Jim

It is a fine line indeed — and I must admit that working in an sf way has influenced my behavior and thoughts in my private life, also, and mostly in a positive way.

There seem to be two misunderstandings that result from overusing a wrong (in my mind) interpretation of sf in one’s daily life: appreciating everything (or at least pretend that you do) and adopting a not knowing stance.

Overusing the “not knowing stance” I find even more difficult than overusing the “appreciative stance”. In German there is a saying: “Der Klügere gibt nach” — “The smarter person gives in”. But when they always do, the world will be ruled by the fools. I’ve always liked to benefit from the knowledge of others. I love learning, reading books, finding out what other people think. If they all stood back and told me: “Well, Kirsten, you have to find it out for yourself” my lifetime would not be long enough to learn what I want to learn (it isn’t anyway ) So sharing what one knows is a great thing outside of coaching and therapy (and even IN coaching — if the client misses information, asks for it and I have it: I TELL him or her).

The “appreciative stance” now seems to me somehow linked to “usefulness”. You say that convincing others that something they enjoyed was really not so good is not a good thing — and I tend to agree (although I am sometimes too grumpy to live by that — my usual strategy is to leave before I get too upset). When people ask for feedback and there is a chance to do it better next time (so when there is a good use of “negative” or “constructive” feedback) it is much more useful to mention what they could do better. An overall appreciative stance that makes no distinctions is not useful (I think).

THANK YOU for helping me think!

Kirsten

I like your thoughts, and I don’t mean that as a compliment but they trigger my own thinking about SF. Please allow me to agree and disagree.

Agree: If ‘looking at the bright side of life’ means ‘and neglecting the dark side of life’, than I don’t think it has anything to do with SF, as you say. It bothers me hugely, when people understand SF that way. SF helps us and our clients to deal with reality (problems and successes) in any way that it is useful. Useful meaning: helping to accept or overcome difficulties, (which starts with an acknowledgement of the problem) change, make it better. It is the contrary to running away, hide or neglect the problem and only look at the bright side.

Disagree: You say “For me, SF is a method of helping people become unstuck, a method to move forward when you have a problem or when you want to improve something: it is not a way of life”.In my opinion that’s a personal choice. I personally don’t see SF as a method that you only use when you want change and outside this setting you do the contrary like disrespecting (the same) people or you criticize their behavior in an unthoughtful manner. You can say what you miss or didn’t appreciate in a very SF respectful way too, at the same time showing concern and recognition for the efforts they put in it and the limitations they had to tackle. I personally believe it’s hard to just build relation and use SF techniques when you want to improve things (like when you are a coach or manager in a professional setting or when you are a mum wanting to help your kids become unstuck) if for the rest, you do the opposite like blaming, discouraging and waking up the limbic brain (with the same people).

But again, it is a personal choice, I don’t think that there is a truth about SF having been invented just for change with clients and not as a way of life.( Insoo also said that she is not usually SF with Steve.) For me, SF is something in between those two extremes: use it all the time (yek…) and use it only when you want people to make progress. When SF people take a ‘not knowing’ stance and make compliments all the time, it puts me off terribly. I do like a well expressed passionate complaint or critical statement and an unsalted well built personal ‘I DO know’ opinion (if it is respectful and useful to do so), much better than an always polished and untruthful ‘everyone is nice and good’, ‘great coffee’ and ‘I don’t know’ stance. There is so much more to learn as you say.

There is a thin line between being supportive and encouraging and just compliment endlessly and e.g. even compliment a workshop when you haven’t appreciated it at all.
I feel very uncomfortable when complimenting is used as a technique. In the case of the workshop you mentioned, my question is who is asking your feedback? Do they want to improve their workshop or not? Do they have a chance to improve it or is it a one time event? Is feedback useful or not? And for who? If everyone else in the workshop liked it, what is the use of convincing the other participants it is really bad (to your standards)? Even with bad presenters, good interactions between the participants can make it a great workshop for people. If there is a next time, and they ask for feedback, than I would tell them what I would like more of next time or I would stay away. And I would certainly not say to my client it is superb if I didn’t mean it. Then your critic is useful: it says something about your professionalism and standards and the truthfulness of your feedback in general. Sorry if this is not very well structured, it’s Sunday morning (-:

For me, SF is a method of helping people become unstuck, a method to move forward when you have a problem or when you want to improve something: it is not a way of life. When someone asked Steve in a workshop whether he uses SF with his family or friends, he always said “no” and advised against it. In fact, Steve seemed to many quite a grumpy old man. SF is a very special language game with a special setting: Someone wants to move forward and gives someone else the mandate to help him or her figure it out. In this setting it makes sense to mainly notice what gives you confidence that the client can reach his or her goals (note: not wildly complimenting anything that can possibly be complimented about the client).

Too tired tonight to comment further, but I must say we are on the same wavelenght: I meant something similar when I made a distinction between specific SF protocols (language games) and SF as a “way of life”. I know you’d rather someone to disagree with you but I am afraid I do agree with you!

Having worked for years as a manager, I have spent years thinking about how to apply SF in management. I have (again, with Gwenda) developed an approach to solution-focused directing which is clear and respectful. Insoo was a very important inspiration. Having talked with her a lot about this and having seen her manage from up close helped so much in developing this approach. The interesting thing is, ANYTHING can be addressed (for instance dysfuntioning) but hardly ever does this have to be done in negative or bossy terms.

There is a difference in acknowledging that something is wrong and talking negatively. If SF is positive it is not - I think- in the sense that it neglects problems but in the sense that the way of communicating with people is respectful, constructive, mild, etc.

My view on the topic of complimenting also has change a lot. I have written a lot about this so I’ll keep it brief here. I agree with steve that many SF’ers overcompliment. Further I have become convinced that process compliments (preferably in the form of an activating question) work much better than person (or trait compliments).

I agree with you about how SF resembles business thinking a lot. Again Insoo has been a great inspiration and teacher for me here. Once, in a workshop a participant ask Insoo: “Solution-focused is not the same as results-oriented is it?” Insoo calmly and in an unapologetic way, replied: “yes it is the same, solution-focused is results-oriented.”

Hope this is useful
Cheers,
Coert