A brief summary of solutions focus

Common assumptions about organisational change
There are a few assumptions that are quite common for people involved with organisational change:

• People don't like to change
• We shouldn't jump to solutions until we fully understand the problem and why it is happening
• Successful large-scale change requires revolution

If we believe these things then...

• We should expect change to always generate resistance
• We should spend a lot of time understanding problems
• We should initiate changes with large change programs targeting all aspects of the organisation

Solutions-focused assumptions about organisational change
The Solutions Focused approach starts with different assumptions:

• "Change is happening all the time; our role is to identify useful change and amplify it" (Gregory Bateson)
• Detailed understanding of the problem may not actually help with the solution.  No problem happens all the time, what happens when it doesn't?
• Small changes in the right direction can be amplified to great effect

If we believe these things then...

• "If someone starts to resist what you are doing, it is a sign that you have not yet found the best way to cooperate with them." (Paul Z. Jackson, Mark McKergow)
• We should spend a lot of time understanding when problems don't occur
• "Do not change faster or more than necessary" aka the change sparsity principle

Solutions-focus seems to me as a way to approach change with finesse rather than with brute, overwhelming force.

Three core ideas

• Be as clear as possible about what is wanted
• Harness what is already in place
• Focus on what works over understanding problems and what doesn't work

Interesting solutions-focused techniques

The Miracle Question.
"Imagine that this session is over, you go home, do whatever you planned to do and then, at some point you get tired and go to sleep.  Imagine that in the middle of the night, while you are still asleep, a miracle happens... and all the problems that brought you here today have been magically solved.  But since you were asleep, no one told you.  When you wake up, how would you discover that the miracle happened? What would you notice?  If a miracle happened that solved all your problems, what would you notice that is different?"

The Miracle Question helps you create what is called a Future Perfect which, as far as I can tell, is pretty much the same concept as Ideal State / True North in Toyota / Lean circles.  In fact, notice the similarity between the Albert Model...

... and the Improvement Kata...

Different graphical style, different word choice but otherwise the same emphasis on understanding the ideal state first, on the unknowability of the specifics on how the gap will be crossed, and on proceeding with incremental steps.

Scaling.
"Let's imagine a scale.  The scale runs from 0 to 10, and 10 represents the state of affairs when you have reached your future perfect or desired outcome. Zero stands for when none of the things that you want is happening (or when the problems is at its worst). Where are you now?" (Paul Z. Jackson, Mark McKergow)

The point of this exercise is to highlight that you are almost never at zero, and if so, what are you already doing that's working? What know-how and resources do you already have?

Which then leads to the follow-up question:

"What would the next small step up the scale look like?"

Solutions-focus vs mastery?
One thing I'm wary about in solutions-focus is the emphasis that understanding why and resolving weaknesses are not important.  This conflicts with what I understand about how expertise is developed, as well as how high-reliability organisations actually behave.

At the moment, I see solutions-focus as a very good way to initiate improvement for organisations of people.  I'm not sure though about what happens for ongoing improvement, especially at higher levels of performance.

See also:

• Coert Visser's blog, Doing What Works
• The Solutions Focus by Paul Z. Jackson and Mark McKergow.  There's a whiff of anti-science and lack of familiarity with the best "problem-focused" approaches (e.g., Toyota Kata) but this book is still quite useful to understand the approach.
• Alistair Cockburn's summary, "Solutions Focus aka Delta Method"
• The Miracle Question reminds me of Futurespectives
• The overall solutions-focus approach reminds me of Positive Deviance