Solutions for the Future Business 180
Summary 180
A SolutionStage "live experience" for Consultants and Trainer 181
The Backstage of the "SolutionStage" 182
Business Case: Using "SolutionStage" for developing a strategy in a big IT company 189
Conclusion 193
REFERENCES 194
Solution-Focused Improvement of the Customer Segmentation Process1 196
The Approach 197
The Implementation Struggle 198
Marketing Sales Management 198
Official Goals 198
Hidden Agenda 198
The Solution 199
Helpful Meetings 200
Key SF Learnings 202
Conclusion 202
REFERENCES 203
Using Solutions Focus in an Effective Sales and Influencing Process 204
Summary 204
Client Briefing 204
Workshop Format 205
Building Rapport 207
Success in Selling 208
More “Small Steps” 209
Interaction with Clients 210
Conclusion 210
REFERENCES 210
Human Resource Management 212
Solution-Focused Assessment: New Ways of Developing HRInstruments 214
Summary 214
Effects of HR instruments 215
The creation of a "non-changeability trance" through traditional HR instruments 216
Solution-Focused Assessment 218
Standardised HR instruments 219
Assessment criteria – a different use of language 221
Qualitative instruments 222
Process-oriented assessments 222
Summary 223
REFERENCES 223
Making performance rating relevant, informative and meaningful 224
Abstract 224
Background 224
Solution-focused rating 225
Solution-focused rating – the supervisor’s perspective 227
Fairness, or how to be "objective“ 228
Fear of conflict and/or communication breakdown 228
Disappointed expectations 229
Solution-focused rating – the employee’s perspective 229
Employee self-assessment 230
A useful frame 231
Other benefits 232
Conclusion 233
REFERENCES 233
How Solution Focus can improve recruiting processes 234
Summary 234
Aim 234
Method 234
The problem 235
Interviews 235
Workshop 238
Participants evaluation 240
Final comment 241
REFERENCES 241
Solution Focus in Organisational Development 242
Organisational Consulting as a Field for the Solution-Focused Approach 244
Models in the helping professions and the contribution of the Solution-Focused approach 245
The development of organisational consulting 247
REFERENCES: 250
“5 to 1”: Systemic Solution-focused Change Management 252
Introduction 252
“5 to 1”: Initial Situation 252
Excursus “The Logic of Solution-focused Consulting” 254
Project-specific Application of the Solution-focused Logic 257
Primary Intervention: Some Basic Thoughts on the Conduction of Individual 258
Interviews 258
Example of a Solution-focused Workshop Design 262
Conclusion 265
Outlook 266
REFERENCES 266
Initiating Organisational Development 268
Summary 268
Background 268
Useful strategies of implementation: The development 269
Development of useful strategies of implementation: The result 270
A tool to support organisational change 273
Conclusion 275
REFERENCES 276
Management’s Role in Building SF-Programs 278
Summary 278
Context for Solution-Focused Work in Child Welfare 278
Overview of Sample 279
Agency A 279
Agency B 281
Agency C 283
Recommendations: Community-at-Large 284
Recommendations: Funding/Regulating Bodies 284
Recommendations: Internal Staff 285
Summary 285
REFERENCES 285
Designing Resource-Oriented Learning Architectures 288
Summary 288
Introduction 288
SF Learning Principles 289
SF Learning Cycles 291
Pre-course learning 292
Self-Assessment and Preparation 293
Contracting / Goal Negotiation 293
Introduction to Training Units 294
Use of Scaling in Training Units 294
SF Case work 295
Conclusion 296
REFERENCES 296
The Formula for Resourceful Evaluation of Training and Coaching 298
Summary 298
An attempt to explain “attention” and why it is so important where you focus it 299
Guiding people’s attention to where it is most beneficial 299
Evaluation as a valuation of what is already there in the everyday environment 300
of the learner 300
Asking helpful questions 301
Guideline for an ideal evaluation process 302
Preparation and pre-evaluation 302
Review during the process: 304
Post-evaluation: 305
Conclusion: 305
REFERENCES 306
Solution-Focused Error Management 308
Summary 308
Introduction 308
Solution-Focused Approach in Error Management 310
Conclusion 314
REFERENCES 316
Using SF to accelerate a performance and development culture 318
Summary 318
Context 318
Key Initiatives 319
How we approached these initiatives 320
Applying SF and the ripple effect in each initiative 320
Avoid tick list Self-sufficiency Staff satisfaction 321
Evidence of the interactions spreading – the ripple effect in action 322
Conclusions 324
REFERENCES 324
Appendix A: Speed-coaching activity and briefing 325
SF-Conflict Management and Conflict Consulting in Organisations 328
Introduction 328
A solution-focused approach to conflicts 328
Solution-focused conflict consulting in companies 328
Case study 330
Summary 334
REFERENCES: 335
The SySt-Model of the Solution Focus 336
An example of a Solution Geometric Interview with conflict parties in an organisation 336
Summary: 336
The SySt-Model 336
The SySt-Model of the Solution Focus: Solution-Focused SySt 338
What are the criteria of the solution focus? 341
Case Example: A Situation of Stalemate within an Organisation 345
Conclusions 348
REFERENCES: 349
Solution-Focused Peace Building 350
Introduction 350
How I learnt to stop worrying and love conflicts 350
Conflicts in Northern Ireland 351
Kosovo 352
Actionable knowledge 352
Solution-Focused Peace Building in Antwerp – Belgium 353
Democratic Republic of Congo 353
Conclusion 354
REFERENCES 354
Project Management 356
The role of SF within complex change projects - ‘Coachulting’ 358
Introduction 358
Why do IT-related or complex projects fail? 359
At what levels to coach a crew for the race? 360
How can change be smooth and efficient? 361
Unfreezing – Initialise/Concept-Phase 362
Coaching 362
Moving / Mobilise & Realise-Phase
Consulting 364
Refreezing / Stabilise-Phase 364
on the job Training 364
Conclusion 365
REFERENCES 366
Turning clients into customers for change - the art of platform building 368
Summary 368
The Platform Tool 368
Building the Platform 369
Platform Building in Practice – A Case Study 370
Conclusion 373
REFERENCES 373
Solution-Focused Work and Systemic Structural Constellations (SySt) for lasting solutions in complex projects 374
Summary 374
1. Project management methods have their limits 374
2. Prodyn: a model for integrative use of solution-focused approach and 375
Systemic Structural Constellations (SySt) in complex projects 375
3. What are the special benefits of Systemic Structural Constellations (SySt) in 376
project organizations? 376
4. Accompanying the project through the whole process: essential factors for 376
lasting benefits 376
5. How we combine Solution-Focused elements with Systemic Structural 378
Constellations (SySt) 378
6. Specific conditions for working with SySt in organizations - What helps to 379
build trust? 379
Conclusions 380
REFERENCES 381
Aligning Large Multi-Cultural Teams Performance With A Solutions Focused Approach 382
Summary 382
What is alignment? 382
Applying the performance process 385
not 389
Performance Alignment - development experience 393
Conclusion 393
REFERENCES 393
SF-Lean Management in Offices: How to speed up and improve your Office Work 396
Summary 396
Digging for Treasures 396
The Seven Office Pitfalls 397
Background Information: Lean Management and Kaizen 398
Principles of Solution Focus 398
Core Questions of Solution-Focused Action 400
Reaping the Benefits of Solution-Focused Lean Management 400
Motivational Aspects: Self-Responsibility and Leadership 401
How to Speed up and Improve Office Work 401
Conclusion 404
REFERENCES 404
When Profit-Ability-Teams Outmatch the Business Process Back in Business with Solution Focus 406
Introduction 406
Need to start-up instead of further development 406
How is it done? 407
Change Management Goals 407
The Publishing Industry 408
Using Solution Focus Questions 408
Creating Profit Ability Teams (PAT) 409
Entrepreneurial Thinking – Entrepreneurial Behaviour 410
Conclusions and Appreciation of the Solution Focus Approach to Workflow 412
Projects 412
REFERENCES 413
Collaboration in business networks: How the solution focus approach improves cooperation and results 414
Abstract 414
Introduction 415
Methods 416
Success factors in business 418
Practical experience 420
REFERENCES 422
Solution Focus as a Way to Break Through Complexity 426
Introduction 426
The Goal – the Situation 426
Theoretical Background 427
The Process 427
Customer Feedback 429
Conclusion 430
REFERENCES 430
Random Micro Solution-Focused Work - Or why a random coaching machine might be a better coach 432
Summary 432
Improvisation Skills for SF Coaches 438
Introduction 438
The Improviser’s Advantage 438
The Skills You Need 438
How these connect to SF coaching skills 439
One minute rants 439
Spontaneously good ideas 440
Paying Attention 440
Learning to concentrate 441
Usefulness of drama 442
Paradox 442
A Coaching Programme for Professional Reorientation 444
Summary 444
“CreateFuture” – the programme 445
Definition and development of the programme 445
Individual coaching 447
How to build up self-confidence and communication skills within coaching 448
How to build a personal profile 449
Team coaching 450
Supervision 450
Situation after 9 months 451
Internal and external quality control 451
REFERENCES 452
Working in Partnership to Introduce Solutions Focus Coaching as a Management Tool: A Case Study 454
Summary 454
Introduction 454
Company Background, Environment of Change 455
What Happened? 455
What worked well? 457
Conclusion 459
REFERENCES 459
APPENDICES 459
OSKAR Model 460
Fraying Rope Rescue 461
Introducing Solutions Focus as a Management Tool: 462
Reflecting as a new solution-focused service for clients? 464
Summary 464
What we (currently) mean by “reflecting” 464
Reflecting - a short history 465
How we do “reflecting” (as reflecting.ch team) 467
Our fascination with reflecting 470
Authors 474

Mark McKergow Steve de Shazer – a Different Kind of Cleverness (p. 17-18)

I first met Steve in 1994 at the Interaction View conference in Palo Alto, California. Although I did not know it at the time, this was a milestone event in the development of interactional and systemic ideas – one of the few times where the Mental Research Institute group (Paul Watzlawick, John Weakland and Dick Fisch amongst them) came together with the Solution-Focused therapy crowd led by Steve de Shazer and Insoo Kim Berg.

Steve and Insoo had trained at MRI two decades earlier, and had introduced new subtleties and simplicity into the MRI model – improvements, as they saw it. However, the link between the two centres was maintained by Steve’s relationship with John Weakland, his supervisor and mentor. I next met Steve in London. My colleague Harry Norman had approached him for an interview, which we finally managed to do in London in 1995. I only discovered later that he was noted for not giving interviews, and that this was a great privilege. Steve was a keen brewer and beer drinker, and Harry had managed to interest him in sampling some ‘medieval beer’, brewed in tiny quantities to authentic recipes. This may have been the key to our success!

In the week before the interview Steve was leading a training in Solution-Focused Therapy, with a large audience (well over 100 people). Steve ambled onto the stage with a microphone, exhaled deeply as he always did before starting, and said…"So.. you’d better ask me some questions". A shiver went around the room. Surely he was the expert, and we wanted to be told what to do. Yet here he was, refusing to tell us. There was a silence. "Does it work with alcoholics?", came a question from the floor. "I don’t know. Next question." "Does it work with personality disorders?" "I don’t know. Next question." Several more diagnoses were mentioned, and each time the answer was the same – "I don’t know".

I was amazed and disturbed. Here I was, keen to find out more about this fantastic approach to change, and the star performer was telling me he didn’t know if it worked with alcoholics. What was going on? My discomfort was clearly shared by other audience members - after a while, some started to leave. "Can I see you ask the Miracle Question?" asked someone. Steve brightened up visibly. "Ah! Yes, I’m sure I can do that. Thanks for asking." We relaxed a little – at least he was going to do something.

As the session went on, I reflected on Steve’s remarks of "I don’t know". Surely this approach did work with many kinds of patient? Were there not studies to prove it? I came to realise that Steve, of course, knew all this perfectly well. Actually, he was showing us how to do Solution-Focused therapy in that moment, engaging what I have to come call his ‘different kind of cleverness’. In order to answer the apparently simple question "Does it work with alcoholics?", one must accept two presuppositions. Firstly, there is such a thing as an alcoholic. And secondly, that it (the treatment in question) is replicable by anyone who applies it.

Let’s look at the first one first – is there such a thing as an alcoholic? Clearly the word is used as if there was, but SF work is not based on diagnosis – the client’s complaint is not relevant in determining what they want (the ‘solution’ in Solution Focus) and times when that happens already. Steve’s work was part of the tradition that questions the value of diagnosis in any case, and even if an accurate assessment of the condition could be made, each one would want something different – leading to a course for treatment which would vary in each case. There was therefore no value in even considering whether the client was an ‘alcoholic’ or not. Part of his ‘I don’t know’ was a rejection of this as a relevant term in his work. The other presupposition is in the ‘Does it work’ element. ‘Does it work?’ implies that ‘it’ is working, rather than someone is acting skilfully to make something happen. We might say of a piano, ‘Does it work?’ – meaning that if someone hits the notes, then the relevant sounds will emerge. It doesn’t matter who is hitting the notes, the sounds will emerge. In SF work, solutions are constructed in conversation, which is an art as well as a science. To ask if SF therapy works is therefore to ask not if the piano works, but instead to ask if piano-playing ‘works’. This is not a sensible question – pianos can be made to sound beautiful with skill, but someone without the skill could scarcely claim that playing the piano didn’t work – just that they were not yet individually skilful enough.

A question which may have had a better reaction from Steve was "Have you got successful outcomes with clients who want to drink less?" In this case, the question is about his own experience, and related to a client group defined in terms of what they wanted. The distinctions between this and ‘Does it work with alcoholics?’ are, for me, at the heart of SF practice. Maybe Steve’s legacy to us is to stop trying to answer big questions and focus instead on the tiny micro-construction of conversations which build solutions.