If you consult with businesses or work as a coach for organizations, I am sure you have met this situation time and again.

It is often framed by clients as a “dilemma“, and whoever presents it to you, be it the CEO or the HR Manager, uses apocalyptic tones to describe it.

In the most abstract form, it goes something like this:

“Manager X is a brilliant performer – driven, focused, results-oriented. We are very happy with Manager X’s achievements. However, that same Manager is also definitely not people-oriented, since many members of his / her team quit. Now Project Y [it could be a Organizational Development project, a re-organization, a merger...] requires Manager X to be more of a team player and more people-oriented to better work in this new lean structure. Can it be done?”.

I wonder what you, my reader who is a consultant, would answer to such a question.

My reply to that question is: I do not know.

It depends on many things.

The main one being: what does it mean to ask whether “it can be done”?

If it means: can we change the personality of Manager X, then the answer is no.

If it means: can Manager X develop a new set of skills and behaviors, then the answer is: maybe.

If it means: can Manager X develop a set of solutions based on his or her strengths that will allow him or her to play this new game, then the answer is: probably yes.

In addition, the whole organizational context would factor in heavily in any answer you might give to the “dilemma”: maybe Manager X behaved in such a way because it was reinforced by management and / or by the organizational culture; maybe Manager X believed that results, and only results, was what was asked of him / her; moreover, who exactly left and why? And more importantly, from a Solution-Focused perspective: who stayed with Manager X? What was different with them?

I said that I answer the dilemma with a “I don’t know”.

That is only part of the answer. The complete answer is: “I do not know – I would need to talk to Manager X, his or her boss, and maybe other people working with / for Manager X“.

So I am wondering, dear reader who happens to be an organizational consultant like me: how do you deal with this archetypal dilemma?

Tags: consulting, dilemma, OD, organization, people-oriented, performance, question, result-oriented, Solution-Focused perspective, strengths, the dark side, type-A personality

You have a filter that makes you see the good in people and so…

The sentence above was said in a simulated Coaching conversation that took place during our recent Solutionsurfers Brief Coach Training.

A student of mine, a seasoned Coach, made that comment as he was role-playing as a Solution-Focused Coach.

The comment was meant as a compliment for the Client, as affirming Client’s strengths.

Yet it felt to me as a piece of chalk screeching on a blackboard.

That comment vividly highlights a key distinction between Solution-Focus and other Coaching models.

Mainstream Coaching models are based on more or less explicit theories about how the mind works and about how change happens.

So, depending on which Coaching school you are training with, you might learn we have “filters” in our minds: or that we have “orientations“; or that each person belongs to a specific “personality type” with a set of characteristics and preferred ways of behaving; you might learn that some people are  inclined to specific “defense mechanisms“, each one with its own dynamic. You might learn people have different ways of “processing information” so you need to tailor your communication in specific ways.  It is very likely you might learn that we have “blocks” or “obstacles” to overcome, “patterns” to defeat. You might also learn that people need “motivation” or more “willpower” – as if they were specific “things” that can be acquired, used and depleted.

All of the above are constructs which have an intriguing explanatory power. They make sense.

They are based on underlying metaphors for understanding the mind: the mind as a computer, the mind as a mechanical (or hydraulic) machine, the mind as a theater of different characters…

Notice that no one ever observed a “filter” in the mind, or a “block” or a form of energy called “willpower” – they are just ways to make sense of how  we think.

I am not saying that they are not scientifically legitimate constructs; some of them might be – all I am saying is that they are constructs, not observable entities.

And in Solution-Focus we stay on the surface. We do not deal with mental constructs.

We encourage Clients to focus on observable behaviors in specific situations; we ask them about events and their context; we ask about what they might notice and what other people might notice.

If a Client wants to have more “willpower” the classical Solution-Focus response would be: “How would you know you have more willpower? What would you be doing differently? What would other people notice you doing differently?…” Everything is brought back to observable behaviors which make a difference.

This is because of the way Solution-Focus was born and was developed: not deduced from a theory but built empirically, inductively, from the bottom-up, by slowly figuring out what worked and what did not work in conversations designed to help Clients.

In Solution-Focus there is no overarching theory about change. We have some tenets, which have been found inductively. We might have different clues about why SF works, but we do not have a coherent theory. That is the unique characteristic of SF, its pride and maybe the main obstacle to a wider diffusion. It is tempting to offer an explanation. It is sexy to have a Model of Change: with neat graphs, diagrams, arrows and fancy names. But in Solution-Focus circles we like to travel light in the realm of assumptions and explanations. We like to stay in the conversation, as it happens, without adding anything.

The student  of mine who was playing the Coachee in this role-play was relating some specific episodes of her life and her positive, upbeat attitude in dealing with them – she never mentioned having “filters”.

That is something the Coach added.

And now the dynamics of the conversation changes. From a Solution-Focused perspective, it becomes more difficult.

Instead of having richness of details, and maybe some seeds of solutions, some useful exceptions, we have a generalization – unique perspectives have been swept under the rug of “filter”.  Useful behaviors already happening have been swallowed by a concept, by a rationalization.

Note that this is a standard approach in other Coaching models: the Client has to learn the theory of the Coach and the language of the Coach; only then, the Client can appreciate and use the “expert solution” handed down by the Coach.

It is not a formal learning, but an implicit learning that Clients go through – with comments like that, Clients learn about “filters”, and “styles” and all sorts of mental constructs.

We do not do that in Solution-Focus.

We do not add anything. We do not have anything to add!

We stay on the surface.

We use the words Clients use and we try to make their meaning explicit, to us and to the Client.

Our intent is not to explain things and offer interpretations (adding stuff); rather, our intent is to help clients see what is there (describing, showing), hoping they find something useful.

So it is the other way around: it is the Coach who has to learn the language of the Client.

Because it is in the Clients’ worldview, expressed in their own words, from their unique perspectives, based on their experiences, where sustainable and long-lasting solutions are found.

Tags: coaching, Coaching Models, deductive vs inductive, description vs explanation, distinction, filters, mental constructs, Model of Change, not adding anything, Solution Focus, staying on the surface, Theory of Change

Little Bets by Peter Sims is a small treatise on successful innovation.

I think it is more than that – it is a treatise on how to navigate complexity successfully.

It shares with Solution-Focus a strictly inductive approach – in the author’s words: “little bets are concrete actions taken to discover, test and develop ideas that are achievable and affordable”.

According to current research, Peter Sims points out that there are two kinds of innovators:

“conceptual innovators” – rare characters who start with a bold vision and pursue it relentlessly, often achieving important breakthroughs early in life; Mozart or Bill Gates can be thought of as belonging to this category

“experimental innovators” – people like the comedian Chris Rock, or Amazon’s founder Jeff Bezos. They do not begin with a brilliant idea but they discover it by using an experimental, iterative, trial-and-error approach.

I would definitely put Insoo Kim Berg and Steve de Shazer, the founders of the Solution-Focused approach, in the latter category!

Peter Sims illustrates the key principles according to which experimental innovators operate by using many examples – from Pixar, from P&G, from HP, from the US Army, from Starbucks, from famous architects, Nobel – prize winners and famous performers.

It is definitely the stories that make this book interesting and a pleasant read.

The chapters’ titles summarize the key points:

- Big Bets vs. Little Bets: little bets allow us to develop the situation and find out more about what works by acting and observing how the system responds

- the Growth Mindset: it is necessary to have a Growth Mindset because the small bets approach implies failure

- Failing Quickly to Learn Fast: since we are going to fail, it is best to be wrong as fast as possible, so we can discover asap what is right. One great way of doing that is by testing prototypes in the real world and then improve on them; “it is better to fix problems than to prevent errors”

- the Genius of Play; humor, laughter, focusing on the positive and what is working; that is the key to create an atmosphere where experimentation is possible

- Problems are the New Solutions: constraints (budget, timeframe, materials…) actually help you focus and measure your progress; creativity does not happen in a void

- Questions are the New Answers: throw out theory and start experiencing things – “we can’t even know what questions to ask until we reach beyond what is already known through a process of discovery: carefully exploring, observing and listening”. The key to innovation is asking the right questions

- Learning a Little from a Lot – the importance of being open to experience and to different points of view

- Learning a Lot from a Little – tapping into “active users” (early adopters) to better understand what people might want

- Small Wins: they are important building blocks, they are “landmarks that can either confirm we are heading in the right direction or tell us we need to change course”

An essential read for entrepreneurs, leaders, coaches and consultants.

Tags: complexity, entrepreneurs, experiment, inductive, innovation, leaders, little bets, Peter Sims, Pixar, US Army

Are you curious about Solution-Focused Brief Coaching?

Do you want to make progress on your projects? Do you need to make a decision? Do you want to get unstuck and move forward, whatever the issue is? Are you having problems with co-workers or people in your life and you would like to solve them?

Then a coaching session might be useful to you!

Here’s the deal.

I offer:

- one free solution-focused brief-coaching session (30 minutes)

- delivered via Skype

It is the real thing, so expect all the benefits of a regular coaching session.

And here is the catch:

- the audio of the session will be recorded

- the session will be made available to my trainees (and only them) for learning purposes (so I would need you to sign a paper authorizing that).

I need more demos so that my brief coach trainees can be exposed to a even  higher number of real life sessions,  in addition to the practice sessions that take place during the workshop, before they set out to coach themselves.

It is a win-win situation: I get more taped sessions to use in my trainings, you get free coaching!

If interested, please send me an email at: briefcoachingsolutions@gmail.com

Thanks!

Tags: demo, free coaching, PURE, recorded session, Solution-Focused Brief Coaching, solutionsurfers, training

Michael Shermer’s “The Believing Brain” is a gem: a treatise on the brain as a “belief engine”.

I strongly recommend it: Shermer shows how “dependent our beliefs are on a multitude of subjective, personal, emotional and psychological factors”; how belief systems are “formed, nourished, reinforced, changed and extinguished”; how belief systems operate ‘”with regard to belief in religion, the afterlife, God, extraterrestrial, conspiracies, politics, economics and ideologies”; and finally how we know which beliefs are true and which are false.

Here are a few selected quotes – I hope you find them intriguing enough to make you want to get the book and read it.

On how we form beliefs:

“The first process I call patternicity: the tendency to find meaningful patterns in both meaningful and meaningless data.

…

The second process I call agenticity: the tendency to infuse patterns with meaning, intention, and agency.

…

These meaningful patterns become beliefs, and these beliefs shape our understanding of reality. Once beliefs are formed, the brain begins to look for and find confirmatory evidence in support of those beliefs..”

On belief- dependent realisms:

“In fact, all models of the world, not just scientific models, are foundational to our beliefs, and belief-dependent realism means that we cannot escape this epistemological trap. We can, however, employ the tools of science, which are designed to test whether or not a particular model or belief about reality matches observations made not just by ourselves but by others as well.”

“What you believe is what you see. The label is the behavior. Theory molds data. Concepts determine percepts. Belief-dependent realism.”

On the relationship between “believing weird things” and intelligence:

“A common myth most of us intuitively accept is that there is a negative correlation between intelligence and belief: as intelligence goes up belief in superstition or magic goes down. This, in fact, turns out not to be the case, especially as you move up the IQ spectrum… once people commit to a belief, the smarter they are the better they are at rationalizing those beliefs. Thus: smart people believe weird things because they are skilled at defending beliefs they arrived at for nonsmart reasons.”

On why it makes sense we evolved to err on the “false positive” side, i.e. believing something is real when it is not

“If you assume that the rustle in the grass is a dangerous predator but it turns out that it is just the wind, you have made what is called a Type I error in cognition, also known as a false positive, or believing something is real when it is not. That is, you have found a nonexistent pattern.

…

“If you assume that the rustle in the grass is just the wind but it turns out that it is a dangerous predator, you have made what is called a Type II error in cognition, also known as a false negative, or believing something is not real when it is. That is, you have missed a real pattern.”

“[our] default position is to assume that all patterns are real; that is, assume that all rustles in the grass are dangerous predators and not the wind.”

…

“Several psychological studies appear to support [seventeenth-century Dutch philosopher Baruch] Spinoza’s conjecture that the mere comprehension of a statement entails the tacit acceptance of its being true, whereas disbelief requires a subsequent process of rejection,…”

On science vs. anecdotal thinking:

“Anecdotal thinking comes naturally, science requires training.”

On how behaviors that were highly adaptive in the past misfire in today’s environment:

“(A) sweet and rich foods are strongly associated with (B) nutritious and rare. Therefore, we gravitate to any and all foods that are sweet and rich, and because they were once rare we have no satiation network in the brain that tells us to shut off the hunger mechanism, so we eat as much as we can of them.”

On uncertainty and “magic thinking”:

“Uncertainty makes people anxious, and anxiety is related to magical thinking.”

On reductionism:

“All experience is mediated by the brain. The mind is what the brain does. There is no such thing as “mind” per se, outside of brain activity. Mind is just a word we use to describe neural activity in the brain. No brain, no mind.”

On the relationship between creativity and madness:

“The connection between patternicity, creativity, and madness comes from a thinking style that is too all inclusive and that indiscriminately sees patterns everywhere.”

On religious attitudes and genetics:

“approximately 55 percent of the variance in religious attitudes is genetic, approximately 39 percent can be attributed to the nonshared environment, approximately 5 percent is unassigned, and only about 3 percent is attributable to the shared family environment”

On liberals vs. conservatives:

“Liberals are higher than conservatives on 1 and 2 (harm/care and fairness/reciprocity), but lower than conservatives on 3, 4, and 5 (in-group/loyalty, authority/respect, and purity/sanctity).”

…

“…a more reflective approach is to recognize that liberals and conservatives emphasize different moral values and tend to sort themselves into these two clusters.”

On being realistic vs. political utopias:

“Good fences make good neighbors because evil people really are part of the moral landscape.”

On libertarianism:

“Ludwig von Mises was first among equals; he taught me that interventionism leads to more interventionism, and that if you can intervene to protect individuals from dangerous drugs, what about dangerous ideas?”

“Principle of Freedom: all people are free to think, believe, and act as they choose, so long as they do not infringe on the equal freedom of others.”

“… a dozen essentials to liberty and freedom that need shielding from encroachment:   1. The rule of law.   2. Property rights.   3. Economic stability through a secure and trustworthy banking and monetary system.   4. A reliable infrastructure and the freedom to move about the country.   5. Freedom of speech and the press.   6. Freedom of association.   7. Mass education.   8. Protection of civil liberties.   9. A robust military for protection of our liberties from attacks by other states. 10. A potent police force for protection of our freedoms from attacks by other people within the state. 11. A viable legislative system for establishing fair and just laws. 12. An effective judicial system for the equitable enforcement of those fair and just laws.”

“Organizing libertarians is like herding cats.”

On science:

“Feynman echoed Galileo’s principle in his observation about determining if your theory is right or wrong: “If it disagrees with experiment, it is wrong. In that simple statement is the key to science. It doesn’t make any difference how beautiful your guess is, how smart you are, who made the guess, or what his name is. If it disagrees with experiment, it’s wrong. That’s all there is to it.”

“Science begins with something called a null hypothesis.

…

the hypothesis under investigation is not true, or null, until proven otherwise. A null hypothesis states that X does not cause Y. If you think X does cause Y then the burden of proof is on you to provide convincing experimental data to reject the null hypothesis.”

“So many claims of this nature are based on negative evidence. That is, if science cannot explain X, then your explanation for X is necessarily true. Not so. In science lots of mysteries remain unexplained until further evidence arises, and problems are often left unsolved until another day.”

On skepticism:

“A skeptic simply does not believe a knowledge claim until sufficient evidence is presented to reject the null hypothesis (that a knowledge claim is not true until proven otherwise).”

_______________

And this is just a sample.

In the book you can also find: a complete and detailed list of cognitive biases; an interesting account of the neuroscience of beliefs; a great (and very respectful) chapter on religion, atheism and agnosticism; insightful stories about Michael Shermer’s own life; well written stories about the emergence of science (e.g. about Galileo and the reaction to his discoveries)… and more!

Tags: beliefs, cognitive biases, libertarianism, Michael Shermer, neuroscience, science, Skepticism, The Believing Brain

Workshop participants “experimenting”

Many Solution-Focused Practitioners end the session with assignments for Clients.

These assignments are not meant to be taken as “homework” – rather  they are merely a suggestion to experiment more in a specific direction, based on what Clients themselves said during the session.

In that spirit, I would like to suggest readers of this blog to experiment with these 3 tasks – they will make you feel better and will make the world a better place.

DAILY

- leave a place better than you found it: it can mean picking up a candy wrapper from the sidewalk and put it in the trash; putting something away in your office or at home; saying a kind word to a stranger or a co-worker; experiment and see what works!

WEEKLY

- write down three things you are grateful for. Anything – it could be something that happened during the week, or something you just noticed. It could be the blue sky, a plate of food, a friend, a conversation, a quote in a book, an activity, a detail, a project, a smile… anything! Experiment and see what works!

MONTHLY

- consider donating some time or some money: it could be just two hours a month of your time to help a charity; or donating 25$ a month to some worthy cause; or 10% of what you spent on grocery. Just set a specific amount of time or of money, and stick with it. Experiment and see what works!

I will be curious to know more about what you learned…

One of the best ways to make yourself happy is to make other people happy.

One of the best ways to make other people happy is to be happy yourself.

- Gretchen Rubin, “The Happiness Project”

Tags: experiment, gratitude, Happiness, homework, making the world a better place, tasks