Book Description

This collection of articles provides: - authentic practitioner accounts of the Solution Focus(SF) approach being used successfully in team coaching and organizational development all around the world. They were written by authors like Yasuteru Aoki, Jesper H. Christiansen, Jenny Clarke, Hannes Couvreur, Kirsten Dierolf, Ben Furman, Dominik Godat, Chris Iveson, Marco Ronzani and Peter Szabó. - smart practices on how to face serious organizational development challenges such as attracting and keeping good people, facilitating the formation of high performing teams, improving career management and succession planning, increasing job commitment, support motivation and reducing stress. - tools to enhance the link between individual, team and organizational goals and their achievement - interviews with leaders who use SF in their everyday work to motivate employees, create team unity, facilitate open communication, encourage action and innovation, maintain vision and perspective. Our hope for this book is that leaders and employees in organizations, coaches and consultants will find inspiring examples of the lightness and simplicity, variety and flexibility that is the solution focused process. “This is a book about organisational change. [...] The solution focused approach came to the organisational change world from the therapy room. It is a very specific approach, devised in the mid to late 1980s as part of the interactional brief therapy tradition by Steve de Shazer, Insoo Kim Berg, their colleagues at the Brief Family Therapy Center in Milwaukee and others. It’s not (even if it sometimes looks like it) about being positive. It’s not about looking on the bright side. It’s not even about finding solutions. In the interactional tradition, we look for the ways in which meanings are continually created, moulded and evolved in everyday conversation. An ‘organisation’ is not really as solid as it sounds – it is a group of people engaged in organising, which is a continuous process (even if things seem very stuck at a particular point). By changing the conversations, the questions, the responses, we cannot but change the organisation. [...] This book is the latest collection of SF cases, following on from 2007’s Solution Focus Working These books are treasure troves of ideas for the seeker with some time and patience. They are not quick-fire checklists. Treat this book as a starting point for developing your own work and practice.” – Mark McKergow