The quote above should appear in any promotional material for leadership development programs – sort of like the FDA warnings on cigarettes.

Dear consumers of leadership development programs (either individuals or organizations): before dishing out thousands of dollars for a program, ask what the evidence is that the program works.

Be an informed consumer… and May the Force of Scientific Evidence Be With You, dear reader.

PS: a very interesting conversation about this is going on here –> http://lnkd.in/g2gRFP (Linkedin – Solution-Focused Canada).

I was given the book “Changing on the Job” by a friend and a very esteemed colleague of mine. He is very excited about the ideas in this book.

Usually I read books about psychology – and lately many excellent books have been coming out: The WillPower Instinct, The Power of Habit, Imagine – How Creativity Works… I enjoyed each one of them immensely.

Given my friend’s passion about “Changing on the Job”, I decided to veer off my path and read this book about leadership (the subtitle is: “Developing Leaders for a Complex World”). I usually stay away from leadership books. So much leadership development apparently going on, so little leadership seen around.

I found some good, some bad, a lot of gray.

Let’s start with the bad:

- the whole book is built around Robert Kegan’s theory of adult development. The theory identifies 4 kinds of “minds”: the Self-Sovereign Mind, the Socialized Mind, the Self-Authored Mind and the Self-Transforming Mind. Unfortunately, these constructs have not been derived by research and have not been validated empirically, at least not yet. There are dozens of systems out there which categorize individuals as belonging to “types”, either set or on a development continuum. They all make some intuitive sense. But none is supported by a substantial body of research and they are, for the most part, mutually exclusive. Contrast this approach to what science does, e.g. the decades of research that led to our fragile current understanding of personality (NEO-PI-R).

- the idea of set stages of development. It is telling that the author makes specific references to Piaget’s work. Unfortunately, Piaget’s schema has been seriously challenged by a three-pronged assault from evolutionary psychology, neuroscience and a careful analysis of Piaget’s experimental methods – which were found to be lacking, at best.

- the idea that each stage of development bundles together a set of cognitive, affective, perceptual and motivational characteristics. However, how could such different processes be organized by one function? This idea is a relic of the psychoanalytic concept of “ego development”, and it flies in the face of what we know about how the brain works. Which is by activating highly goal-specific, context-dependent modules. Translated in plain-speak: people think and behave differently in different situations.

- One example: the book discusses how the different kinds of minds see “authority”. However, the whole construct of authority as an over-arching concept is problematic. As Walter Mischel found out way back when researching the issue, “attitude toward one’s father correlated 0.3 with attitude toward one’s boss”. And similarly low levels of correlation are seen when comparing attitudes to other “authority figures”.

OK, and here is the good:

- the emphasis on sense-making. It is a critical challenge for leaders in these uncertain and fast-moving times. It is a precious skill which needs to be cultivated. It is a key ingredient to successful leadership. Recent research in the area of decision-making supports this claim (for a good summary, see this great book by Gary Klein –> Streetlights and Shadows).

- the fact that Jennifer G. Berger urges coaches to pay attention to the structure of the stories told by clients, not only to their content. Listening for who has responsibility in the story; which kind of conflicts permeate the story; from which perspective the story is told; which assumptions about the world are embedded in the story. However, the author suggests to pay attention to those things as diagnostic criteria to figure out which kind of “mind” the client has. I would recommend to pay attention to those things simply as further areas of exploration. Just be curious about it and ask clients about it. Who knows, clients might discover something useful!

- the idea of stretching people’s cognitive capacity by introducing more complexity and reflection via skillful questions; and there are quite a few good coaching questions in this book.

As for the shades of grey:

the book is a great source of reflections; the case studies are instructive, and it is always good to hear a coach share her experiences – even if viewed through the lenses of a model I am not quite sold on.

I can see different ways to make sense of “cognitive depth” or  to work with clients on “self-complexity” (whatever that is)  in a way that would not require me to label them as being in a set stage of development.

For example, the “boundary-pushing questions” mentioned in the book are good questions – but they look like and sound like a good repackaging of questions used in other established models which have been around for a long time, like Cognitive – Behavioral approaches or System Thinking.

There are plenty of tools out there to expand the “cognitive capacity” of clients – from the “ladder of inference” (System Thinking / Senge) to “Logical Levels” (NLP / Dilts) to ways of thinking about complexity (e.g. the Cynefin Model).

If I were to go from grey to dark grey, I would even say that the framework put forth in the book is a good example of the widely used, yet unproven, theories which make up the field of “Leadership Development”. For more on that, check out the excellent book by Barbara Kellerman “The End of Leadership“.

I might write more about it at some point…

2-minute video by yours truly, on Youtube –> Why Solution-Focus

Enjoy!

I am very grateful to Peter Szabo for inviting me to co-facilitate the Executive Coaching Conference Pre-conference Workshop, on the 26th of March in NYC.

It was an amazing experience to see Peter in action – and it was awesome to see the response of the audience, all seasoned coaches or HR professionals!

It is definitely the time for Solution-Focus.

The point was driven home further by David Peterson’s keynote presentation the following day.

David Peterson, after 25 years of being at the forefront of the coaching industry, is now working at Google as Director of Learning & Development.

In his presentation, he shared what he learned  at Google and how, based on that, successful Executive Coaching would look like in the future.

I was blown away – Solution-Focus is the way forward!

Even though he did not mention SF explicitly, it was implied in his presentation – as a matter of fact we were honored to have him at  the pre-conference workshop, and he gave a shout-out to Peter Szabo during the keynote address.

Here are some of  the key points of Peterson’s presentation:

- Executive Coaching should have a strong “user focus” (like Google has). The key question any executive coach should ask his or her clients is: “what would be most useful for YOU?”. Not what would be useful (many things can be), but what can be most useful. Not what would be useful for the client’s boss, organization, spouse… but most useful to the client. Sounds familiar, SF practitoners out there? ;)

- To stress the point above, Peterson mentioned “self-directed learning” and the fact his goal is to get his clients “out of there [his office] ASAP” – a vindication of Solution-Focused practice, which is predicated on seeing clients just a few times, ideally just once

- Executive Coaching should have “velocity / speed / impact” (like Google has). David Peterson stated that his personal challenges in this regard are: “how can I make my coaching faster and better? How can I do this in half the time? How fast can I get clients to say “wow, this is totally worth my time”?“.  I, and other members of the Solution-Focused community, have been trying to get these very same questions asked in the coaching industry for so long! It was mind-blowing so see someone of the stature of David Peterson asking himself those very same questions! The answer, of course, is: Solution-Focus! Solution-Focused coaching is designed to deliver value in as little as a single 30 minute session.

- Even though it is not strictly Solution-Focus, I loved another main point Peterson made: Executive Coaching practice should have a focus on innovation (like Google does). Coaches should experiment all the time, do pilots or run betas all the time, they should do something new every time, in a systematic way. This is definitely in the spirit of Solution-Focus, because this is how it came to be – via experimentation. And I talked about the importance of testing things out in coaching when sharing my comments about the book Little Bets in a previous post, here.

- Peterson challenged many assumptions shared by Coaches, including one dear to Solution-Focused practitioners: “never give advice”. As he pointed out, “why would you restrain from giving advice if it is helpful?”. Excellent point. Peterson then added that the question is not whether it is right or wrong to give advice, but rather when and how giving advice can be be helpful. The criteria he embraced to guide his coaching is the essence of Solution-Focus: “what is most useful to this client right now?”. For more on how, ultimately, the essence of Solution-Focus is its key assumption that the client is the expert, see this post of mine –> here.

What cutting-edge Executive Coaching should look like in the future is pretty clear – thanks to David Peterson’s presentation.
How to get there is pretty clear, at least to me: Solution-Focused practitioners have the know-how, the experience and the business model to make that happen. Today.

Since it ties so well with the content of this post, shameless promotional plug: f you are interested in acquiring the Coaching Skills of the Future today, check out our training programs in the US! —> here

I just got back from Basel, where I had the privilege to co-facilitate with Peter Szabó the “Live Coaching Days”.

That would be module 4 of Solutionsurfers‘ PURE Brief-Coach Training Program.
It is so called because in those 3 days participants have a chance to coach “real” clients, i.e. not other participants – and to do so in front of other coaches.

It is a unique opportunity for trainees to put their coaching skills to the test – with clients who, unlike the participants, do not know how the process is supposed to work. Clients walk in with a real-life topic they want to work on, a topic unknown beforehand to trainees and facilitators alike.

It is also a unique opportunity for coaches to perform in front of their peers and get specific and detailed feedback on their coaching – something very hard to do in a profession where most of the interactions are one on one, and governed by strict confidentiality. As coaches, we might have some form of feedback in terms of outcome (did it work for the client? was he / she happy?) but not about the process (how did I do that?).

I was blessed to witness many amazing coaching conversations.

I am sharing one below, in a format that protects the identity of client and coach.

Just to give you an idea of how cool Solution-Focused Coaches are :-)

Once upon a time, there was a coach and a client.

The client wanted to align her team so they would work better together.
As she elaborated on that, it became clear she was talking about an “inner” team.
Everything sounded so abstract and sterile – as if it were a management problem in an organization far, far away.
The coach did not flinch, and started working with the metaphor and the words offered by the client.

After some exploration, a big step forward occurred when the client was offered a Skaleboard to play with.
By positioning pieces on the board, the undifferentiated inner team  started to break down into individual “members”, each one with “very good reasons” and a specific concern – the part of the coachee that was worried about health, the part that was excited about her work, and so on and so forth.

With only 5 minutes left in the coaching session, the client became clear it was a matter of deciding between two alternatives, or a composition thereof.
The client mentioned she liked exploration and movement.
The coach was quick to seize that opportunity: he had the client stand up and have a glimpse of the two different scenarios (and a combination of the two), by leading her to different windows and skillfully depicting the two different outcomes, using the client’s words.

Once given a chance to see what the different choices would lead to, the client was very quick and very confident in making a decision – it was clear to everyone in the room that she was definitely very attracted to one of the two scenarios.

I was very impressed by the ability of the coach to think on his feet, to work with what the client brought and to brilliantly get to a resolution by performing a complete “decision coaching process” in 5 minutes.

I was also very impressed by the client.
It was amazing to see the level of integration she achieved in just thirty minutes.
What started with an abstract description of a fragmented self made up of undifferentiated inner voices and devoid of emotions, evolved during the session into one person, speaking with one heart, one mind and one soul.

The outcome  went well beyond the best hopes of the client: her goal for the session was to get some elements so she could “work on a team alignment plan” on the train ride back home – she did not expect to solve the issue right there and then, with a “team” that became one in thirty minutes!

The ICF (International Coach Federation) just released its 2012 Global Coaching Study.

While commissioned by the ICF, the study was actually undertaken by PricewaterhouseCooper.

It is basically a survey, but significant given its worldwide scope and the number of respondents (12,133 valid responses).

You can download the executive summary of the study on the ICF website, >>> HERE <<<

Here are some points that I personally find very interesting:

- a resounding majority of coaches (43% of respondents) identify “untrained individuals who call themselves coaches” as the main obstacle facing the industry. I totally agree with that. I would say that not only this is the obstacle #1, but also it is #1 by a magnitude of 10, i.e. it is 10 times more serious an issue  than any other factor. Personally, I have been so frustrated by the number of untrained individuals who call themselves coaches that I considered re-branding myself – just to distance myself from that crowd. I also think that the main obstacle identified by another 30% of respondents – “marketplace confusion” – is strongly determined by issue #1.  I am happy to see the ICF taking steps in the right direction by changing membership requirements this year.

- I am also happy to see that the majority of respondents (53%) think the profession should be regulated. I am perplexed by the 23% who think it should not (24% have no position on the issue). If any of you readers  think coaching should not be regulated, would you be kind enough to post a comment or send me a note explaining your position? I am asking just out of curiosity…

- as it is clear to anybody who works in this field, the annual revenues earned from coaching show a considerable variation. While the average annual revenue for coaches in North America is US$ 50,400, the median is US$ 29,100. Which means that about half the respondents make less than US$ 29,100 per year from coaching. Something anyone considering coaching as a profession should think about before investing into it.

And what struck you as interesting in this Global Coaching Survey?

Some insights come from serendipitous occurrences.

Like this one I just had: that “Solution-Focus” has the quality of Quiet Strength.

This insight was triggered by three unrelated events:

- via @dChickadee4Life, stumbling upon this blog post: Three Keys to Mindful Leadership Coaching. The three keys mentioned by Douglas Riddle are: an open mind; non reactivity; permissive attention. These are all characteristics of  the “Not-Knowing” Stance which is one of the distinctive features of Solution – Focus. One particular sentence by Douglas Riddle resonated deeply in me: How does a coach do that? By creating in the conversation with the coachee a sense of open, reflective exploration. The coaches who expand my mind, emotions and performance come to the coaching relationship from a place of inner calm. They have quiet minds. They are not beguiled by fancy techniques or elegant coaching models.

- reading the book: Quiet. The Power of Introverts in a World that Can’t Stop Talking by Susan Cain. I had a profound sense of recognition while reading it. I made peace with my style of coaching – I am definitely not a Tony Robbins. I do not talk much. I do not raise my voice. I am not “in your face” and I definitely do not pump my fists in the air!  I like to create space for reflection. Gently but purposefully. There is strength in quiet and deliberate effort.

- having to confront  the same misunderstanding about Solution-Focus three times in the past week. I discovered, in 3 separate conversations with fellow Executive Coaches, that “Solution-Focus” is understood as task-focused. One Coach characterized “being too solution-focused” as going straight to the solution and prescribing a task as opposed to patiently listening to the Client first. I was taken aback – because this is the opposite of what “Solution-Focus” is! But, alas, that is what those words evoke, apparently. So I had to articulate what “Solution-Focus’ is.

These 3 separate events listed above made me realize that Solution-Focus is Quiet Strength.

Quiet strength in the “Not-Knowing” stance and curiosity of the Solution-Focused practitioners; in our  faith that Clients have already experienced bits and pieces of the solution.

Quiet strength in not adding anything to what Clients bring, yet keeping them accountable. Leading from behind, gently but steadfastly, in the interaction.

Quiet strength in being a witness to the Clients’ strengths – and honoring those strengths with our compliments.

Quiet Strength.

I think I like that.

Guest post by Coert Visser

Solution-focused principles and techniques, orginally developed in psychotherapy, have found their way into coaching, over the last decade. While an evidence base of solution-focused brief therapy is beginning to come off the ground, little research is done on the effectiveness of solution-focused coaching (one researcher who is already doing interesting research in this area is Anthony Grant). It is important that an evidence base on solution-focused coaching is built, too. Individual clients, client organizations and society at large rightfully demand that solution-focused professionals not only discover things that work but also justify what they do by scientifically testing their claims.

Standard effectiveness research approaches involve randomized controlled experiments in which the treatment of interest is compared with a reference approach and a control group. A recent review summarizes this type of coaching research, which is still in its infancy. While this approach is indispensable it is not the only useful approach and it is not without weaknesses. For one thing, this type of research requires the existence of generally accepted definitions of the treatments (coaching procedures) that are researched. This type of research comparing coaching approaches does say something about the relative effectiveness of these approaches but does not say much about the relative contribution of the constituent elements of these approaches because these are not examined separately in these types of experiments but in combination with each other.

Research aimed at a micro level of coaching can be an important addition to these standard research approaches. One example is micro-analysis research done by Janet Beavin Bavelas and her colleagues. Micro-analysis research will, in the near future, I predict, be supported by software to analyze language used in coaching conversations. As this type of research will develop a much more nuanced and specific kind of knowledge will emerge about what works and what not.

Survey based research also offers some interesting opportunities to analyze the specific interventions and behaviors of solution-focused coaches. Recently I published such a study: Testing the Association between Solution-Focused Coaching and Client Perceived Coaching Outcomes. I designed a web-based survey and administered it to 200 clients of coaches. The survey consisted of a list of 28 coach behaviors, 14 of which were solution-focused behaviors and 14 of which were behaviors solution-focused coaches would deliberately avoid. I asked clients to describe what their coaches had done and what they had not done (without referring to the solution-focused approach or any other approach, by the way). In addition to that, I asked clients to describe on several dimensions how effective the coaching had been. Solution-focused coach behaviors turned out to be were strongly positively correlated to positive coaching outcomes. Non-solution-focused coach behaviors, on the other hand, turned out to be moderately negatively correlated to positive coaching outcomes.

Then, I used a statistical technique called multiple regression analysis which gave insight into which specific coach behaviors were predictive of coaching success. This showed that the following 10 solution-focused coach behaviors in particular were associated with positive coaching outcomes:

• The coach responded with understanding to what I said (coach understandingness)
• The coach let me decide whether the coaching should be continued or terminated (client continuation choice)
• The coach focused on topics that I found useful to talk about (client topic choice)
• The coach encouraged me to describe how I wanted my situation to become (desired situation description)
• The coach encouraged me to describe what I wanted to be able to do differently (positive future behavior description)
• The coach gave me positive feedback (complimented me on what I had done well) (positive behavior feedback)
• The coach encouraged me to choose which step(s) forward I would to take (client chosen action)
• The coach used the same words as I had used (language matching)
• The coach checked several times whether our conversation was useful to me (client usefulness check
• The coach asked questions about what I had already done that had worked well (exploration of what worked)

The number of non-solution-focused coach behaviors that was predictive of positive outcomes was smaller. Three coach behaviors were, as expected, negatively associated with coaching outcomes:

• The coach told me whether the coaching should be continued or terminated (coach continuation choice),
• The coach gave me negative feedback (criticized me on what I had done wrong) (negative behavior feedback), and
• The coach chose what topics we talked about (coach topic choice).

Surprisingly (and interestingly), two non-solution-focused coach behaviors were, contrary to this study’s expectations, positively associated with coaching outcomes:

• The coach analyzed with me what the causes of my problem might be (problem cause analysis)
• The coach asked questions about when my problems were at their worst (problem peak focus)

I hope this is a good (while modest) beginning of survey based research into the effectiveness of solution-focused interventions in coaching. The details of the study can be found in the full article. Soon, I hope to publish a study into the effects of the coaching approach on coaches themselves

The registration is now open for the 2012 California edition of Solutionsurfers‘ Brief Coach Training.

Here is the link with all the information about the program: http://www.briefcoachingsolutions.com/solsurfers2012/

To sign up, please send an email to: briefcoachingsolutions@gmail.com

If you want to find out more about the training program and how it can benefit you,

you are invited to attend one  of the following conference calls:

- Friday, January the 27th, at 12 noon PST (3 PM EST)

- Tuesday, February the 14th, at 9 AM PST (12 noon EST)

- Wednesday, March the 14th, 9 AM PST (12 noon EST) ***please note that the early bird rate is available only until March 1.

Please RSVP with Ms. Corey Godzwa at cgodzwa@gmail.com and you will be sent the information to access the conference call.

But how?

This is where microanalysis comes in. Pioneered and extensively used by Janet Beavin Bavelas and her research group at the University of Victoria, microanalysis is defined as “the detailed and reliable examination of observable communication sequences as they proceed, moment by moment, in the dialogue”….

My guest post on Microanalysis in Coert Visser’s Blog.

Read more here >>>>>> http://solutionfocusedchange.blogspot.com/2012/01/microanalysys-showing-details-of-how.html