InterAction Collection 2021

Deliberately or otherwise, we all use them all of the time. So how do metaphors open minds and enrich perspective?  How do they enhance, amplify and explore a core message by subtly taking a perhaps occasionally closed mind on a wonderful involuntary journey of emerging ideas?  Well, allow yourself just an hour of well-earned quiet time to watch this video; you'll be amazed at how powerful and thought provoking the use of metaphor can be.  

Guided by the skilful, gentle questioning of Wendy Van den Bulck, let yourself be absorbed in this fascinating dialogue between Cédric Broux and John Brooker.  Watch as they explore in depth the related characteristics of Free Running (Parkour) - a way of expression through interaction with various obstacles and the environment - and the framework for Solution Focused Collaboration espoused by John Brooker in his latest book 'Jump Now'.

Parkour And Solution Focus Collaboration

In this audio, Leah runs one of the workshops that stewards within the Host Leadership community regularly facilitate to spread the philosophy and practices of the approach. The workshop provides a healthy mixture of practical activities and moments of talking about the philosophy of Host Leadership and ways to enact it through a proven practical model.
During the meeting, the guests have been involved in activities their Host specially designed for them to:
•	experience the value of the host leadership metaphor in their context of action
•	find out how to encourage their clients to build relationships while moving forward
•	use the step- forward and step-back dance of the Host Leader
•	examine the new roles and positions of engagement of the Host Leader
Host Leadership practitioners’ best hope is that Solutions Focus practitioners and others will take further interest in the Host Leadership idea and find inspiration in its usefulness and beauty.

Host Leading - Taking a new practical view on leadership - Leah Davcheva

Do you, like me, long for more of a community feel in your local area? Like Mark McKergow, I spent much time travelling before COVID came along and, when home, created connections locally as best I could, e.g. as a dad meeting parents at the school gates, as Chair of my local scouts. Sadly that connection ended when no longer involved in school or Scouts. Being part of these communities felt good, and while there is much to love about our SFiO communal Zoom activities, I long to catch up in person over a coffee and a hug!

So Mark McKergow’s initiative to build micro-local sustainable neighbourhood communities in urban settings, known as ‘Village in the City’, has appeal. 

In this video/audio case study, Mark recounts what led him to initiate this movement, how it is important for the world today, and how the project is developing.   
For those interested in using the Solution Focus approach in organisations, Village in the City provides an excellent case study on using SF to create a different type of ‘organisation’, a community organisation.

Mark set out with the best hope of creating a community amongst his neighbours in the West End of Edinburgh. He sat down to describe the elements of his future perfect, including a host, inclusivity for all, connection to stimulate conversations, meeting places, inclusive gatherings and an ‘identity’, something of which to be proud. To progress, he ‘used what’s there’ and small steps: 
•	creating an email list of neighbours
•	playing the saxophone on his front doorstep for his neighbours during lockdown
•	using his previous experience of networking
•	connecting with the hosts of a tiny neighbourhood FaceBook group and taking small steps to build it from 20 to nearly 1000 participants through leafleting and word of mouth
•	community notice boards
•	An SF worksheet, scaling each element that Mark envisaged, for potential organisers.

The joy of this approach is its simplicity. Anyone can do it. Might that be you?

How Solution Focus Underpins 'Village in the City'

In this talk, Morgan Lewis shares his SF journey to support young athletes in finding their confidence and connecting to their excellence. Using solution focus questions when coaching the athletes, he engages in a quest to gather evidence of competence, to nurture their self-confidence and belief in themselves.
There are many useful insights for those leaders working in business.

#SF24 Morgan Lewis and SF question for athletes

Elvira Kalmar presents an inspiring Case Study session on how, as an Organisational Development consultant, she worked in a Solution Focus way with her client Invitech, to bring about an agile transformation fast and with incredible lightness.

Elvira engaged me as she described her approach (or lack of process as she explained), allowing the client to be the expert in their world, helping them define what agile transformation would look like and co-creating the steps along the way. 

In just three months, she was able to help the “experimenting team” achieve what they wanted, so that this team could influence other teams – letting the “fire” spread across the business. The team learned and developed their own process; Elvira did not force it on them. 

This recording is one you must watch or listen to, to fully appreciate the passion and ‘way of being’ Elvira displays when she describes how she worked with her client. 

Elvira models all aspects of great Solution Focus practice, and there are many tips for you to take away, both in the case study and in the reflections of those listening.

How Can Transformation Happen Fast And With Lightness?

Clients asked Jesper H Christiansen to merge two teams in deep conflict with each other. The management had concluded that due to the team’s overlapping activities, it was essential they work together, once and for all. The management had tried this in the past, without success. The teams had many negative experiences, and there were hurt feelings and mutual mistrust. How did Jesper approach this challenge with his Solution Focus lens?

I had the privilege to attend this session at the SOL 2021 conference. I learned a lot about how to navigate the energy in teams skilfully and channel it masterfully into deeper collaboration.

In this video, Jesper shares his reflections on the whole process and his unique approach and use of SF experiments.

Once again, this example showed me how effective and focused Solution Focus can be, even in a situation where a conflict is deeply rooted. I was surprised to see that after only a few interactions with Jesper, the team members felt confident to continue their journey on their own.

There is much to learn from this case study. Enjoy!
Annie Bordeleau

Two Teams Into One - A case study of a skilled mediation by Jesper H Christiansen

On reading ‘Reinventing Organisations’,  by Frederik Laloux, (available on Amazon), it struck me how ‘reinvented’ organisations could use Solution Focus to help achieve each breakthrough that Laloux describes:
1. Self-management (or 'self-organisation' in this session)
2. Wholeness
3. Evolutionary purpose

By coincidence, after I read the book, Tomas Horak contacted myself and my colleague Annie Bordeleau to ask how SFiO might enable an experiment on establishing self-organising teams. The result was the session you hear in this audio with a summary below. 

As Tomas says with honesty in the session, “we have no idea how this experiment will turn out”. That said, he encourages participants to use their creativity and sense for exploration to gather ideas for the self-organisation journey; and they do!

Tomas and Christophe kicked off with “finding attendees’ best hopes for this co-creation experiment and the difference that would make”. You can find the output of this and other sessions in the video in a PDF of slides on the SFiO website (www.sfio.org) in the Library/ InterAction Collection 2021. I summarise some of the findings below:
The three sessions
Session 1 - First ideas on how to start a journey towards self-organising
Groups considered what might be their first steps to creating self-organising teams. Recurring themes from different groups were:
the need to have organisations define what:
•	‘Self-organising’ means to them
•	The purpose for them of self-organising 
•	The roles in a self-organising team
•	As well, organisations should:
•	Look for signs of self-organisation happening in the organisation
•	Develop psychological safety for people to self-organise
 
Session 2 – Bring Solution Focus into play
As you will notice from the Session 1 output, people already had an SF perspective in Sessions 1, and Session 2 encouraged people to consider how they might use SF more.  
What becomes clear is that the SF approach and questions are perfect to have teams think through what they want to achieve in terms of self-organising and how they can achieve it. The groups’ output confirms this with some additional questions that arise:
•	How does the group change when it needs new or different skills?
•	How will the different backgrounds and cultures of teams contribute to self-organisation?
•	How to best define the roles?
•	How to keep energy high?
•	Should a ‘consultant’ be an expert in self-organising teams or simply facilitate groups to find their way to self-organise?
•	How not to ‘force’ self-organisation?
•	How to use Host Leadership to introduce self-organisation

Session 3 - Focusing on the first step  
Pick out the most important first step and explain how you would start a journey towards self-organisation
The groups were very practical here with ideas such as:
•	Create space for self-organisation
•	Have a coaching conversation with the customer
•	Use a simple exercise to show signs of self-organisation
•	Share emotions and how to best work together
•	Discuss signs of trust in the team - people may distrust the leader’s motives
•	Focus on the resources in the group and how they might use them to self-organise
•	Use Host Leadership 

Plenary - A chance to reflect
Tomas opened the session up to attendees to reflect on the conversations they had. Reflections are:
•	Self-organisation needs time - therefore, leaders need to temper their desire for results
•	The process for effecting self-organisation is the same for any change in the organisation
•	SF practitioners make the process of change effective and efficient by focusing on what we want
•	Until people know and trust each other and feel included, our task is about community building before discussing what we are going to do together
•	Metaphors for self-organisation are a flock of birds or shoals of fish and (based on these principles) swarming drones.

How Can Solution Focus Shape Self - Organisation

Soundcloud features our audio features on Solution Focus in organisations, from The InterAction Collection. We are an international community of Solution Focus practitioners who continue learning and developing the SF approach in organisations.

InterAction Collection 2021

SFiO - Solution Focus in Organisations