Happy New Year!
28 December 2009 in Uncategorized. Write by Paolo Terni
My central claim is that just like Evolution is a theory in the sense that it provides a “recipe” for the emergence of life forms and their adaptations, so SF is a theory in the sense that it provides a “recipe” for the emergence of solutions and useful adaptations within the context of a conversation.
Evolution and SF are both algorithms rather than theoretical constructs.
I am open to any feedback you guys might have.
Anything that could bring us closer to the goal of establishing a comprehensive science-based coaching discipline.
Mindsets
9 August 2009 in Books/Articles review. Write by Paolo Terni
“I am a loser”.
I always thought that comment was a very American reaction to a mistake; and as such, from my perspective as an Italian, very interesting and kind of cute.
Not so anymore.
According to Carol Dweck, that comment is a sign of a fixed mindset. And a fixed mindset can lead to a lot of unnecessary suffering.
In her book, Mindset – the New Psychology of Success, Carol Dweck divides people in 2 groups: those who have a “fixed” mindset and those who have a “growth” mindset.
But what is a mindset?
A mindset is a belief people have about their abilities and their qualities.
Of course people have different traits and abilities and qualities that they are born with.
People with a fixed mindset consider those qualities to be carved in stone – and that means that every situation calls for a confirmation.
People with a growth mindset consider those qualities as a starting point – there is no telling what you can achieve if you apply yourself.
Having a mindset or the other has several consequences: even 4-year olds with a fixed mindset tend to stick to easy tasks to prove they are smart vs. stretching themselves by tackling more difficult tasks; people with a growth mindset can take feedback and use it to their advantage, while people with a fixed mindset transform the feedback about an action into a judgement about their identity (from “I failed” to “I am a failure”).
The belief that talents can be developed gives people with a growth mindset a motivation to work hard and to practice deliberately, which is the secret to excellence; by contrast, people with a fixed mindset see effort as a sign of not being good enough: it’s hard for them to become, they have to be, right away.
They forget the yet. Facing a mistake, a person with a fixed mindset might think: I am not good at this. A person with a growth mindset, facing the same mistake, might think: I am not good at this… yet!
The good news is that a growth mindset can be taught.
And I now believe that teaching clients a growth mindset is the most important task a coach or a trainer can carry out.
A coach can implicitly teach a growth mindset to clients by using a language of possibility (see Mark McKergow and Paul Jackson’s SIMPLE model), by praising clients’ efforts (vs. outcomes), by helping clients to see obstacles as challenges, by focusing clients on learning rather than judging, by bringing the attention of clients to actions and feedback rather than to labels.
Switching from a fixed mindset to a growth mindset can open up a whole range of possibilities and opportunities - and isn’t that our mission as coaches and as change facilitators?
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ABOUT
Dr. Paolo Terni is a Professionally Certified Coach with the ICF (International Coach Federation) and the author of the book “Coaching Leader: how to transform individual talent into business results” (Guerini Editore, 2007, Milano, Italy). He has also written many papers on the impact of current psychological research on consulting and coaching practices – his writings have been published in the book Doing Something Different: Solution-Focused Brief Therapy Practices (Edited by Thorana Nelson, 2010, Routledge, NY), in Inter-Action: the Journal of Solution-Focus in Organizations, and other Journals. Dr. Terni has trained extensively in the US (Coach U, NLP Master Practitioner @ University of California at Santa Cruz with Robert Dilts) and is bi-lingual (English and Italian).
Dr. Terni is an expert in Solution-Focused Coaching (certified by Solutionsurfers, Basel, Switzerland), in
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WHAT'S IN A NAME?
A friend of mine asked me why I chose the name briefcoachingsolutions for my website.
Easy: it is the shortest description for what I do.
Solutions: that is what my clients arrive at: solutions. For their goals, their needs, their problems. They arrive at better solutions. Faster. With less effort. Solutions sustainable in the long run because they are based on what is already working in the clients' situations
it is also the description of my approach: solution-focused.
Coaching: that is the tool I use to help clients...
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