SF Coaching

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Comment by Phillip Ziegler on January 19, 2010 at 23:14

Mark--this might be off topic but was sad to read your post about George--I actually saw his shodan exam when he was in his early 50's and I was a young blue belt in my mid 30's. Thought his test was okay for an old guy. I dropped out of aikido and went back in my early 50's at took my shodan exam at 53 years of age. Hope I did as well. He was a wonderful man--trained with him many times over the years.

Comment by Mark Mitchell on January 19, 2010 at 22:58

Phil, some of the corporate presentation I do included emotional intelligence. sf and ei blends nicely..also knowing you..you might check his book 'ecological intelligence.' I made a proposal last year at sfbta on it but it wasn;t 'sf' enough...btw I just read george leonard passed away.:( I figured you must have bumped into him in your part of thew world.

Comment by Phillip Ziegler on January 19, 2010 at 20:16

Meant to say all those SF practices and principles dovetail nicely with emotional intelligence--coaches need EI and so do leaders. And it seems to me that those of us who hold the assumptions of SF and listen for strengths and resources which can be developed into steps for and signs of desired change are by naturally emotionally intelligent. (To say nothing about intelligent in general :-) )

Comment by Phillip Ziegler on January 19, 2010 at 20:12

I have been reading Dan Goleman's Primal Leadership (not to be confused with Primal Scream of the early 1970's in California's crazy therapies). And I see how SFC and Emotional Intelligence compliment each other. I can see how SF conversations (goal building/generating the client's/coachee's preferred future picture and then constructing small action steps from past exceptions and signs of progress which the person can be "on the lookout for" are all consistent with SF principles and practices. Has anyone written on this? I may try my hand.

Comment by Hans-Peter Korn on December 17, 2009 at 16:58

Here is a short description of Agile Management: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agile_management
And in this SOL-World-network there is a discussion about this since a longer time:
Solution Focused Agility in Projects and Management

Comment by Phillip Ziegler on December 17, 2009 at 16:40

Hannes--I have enough trouble trying to change myself--thinking I can change someone else is crazy thinking and a prescription for burn-out, starting to label clients who aren't changing the way we think they should, and feeling ineffective if they don't change. I do 100% of my part and hopefully doing what I do encourages them to do 100% of their part in our collaborative effort to bring about changes they want in their lives.
H-P--What is Agile Management? I like the name. Maybe Agile and Elegant Coaching would be a better name than Solution Focused Coaching. I'll let you all know what comes out of this afternoon's conversation with the other coaches.

Comment by Hans-Peter Korn on December 17, 2009 at 15:20

yes... and maybe the "act - inspect - adapt in small steps" from "Agile Management" might be a good choice with this small modification:
"act - let the others inspect - let the others adapt (and adopt) as far as they want".

Comment by Hannes Couvreur on December 17, 2009 at 15:10

Hey Phillip,

Thanks for sharing your story. "I do what I do and they do the changing or they don't" is definitely something which I will ponder upon for the next couple of days ... The insight that you don't have to change these folks also strikes me as very strong, even a bit zen if you ask me :). I'm looking forward to the next steps on your journey. Do send a postcard once and a while ;).

Janine, thanks for the tip as well.

Comment by Phillip Ziegler on December 17, 2009 at 14:33

janine--that is an excellent suggestion. There is no reason I need to label what I do SF. In the presentation I am going to make this afternoon it's clear to me that my goal is to simply share how I work--and to give then a case example. I think leaving them curious at this point would be a good outcome. Rather than give them a clear "SF approach" they can view as a thing to accept or reject.
Hannes--Funny as I have been reading people's comments here and in my own reflections I've pretty much stopped worrying--since I have stopped thinking I have change these folks I am feeling very relaxed and even excited to have a chance to share how I am using my 35 years of therapy experience in this new arena of executive coaching. I don't try to change my clients or coachees--I do what I do and they do the changing or they don't. A few days ago I had the amazing opportunity to watch an old film of Milton Erickson in which someone asked him--since he was known to be able to work with impossible cases did he have some way of deciding that a certain case would be impossible even for him. Naturally he told a story and the gist of that story is that in cases where it seemed clear to him that the person offered absolutely no opening, no element of interest, curiosity, desire for something to change he would refuse to work with that person because he believed it would be useless. I've been reflecting on that story for days.
Baerbel--You add to the growing pile of post-its in my mind about some things--I have been brought in to work with, not on the other team members and even though the friend who brought me in and wants me to shape a training program comes from the same background as the other coaches (he hired them all) he's clearly wanting me to begin leading this group--and I am beginning to see ways I can introduce what I do and over time provide experiences for them that might (or might not) continue to raise their curiosity. And as you say, in the end we can be a team that works in different ways so long as we can agree on what the goals of our work is--and that's what I want to cover at this meeting today--we are not coaching these folks in isolation--we are being paid by the union to help these folks work more effectively as observed by the person we coach and others around them. If we agree that that's our task then we can explore how to best do that job.
Thanks to everyone who's entered this conversation. What a gift.

Comment by Baerbel Hess on December 17, 2009 at 12:43

Hello Phillip,
This is a very interesting conversation to follow, and I am joining in because I often work together with "non sf colleagues". For me 2 things have been very helpful:
1. It is first of all I who have to decide: do I really want to work togehter with them and do the job? If I feel that the pressure is too high or my doubts are too many, it could be a good alternative to say thank you for the request and let the others do the job! Saying "no" feels so good at times...
2. If I say "yes" (which I mostly do ;-)) I make sure that the first step is to establish a platform with my professional colleagues: outcome of the training, benefits to the participants etc.
3. The next step could be: Who can offer what? Which skills, experience etc. of each of the trainers can be helpful, useful (to the participants!)? This is the point where you could bring in your sf approach. Others will bring in other things, and to be honest: that doesn't have to be bad!
4. Working together with other pros is always a challenge to me. But I always learn a lot about myself, my work and what I do differently - and this is an interesting way of getting feedback. For training participants it is also a gift to experience differences in the trainers and their approaches...
I wonder what your next step will be
Bärbel

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