EBTA 2010 – Crossing the bridge. An sf coach´s glimpses from a sf brief therapy conference

The solution focused brief therapy annual conference 2010 “bridges” walks the talk and builds bridges! - Obviously this was not a therapeutical only conference. Even more, as the SFCT – the quality associaton for coaching and training - was visibly here.

So right from the start, the gap between the therapistbusiness and the coachingbusiness is shrinking: The plenary was titled Inside and Outside. - and was about organizational and sytems change towards sf-thinking and doing.

Having Ben Furman as moderator interviewing Marc McKergow and Gaby Wallström about how to applicate sf in healthcare systems. One of these initiatives beeing applied from the outside – Mark M Kergow and team coaching leaders of healtcare organization over 6 months period, the other started by Gaby Wallström, applying the sf focus from the inside by doing what works and living the sf ways. Both with persuading results.

My personal goal for going to the conference was very clear: I wanted to 1. do networking, 2. to get sf education beyond what I already am doing and knowing and ….(even worse!)... 3. I wanted to get new perspectives for my business, get inspired. Whooo, how unhumble.

Guess what? It´worked! I was exactly at the right place with the right mixture of people from so many countries! - even more, as my focus is at crossing cultures.

I spend my conference time having really severe difficulties to decide which workshops to attend – there have been soo many interesting ones, who were very creative, or had a focus on one of the tools of the sf principles or were research related. Much stuff,
and I would strongly recommend it to any sf professional to join the EBTA 2011 conference in Dresden, Germany.

And for me personally, the cream on top of all was the Sunday plenary with the founders group. Besides all the highlights Paul Z. Jackson already mentions for me, personally, there is one particular thing Eve Lipchik said that strikes my mind: “
The biggest influence had the question: what don´t you want to
change? “

Walking on bridges like that has been an unforgettable experience – thanks to all the organizers and contributors!