FREE webinar 4 November now with online booking

Our next Discover Solutions Focus webinar will be held using new software that allows online booking.  All you need to do is click on the link and you’ll be enrolled, receive full details of how to dial in and log in, and even get reminders a day and an hour before the event.  The next webinar is Wednesday 4th November 2009 at 18.00 GMT (UK time).  For full details and to book online with a single click, go to http://www.sfwork.com/jsp/index.jsp?lnk=4f0.

This is an excellent opportunity to introduce colleagues and friends to the powerful and positive SF approach – and they get to hear about it directly from Dr Mark McKergow himself.  Please pass news of this wonderful FREE webinar opportunity to others. 

Space is limited.
Reserve your Webinar seat now at:
www2.gotomeeting.com/register/526586746

• Are you trying to make progress in complicated and unclear situations?
• Do you want to get things moving quickly?
• Do you want to motivate and align your team?
• Do you struggle with having difficult conversations at work?
• Do you want to lead change with pinpoint precision?

 Solutions Focus (SF) is an approach to change that is causing companies worldwide to sit up and take notice. Its primary focus is on uncovering and building on what is already working well – even in areas that are failing. Whether you’re a manager, a team leader, a coach or a consultant, you can use SF to generate immediate results.

“SF is brilliant – it helps me support the business, turn around negative situations and help even our high-performing employees to deliver better results. Asking great questions in meetings has also helped me get noticed – great for my career!”
Antoinette Oglethorpe, European Learning & Organizational Development Director, XL Capital Ltd

During this one-hour interactive webinar with Dr Mark McKergow you will:

• Discover the distinctive simplicity of the SF approach
• Hear how it’s in use with organisations all over the world
• Find out many different applications of SF
• Learn about the six basic SF tools – which you can start to put into practice right away
• Work out how SF can help you and your organisation

Our workshops are always interactive, and these webinars are no exception – you will have the opportunity to ask questions. You will also discover a whole range of resources on using SF within organisations and elsewhere.

The SF approach is sometimes compared to Appreciative Inquiry. Both methods focus on what’s working; many people prefer SF for its incisive simplicity and applicability in all kinds of situations, big and small. Coach Jilly Shaul comments

“quite the most powerful technique I’ve come across and one that really speaks to me”
Jilly Shaul, Life Coach

Space is limited.
Reserve your Webinar seat now at:
www2.gotomeeting.com/register/526586746

Art of Hosting: Very interesting meta-method of change practice

As a practicing consultant, coach and facilitator I always try to keep developing myself by attending trainings and other events from time to time.  Within the SF world this is not always easy – after 17 years I feel as if I’ve seen quite a lot.  Some of you will know of my recent work on developing the idea of Leader as Host, and part of my research led me to the Art of Hosting group (http://www.artofhosting.org).

Art of Hosting (AoH) is a movement that started – by this name – some five years ago.  It is not a new approach or method of change.  Rather, it is an approach which emphasises the importance of getting people into a good space with good ‘wicked’ questions that they care about – and then getting out of the way as much as possible and allowing useful dialogue to emerge.  This is explicitly a part of the post-modern strand of thinking – change happens in dialogue, dialogue is emergent, people don’t need help so much as a space in which to help themselves.  If this all sounds rather like SF… that’s because the overall philosophies have a good deal in common.  AoH is now being used in some very interesting places., including the European Commission.

The event I took part in was a four day training at Hazelwood House, Devon.  It was very cunningly structured on a multi-level learning basis, so that there was an excellent mix of doing it, learning about it, reflecting on it, and thinking about our own interests and questions.  There are 44 participants, ranging from the very experienced (the ‘hosting team’ were 6 of the most experienced you could wish to meet) to some who had never experienced this kind of relatively large-group work.  Our hosting team were from Denmark, Greece, the US and UK, with a balance of British and continental participants. 

AoH uses a number of methodologies, including Open Space Technology (familiar to SOLWorld conference participants!), Appreciative Inquiry, World Cafe (as seen at SOLWorld 2006 in Vienna) and Circle practice.  These are combined with ideas about calling people together around wicked questions, designing and holding space for emergence, an interesting design process called the ‘five breaths of design (http://www.artofhosting.org/thepractice/5breaths/) and ‘harvesting’ the results of the event, to ensure it goes forward in a good way.  This is all positioned on what they call the ‘chaordic path’ (and what I call emergence) – where the boundary of order and chaos produces interesting things.  Experience SF practitioners will see lots of parallels with what we do, combined with lots of options – one strength of AoH in my view is that all these different methods give many possibilities, especially when combined in interesting ways that fit the situation. 

I was able to do a little spreading of SF ideas amongst this – small tiny steps and ‘who is prepared to act’ (customer for change) were particularly well received.  I think we have something else to learn too – I found broadly little appetite for hardcore linguistics, and lots of enthusiasm to do something useful.  While I am still very convinced about the usefulness of the SF approach, I think we can be trying to get it into this kind of situation as well.  Any thoughts on a large group SF model, anyone? 

AoH run trainings world wide – a very interesting bunch.  I intend to keep up with them as things move forwards.  They certainly seem to be getting into some really interesting and challenging work, which is something I’d like to do more of in the coming years.