Oplossingsgericht werken: van succes in het verleden naar succes in de toekomst

Oplossingsgericht werken is een resultaatgerichte en respectvolle manier van werken waarmee coaches, consultants en managers relatief snel en prettig verandering tot stand kunnen brengen. De oplossingsgerichte aanpak werd circa 25 jaar geleden ontwikkeld in de psychotherapie en wint de laatste jaren sterk aan populariteit in de coachingswereld. Wat is oplossingsgericht werken en vanwaar die populariteit? Wat levert het op? Hoe werkt het? En wat kunnen consultants en interim-managers ermee? Lees verder.

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The Spirit Level (Book Review)

Positive Psychology News Daily published my review of the book The Spirit Level: Why Greater Equality Makes Societies Stronger by Richard Wilkindon and Kate Pickett:

The Spirit Level (Book Review)
Diminishing Returns of Economic Growth
Richard Wilkinson and Kate Pickett, two English epidemiologists, have written a provocative book on how high levels of inequality in societies are harmful for everyone within them. Their research shows that while economic policies in developed countries stress the importance of economic growth, the contribution of further economic growth reaches a point of dimiminishing marginal returns. The relationship levels off between economic growth and certain objectively measurable outcomes, as shown for life expectancy in the figure below. Read full article here.
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When facing an adversary you fundamentally distrust … should you negotiate?

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NOAM Nieuwsbrief 136

NOAM Nieuwsbrief 136 bevat de volgende items:
  • A solution-focused conversation: improving financial results
  • Adviezen: kan dat in een oplossingsgericht gesprek?
  • Werkt slijmen wèl?
  • Een interview met Insoo Kim Berg
  • Enkele oplossingsgerichte concepten
  • Advies voor “gepest” kind of voor ouders?
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A solution focused conversation: improving financial results

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Some Solution-Focused Concepts

Anton Stellamans told me about a retreat on the solution-focused approach, he had with his colleagues in Malmö. facilitated by Harry Korman. In the session they micro-analyzed a videotaped solution-focused conversation. Anton mention that the following concepts were introduced by Harry during the session: repair sequences, calibrating, echoing, cognition-behavior-interaction-concept, not getting in the way of the thinking process of the client, leaving no footprints in the snow. I asked Anton to tell me a bit more about some of those concepts and the wrote down this explanation. I got his permission to share it here with you.
Repair sequence: At one point during the coaching interview I made a brief summary of what my client just said. But apparently this summary did not really grasp what he was thinking about. Harry Korman stopped the video right after that reaction of the client and correctly predicted a repair sequence: a sequence where coach and client try to repair the misunderstanding by reformulating, adding information, shaking heads, “ooh I sees” etc.
Calibrating: Calibrating is a process that is taking part throughout the conversation. A repair sequence is a moment in which you can see that coach and client are calibrating their understanding of what the other says. Harry Korman said that all these techniques like nodding, “uh hum”, “oh”, taking turns, smiling, frowning, etc. are happening in day to day conversations. In SF they are used more explicitly to foster solution talk.
Leaving no footprints in the snow: All the talk about “understanding” is of course not to be understood in the classical way, where subject A translates his thoughts in words which are then picked up by B and processed into the exact thoughts A wishes to convey. As Steve de Shazer said somewhere: “There is no such thing as understanding, there is only more or less useful ways of misunderstanding.” During the coaching there were a lot of moments where I knew I did not understand exactly (or even vaguely) what the client was talking about. But that didn’t matter. I deliberately did not stop him in order to get my thoughts clear because I saw that he was thinking and continued to talk and make sense for himself. When watching the tape I asked the client if letting him talk at that moment was useful and he said yes. He was happy that I didn’t interfere with his thinking/pausing/talking. This lead us in a discussion about ‘not getting in the way of (the thinking process of) the client’. There Harry mentioned Insoo’s saying: “Don’t leave no footprints in the snow.”
Cognition-emotion/Behavior-Interaction/Context: This is my way of referring to a diagram Harry drew on the flip chart. Some sort of compass for composing useful SF questions and staying on the surface. The diagram consists of two circles. The inner circle stands for cognition/emotion. What traditionally has been located “between the ears”. The outer circle is what others see us do (between the noses) when we are having these thoughts/emotions. He then partitioned these two circles like a pie, saying that every piece of the pie stands for another context in which all this is taking place. For example: the client was talking about “having new perspectives”. A useful way of working on that is asking who will notice that (and who else), what they would notice (and what else), in which contexts it will make a difference (and where else). I think that you could also add the notion of time to this diagram: when would you/others notice… It reminded me of the “coming through the ceiling” tape with Steve de Shazer and the woman who believed that her upstairs neighbor was keeping her from sleeping. In the introduction, Insoo interviews Steve about this case (very interesting!). There Steve explains that staying on the surface means to determine where and when the solution should be found: i.e. in her bed at night. And not at work, in family contexts, during the day, while on a holiday, …) And he restricts the area of the solution to that place and time.
I hope you like this and I welcome your thoughts…
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Insincere Flattery Actually Works: A Dual Attitudes Perspective

Flattery—the art of offering pleasing compliments—is one of the oldest and most commonly used of persuasion tactics. Instances of flattery also abound in the marketing context because making consumers feel good about themselves can often lead them to evaluate the flatterer positively. However, when prospective consumers are fully aware of a clear ulterior motive underlying the compliment, both prior research and intuition suggest that recipients will discount the flattering comments and correct their otherwise favorable reactions. In contrast, this research uses a dual attitudes perspective to show that even after consumers consciously discount a blatantly insincere compliment from the marketer, the original positive reaction (the implicit attitude) toward the marketer coexists with, rather than being replaced by, the discounted evaluation (the explicit attitude). Subsequently, the implicit reaction is manifested when cognitive capacity at the time of measurement is significantly constrained, while the explicit judgment is reported under unconstrained conditions. Lees verder.

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Voicing Conflict: Preferred Conflict Strategies Among Incremental and Entity Theorists

The way individuals choose to handle their feelings during interpersonal conflicts has important consequences for relationship outcomes. In this article, the authors predict and find evidence that people’s implicit theory of personality is an important predictor of conflict behavior following a relationship transgression. Incremental theorists, who believe personality can change and improve, were likely to voice their displeasure with others openly and constructively during conflicts. Entity theorists, who believe personality is fundamentally fixed, were less likely to voice their dissatisfactions directly. These patterns were observed in both a retrospective study of conflict in dating relationships (Study 1) and a prospective study of daily conflict experiences (Study 2). Study 2 revealed that the divergence between incremental and entity theorists was increasingly pronounced as conflicts increased in severity: the higher the stakes the stronger the effect. Read article.
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Doen wat werkt: een aanrader

Albertien ‘t Hoen van www.werknatuurlijk.nl schreef de volgende recensie van mijn boek Doen wat werkt, Oplossingsgericht werken, coachen en managen.

Ik ben een fan van oplossingsgericht werken. Voor het Tijdschrift voor Coaching een recensie schrijven over Doen wat werkt, oplossingsgericht werken, coachen en managen is dan ook echt iets voor mij.

Doen wat werkt: de titel sprak mij direct aan. In het boek staat het nog iets uitgebreider:

  • ‘Als het niet kapot is, repareer het dan niet.
  • Als je weet wat werkt, doe daar dan meer van.
  • Als iets niet werkt, doe dan iets anders.’

Zo logisch als dat klinkt leest eigenlijk het hele boek. De herkenbare voorbeelden en gespreksfragmenten maken de uitleg helder en direct toepasbaar. Visser gebruikt mooie metaforen en grappige uitdrukkingen zoals bijvoorbeeld complimentvissen en haasje-over over het probleem. De samenvattingen en schema’s vergroten de leesbaarheid.

Doen wat werkt is een degelijk boek. Het geeft een goed overzicht van oplossingsgericht werken. De ontstaansgeschiedenis, overeenkomsten en verschillen met raakbenaderingen en de toekomst van oplossingsgericht werken komen aan bod. Daarnaast bevat het boek interessante interviews met experts en gaat het in op oplossingsgericht sturen en team- en organisatietoepassingen.

Een belangrijk deel is gewijd aan de werkwijze in de (coach)praktijk. Vijf verschuivingen in het denken over verandering worden benoemd en het doelbewuste veranderingsproces wordt als zevenstappenmodel uitgebreid uitgelegd. Daarnaast worden aanvullende technieken zoals de wondervraag, schalen, copingvragen en complimenten behandeld.

Die zeven stappen zijn:

  1. verhelderen van de veranderbehoefte;
  2. definiëren van de gewenste toestand;
  3. vaststellen van het platform;
  4. analyseren van eerder succes;
  5. één stapje vooruit zetten;
  6. vooruitgang monitoren;
  7. vaststellen van de verdere veranderbehoefte.

Het model kun je zien als een recept met zeven ingrediënten. Visser beschrijft hoe ‘het gerecht’ vaak gemaakt wordt, maar geeft aan dat je alle vrijheid hebt om bijvoorbeeld de volgorde van de ingrediënten te wijzigen. Mij spreekt het vierde ingrediënt analyseren van eerder succes bijzonder aan. Eerdere successen zijn vindplaatsen van oplossingen en weten wat werkt is belangrijker dan weten waarom het werkt.

Visser besteedt een apart hoofdstuk aan de klant die niet klaar is voor verandering. Hij pleit daarbij voor een subtiele en non-confronterende interventiestijl. Aan de hand van de case ‘ik heb geen coaching nodig’ laat hij zien hoe de interactie zich in het gesprek soepel van bezoekerstypisch via klaagtypisch naar klanttypisch ontwikkeld.

Ik ben enthousiast over dit boek. Maar zoals het afsluit: ‘praat er niet teveel over’. Gewoon zelf lezen en doen wat werkt dus!

© 2010 Albertien ‘t Hoen. Ik vind het prima als je dit artikel of delen eruit publiceert, op voorwaarde van de volgende vermelding met een werkende link naar mijn website: Door Albertien ‘t Hoen van www.werknatuurlijk.nl.

Deze recensie verscheen in december 2009 in het Tijdschrift voor Coaching.

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Switch: How to Change Things When Change Is Hard

Just ordered this book: Switch: How to Change Things When Change Is Hard by Chip and Dan Heath. Here is a description: “Why is change so difficult and frightening? How do you create change when you have few resources and no title or authority to back you up? Chip and Dan Heath, the best-selling authors of Made to Stick, are back with a ground-breaking book that addresses one of the greatest challenges of our personal and professional lives — how to change things when change is hard. In their follow-up book to the critically acclaimed international bestseller Made to Stick, Chip and Dan Heath talk about how difficult change is in our companies, our careers, and our lives, why change is so hard, and how we can overcome our resistance and make change happen. Throughout Switch, Chip and Dan Heath illustrate and explain situations in which sweeping change was adopted, from a university researcher who ended the cycle of child abuse in a group of families, to an entrepreneur who turned his skeptical employees into customer service zealots and saved his company. In the tradition of Made to Stick, Blink, and Outliers, Switch is filled with engaging and entertaining stories of how companies and individuals have brought about and sustained significant change. An indispensable guide to making change happen, it is certain to become a classic.”
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