Blog - The Solutions Focus

What’s it like in your decisive moments? | Paul

15/1/2018

Do you find it hard to make decisions? Yes or No?

If you find out more about both sides of a decision, it may help. Or you just be even more stuck between the two options. What to wear for a conference - that should be relatively easy. It is for me, but not for my business partner.

And what about the ‘big’ decisions? Especially if you are anxiously stuck. How about some different routes towards reaching those?

5 Top tips for building your resilience | Janine

24/4/2017

“A good half of the art of living is resilience.”
― Alain de Botton

It’s tempting to think that resilience is a fixed personality trait, maybe even something that we are born with. But be reassured, the ability to bounce back from failure and to cope with everyday difficulties is something that can be learned and developed by anyone.

Here are five top tips that can help you build your resilience.

The Solutions Focus Resilience Management Pocketbook

Taking it personally | Janine

14/11/2016

How often do people tell you not to take things personally? It's one of those annoying generalisations that seems highly significant yet whose meaning is elusive.

In a recent coaching call, my client announced that she didn't want to take things so personally. She said her husband had repeatedly asked her not to take work issues so personally, as he felt it generated anxiety and negativity that was destroying their relationship.

6 Dos and Don’ts for Resilience post-Brexit | Janine

15/7/2016

Some say that the UK Brexit vote on 23rd June was a vote against the establishment, a statement of general dissatisfaction with the way things are, a distrust of our politicians and a desire for more control, more democracy and independence. Others argue that it was ill-informed, driven by xenophobia and those seeking personal gain.

Not only has the vote divided the country, it’s caused ructions at work, families to fragment and a rise in reported racist incidents throughout the UK.

Whatever our views on the outcome of the vote, one thing is for sure: the ability to be resilient in these times of change and uncertainty will put us in good stead for whatever comes next.

So what exactly is resilience? Here are some descriptions that you may find helpful.

Getting more resilient – A useful distinction between everyday stress and high-stakes pressure

20/6/2016

There’s a direct connection between resilience and other qualities that we recognise as positive and desirable in people. Courage, for example, is displayed when people feel strong. And that strength is the same as the feeling of resilience to the pressures that surround you.

The question then is how to deal with pressure. And it’s worth making a distinction between stress - the stuff of everyday life that you must constantly deal with, and pressure - the special, peak moments when you are on the pitch and the crowd is watching as you take the penalty.

You feel the stress only at the times when you lack the immediate resources to handle and deal with the contingencies of everyday life. Pressure is when the consequences are ramped up and there is (apparently) more at stake, with more people caring about the outcomes.

You may want to take extra measures to equip yourself for pressure, such as training, coaching, practicing with simulations. The key to dealing with everyday stress is your collection of coping tactics. These may be different from your special strategies for managing pressure.

The connection between them is that you should maintain yourself in good condition against the everyday stresses, so that you have plenty in reserve for those heightened, high-stake moments of pressure.

5 productive responses when we make a mistake | Paul

9/5/2016

1. Keep things in proportion, appropriate to the stakes. If the mistakes don’t much matter, then don’t give them excessive psychological weight. It’s a good idea to reduce needless perfectionism.

2. In a learning environment, treat mistakes lightly as a signal to have another go at succeeding or progressing. It's why we invest in simulators.

3. If you make mistakes in your organisation, it's worth saying sorry, as that builds trust and reduces excessive fear of making mistakes. It's most unfortunate, for example, that politicians cannot admit to making mistakes.

4. Value feedback - your own and other's useful stories. That sets you up to make use of feedback for fast adaptation. It’s a great improvisational and learning skill to notice how we are doing in relation to what we are aiming to do. Correct your course by spotting and quickly dealing with errors.

5. Learn from other people's mistakes - generally a list of tempting moves to avoid saves time and pain, and gets you more quickly to the ‘Success Stack’, so you can learn from what your mentor ultimately got right.

What can we learn from a crisis?

8/2/2016

There is a common misconception that in Chinese, the sign for crisis is the same as for opportunity.

If not through these symbols, how can we create opportunities from our crises?

Well, we can learn more about our resources and resilience. And we can learn more from those than we can learn from our mistakes and failures.

Mistakes are events you would rather have not happened (at least at the time), because the intention was to do something different, and the immediate consequence is most often unfavourable.

I like this story of a crisis handled by Hans Zeinhofer, who I met at a conference where delegates were discussing the application of solutions-focused ideas in organisations.

Save time, boost engagement and build resilience by focusing on solutions rather than problems | Janine

30/10/2012

Talking Point: Isn't it time HR focused on solutions rather than problems? Published in Hrzone.co.uk

HR professionals often find themselves carrying our adminstrative and operational tasks that are the resonsiblity of line managers. They also end up being dragged into other people’s problems, which is both time-wasting and exhausting.

How many times have you found yourself doing something that was somebody else’s responsibility, getting bogged down in negativity and feeling tired and overburdened by other people’s issues? But if you continue down this route, it’s highly likely that over time you will be sucked dry, become marginalised and even find yourself discarded.

While you are waiting | Paul

20/7/2012

We heard a neat question from Emma Osei-Mensah, a speech and language therapist, at a recent meeting of our London SF group. She asked one of her patients suffering from a stammer: ‘While waiting for a cure to happen, how will you know you are living well?’

We like the way that opens up territory of coping and resilience when there may be no immediate prospect of getting rid of the unwanted circumstances. It’s the sort of question you can usefully ask even when clients state clearly and understandably that they would like to be rid of some of their circumstances.

And we can adopt that for our work in gloom-ridden organisations during a recession. How about: ‘While waiting for the economy to recover, how will you ensure your days are productive?’

What SF questions have delighted you recently?