One of the key principles of Solution-Focus practice is that “The Action is in the Inter-Action”, as Mark McKergow and Paul Z Jackson brilliantly put it. Which means that we “co-construct” meaning and solutions in the interaction.

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

Tags: added words, CBT, Change, empiricism, InterAction, Janet Beavin Bavelas, language, MI, microanalysis, positive content, science, SFBT, Solution Focus

Janet Beavin Bavelas, Ph.D., F.R.S.C., is one of of the co-authors of Pragmatics of Human Communication and, as a Professor Emeritus of Psychology at the University of Victoria, still at the forefront of research into interpersonal communication. The research team she leads specializes in the study of face-to-face dialogue – their findings have direct applications in psychotherapy, counseling, coaching, and management. I had the privilege and the pleasure to attend her workshop on microanalysis at the 2010 SFBTA Conference in Banff, Canada.

I was so happy to finally encounter an empirical research method dedicated to exploring the power of interaction to produce change! In my opinion, every Solution-Focused practitioner should become familiar with Janet Beavin Bavelas work: her research results are an essential part in establishing the scientific credentials of Solution-Focus.

Besides being an innovative thinker and a thorough scientist, Janet Bavelas is also a very engaging person and she very kindly accepted to be interviewed for my blog – here are her answers to my questions. I suggest  you take the time to read this interview again and again – as her motto goes, “Life Happens in Detail” and many insights wait for you in the details of her thought-provoking answers. Enjoy!

1)  You have been working a lot with Solution Focused practitioners in the past few years, using Microanalysis to investigate Solution Focused conversations. Can you briefly tell us what draws you to Solution-Focus?

Good question–especially because I’m an experimental psychologist, with absolutely no practical training in therapy or anything else!  I’m glad someone finally asked me that question, because I’ve had my answers ready:

First, Steve, Insoo, and I had the same roots, learning from the Palo Alto Group and especially John Weakland.  The three of us were not there at the same time, but that experience was a lasting influence for all of us.  (I agree with Steve and Insoo, who in a 1991 article pointed out that their SFBT was just one small change from the original Palo Alto Brief Therapy.)  In addition to John’s many wonderful qualities as a mentor, there was the focus of the whole Palo Alto Group on language and communication. That heritage makes it easy for my research group to teach what we do to SFBT folks.  For example, you have the right focus on observable communication rather than on inferred mental processes.

Second, I admit that I am always attracted to good idea that is 180° from what everyone else is thinking.  The new idea has to be a good one as well as challenging assumptions that no one usually questions–then I’m interested.  That was true for the original Brief Therapy and is also true for SFBT.

The third reason is ethical. My personal ethics will not accept inventing negative characterizations of a client and imposing these labels on someone who is vulnerable.  I say “inventing” because there is usually no basis except the opinion of someone in authority. For example, diagnosis usually categorizes an individual based on a single highly limited observation, with no objective check or recheck. The individual arrives at a consultation with one problem and leaves with at least two! More broadly, clinical theories of  personality, cognition, emotion, or brain processes almost always indulge in circular reasoning.  For example,
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Tags: Change, dialogue, empiricism, experimental psychology, face-to-face interaction, Janet Beavin Bavelas, microanalysis, pragmatics of human communication, research, SF theory, SFBT, SFBTA, Solution Focus

I am so excited to be leading Solutionsurfers Brief Coach Training in Berkeley, next week, at the beautiful UC Clark Kerr Campus!

An Accredited Coach Training Program (ACTP) with the International Coach Federation (ICF), the training is one of the best way to learn how to lead Solution-Focused conversations – a method featured in books like Switch, and an established protocol in therapy.

> Here < are some reasons of why learning Brief Coaching skills matters, if you are a Coach, a Consultant, a Manager, an Executive or anyone in a Leadership position. Whenever you need to facilitate change, Solution-Focus is the quickest evidence-based technology we have.

> Here < is what is different, and of value, about Solutionsurfers training program.

And > here < are the details – when, where and how much. At 2,980 US$ for 8 days of training and follow-up Skype sessions, with flexible payment options, the price is hard to beat, considering the quality of the training format refined over the years and delivered in such small groups.

There are still two spots left… send me an email now at briefcoachingsolutions@gmail.com if you are interested in attending next week!!

See you in Berkeley soon!

Tags: Berkeley, Brief Coach Training Program, California, Change, learning, PURE, Solution Focused, solutionsurfers, training

Photo courtesy of @NiniBaseema http://theformofbeauty.tumblr.com/

More often than not, Solution-Focused Brief Coaching boils down to helping clients getting unstuck.

Bill O’Hanlon’s latest book, Change 101 – A Practical Guide to Creating Change in Life or Therapy offers a very useful overview of change strategies for life, therapy and coaching.

As a change facilitator, I do have my ideas about which change strategies work best.

Having said that, I did find amusing Bill O’Hanlon’s list of 11 strategies for staying stuck, which you can find at the end of his book.

Whenever we feel change is hard, it is very often because we are “trapped” in one or more of these useless behaviors:

1. DON’T LISTEN TO ANYBODY
2. LISTEN TO EVERYBODY
3. ENDLESSLY ANALYZE AND DON’T MAKE ANY CHANGES
4. BLAME OTHERS FOR YOUR ACTIONS OR PROBLEMS
5. BLAME YOURSELF OR PUT YOURSELF DOWN REGULARLY
6. KEEP DOING THE SAME THING THAT DOESN’T WORK
7. KEEP FOCUSING ON THE SAME THINGS WHEN THAT FOCUS DOESN’T HELP
8. KEPP THINKING THE SAME THOUGHTS WHEN THOSE THOUGHTS DO NOT HELP
9. KEEP PUTTING YOURSELF IN THE SAME UNHELPFUL ENVIRONMENT
10. KEEP RELATING TO THE SAME UNHELPFUL PEOPLE
11. PUT MORE IMPORTANCE ON BEING RIGHT THAT ON CHANGING

Got change? :-)

Update: On the “getting unstuck” side of the equation, Bill O’Hanlon also sends out each week a free email with tips about how to create positive change. Just send a blank email to: PossiBill0228-192380@autocontactor.com

Tags: Bill O'Hanlon, books, Change, Nini, Solution Focused, strategies for change, stuck, unstuck

Switch: How to Change Things When Change is Hard – by Chip & Dan Heath

Not all change is difficult.

We change all the time, voluntarily, in many different ways – we get married, we start a family, we take up a new job or a new role, we change ideas…

just think of much you changed in the last 10 years!

Based on this insight, the question is: what are the characteristics of successful change?

Chip and Dan Heath set out on a quest to find what works to make change easier, at any scale – individual, organizational, societal.

And in doing so they dispel 3 big myths about change: that some people are just hard to change, it is in their nature; that people are lazy, and that is why they do not change; that there is a “resistance” to change.

To illustrate their findings, the authors borrow Jonathan Haidt’s metaphor of the Elephant and the Rider: the conscious, analytical part of ourselves is like a rider perched on top of an elephant, the adaptive unconscious.

The rider has the ability to plan, to analyze, to make rational choices – but it also has the tendency to spin its wheels and over-analyze, and it stands no chance guiding the elephant with brute force, at least not in the long run.

The elephant gives us drive and power, but it is easily distracted by short term rewards.

The authors use this simple metaphor as a framework to make sense of some useful strategies for change, based on research and illustrated with vivid, “sticky” stories – these strategies are grouped in 3 sections:  how to “direct the rider”, how to “engage the elephant” and how to “shape the path”.

I am a Solution-Focused practitioner, so I was very happy to see Solution-Focused Brief Therapy featured in this book. It appears, together with Appreciative Inquiry, in the section about Directing the Rider, in the chapter “Find the Bright Spots”.

As the authors themselves point out, an effective approach to change involves all 3 dimensions (rider, elephant, path), and sometimes this distinction is pretty fuzzy.

I believe Solution-Focus interviewing protocols to be a case in point:

- when we, as Solution-Focused practitioners, ask exception-finding questions, we “find the bright spots” (chapter one)

- when we, as Solution-Focused practitioners,  ask for concrete, behavioral details about what works, we help clients “script the critical moves” (chapter two)

- when we, as Solution-Focused practitioners, ask the Miracle Question, we “point [the rider] to the destination” (chapter 3) and we also help the elephant “find the feeling” (chapter 4)

- when we, as Solution-Focused practitioners, ask “what would be the smallest sign that…” we “shrink the change” (chapter 5)

- and since all the questions in the Solution-Focused therapy or coaching protocols are interactional, i.e. are aimed at focusing the client’s attention on the situation, we do help in “shaping the path“.

The more I practice Solution-Focus, the more I am impressed by how effective it is.

Yet, despite the empirical nature of the work that led to the creation of Solution-focused interviewing protocols and despite the research supporting it,  people have a hard time believing it can work. And that is because of ingrained assumptions about change. The authors did an excellent job in showing that there is a different way to think about change. And for that, I am very grateful to Chip and Dan Heath.

Tags: Change, Chip and Dan Heath, Elephant, Haidt, Rider, Solution Focus, Switch

A traditional approach to coaching and change (and “it’s common knowledge in the business world that change is very difficult. Managing change is hard work, creating change takes lots of effort, top management support is vital and yet elusive, and great care has to be taken to make sure it all doesn’t go horribly wrong” in the words of Mark McKergow)
vs.
a Brief Coaching, Solution-Focused approach to change (“it’s fast, effective, energizing, engaging, flexible, low cost…and somewhat counter-intuitive”, quoting Mark Mc Kergow again).

“Coaching relationships should be allowed to run their course regardless of how long this may take” – in Coaching That Counts, by Dianna Anderson and Merrill Anderson, p.252
vs.
“Successful coaching does not imperatively need to be arranged over a long period of time… In all three cases, only a single coaching session took place… As a Brief Coach, I see my contribution in enabling executives a usable start in the desired direction within a conversation… So coaching can be designed in a way to make further coaching superfluous“, Peter Szabó, Brief Coaching of Executives

“Finding 1: The Perceived Effectiveness of Coaching Increased with the Length of the Coaching Relationship. Those who were coached the longest (e.g., 18 or more hours) rated coaching the highest: 81% rated coaching as very effective, 17% as somewhat effective, and only 2% as not effective. On the other hand, those who were coached the shortest amount of time (e.g., up to 6 hours) rated coaching as less effective: 46% rated coaching as very effective, 40% as somewhat effective, and 14% rated coaching as not effective.” – in Coaching That Counts, by Dianna Anderson and Merrill Anderson, p.252
vs.
This resulted in the development of solution-focused brief counseling, a simple procedure which leads to
the rapid identification of sustainable and effective solutions. In concrete terms, this means that, by systematically refraining from counseling activities that are of little use, the time investment can be
reduced to an average of three meetings, each lasting 50 minutes. This form of counseling has
proved to be sustainable and effective, with a success rate of 86%, as shown by studies carried out
after 6 and 18 months. – Peter Szabó, in Introduction to Solution-Focused Brief Coaching.

I am not questioning the skills of coaches who use “traditional” coaching models.

They are doing an excellent job.

However, it takes them longer to get to the results that clients want, simply because they are using coaching protocols that require steps that are not essential to help clients change.
It is as if they were running a race with a heavy backpack: the weight of unproven assumptions about change weighting heavily on their backs, held back by the sheer amount of time required to engage in “change” activities (analysis, problem definition, finding weaknesses…) that are not necessary to help clients.
Solution-Focused Brief Coaching, on the other hand, is the art of asking only the few questions that can help make a difference for clients, and nothing else.

It is coaching in its purest form: brief, simple and effective.

And given the times, wouldn’t you want to get the results you seek in a singe one-hour session rather than in multiple sessions adding up to 18+ hours?

In the end, a few stats of my own for 2008:
- average number of sessions per client: 3
- percentage of coachees who say they are “very satisfied” one month after the last session: over 80%
- having effective coaching support at a fraction of the cost of traditional programs: in this economy, priceless!

Tags: anderson, brief coaching, Change, effectiveness, mark McKergow, Peter Szabo, savings, Solution Focused, traditional approaches