Change

Sara Healing, Annie Bordeleau & Janet Bavelas Review by Annie Bordeleau Questions are so deeply engrained in our daily communication that it’s easy to underestimate the impact they have. How can we lead better by asking better questions? This article raises our awareness of the effect questions can have and sheds light on how we can sharpen this powerful tool we use every day. A fundamental assumption of the Solution Focused approach is that change can be influenced and co-created as an interaction unfolds. In their article, “Can Questions Lead to Change?”, originally published in the Journal of Systemic Therapies (2011), Sara Healing and Janet Bavelas verify this assumption by examining how carefully formulated questions can shift one’s focus and influence both behaviour and perception.

Annie Bordeleau, John Brooker & Marika Tammeaid SF in Large Scale Contexts Inspired by two articles, from Sofie Geisler[i] and Marika Tammeaid[ii], (download these at the bottom of this feature), SFiO held its first SOLWorld Unconference on the theme, “SF in Large Scale Contexts” on 6 & 7 December 2019 at the atmospheric Irish College in Leuven, Belgium, with much success on different levels. 30 people attended, some new to SFiO, holding 29 separate sessions on a diverse range of topics related to the theme.

Andrew Gibson Reviewed by Wendy Van den Bulck Just as the whole world is overwhelmed by complexity, here’s Andrew’s latest book, ‘Make Life Simple’. I’d say, brilliant timing… I met Andrew on two occasions; the SOL World Conference in Frankfurt in 2017 and the SFiO Unconference ‘SF use in Large Scale Contexts’ in 2019, long before he wrote this book. Having read his book, I realise now that in our conversations at these events, Andrew did a lot of what he describes. He is a great explorer of desired outcomes, is authentically interested in peoples’ stories and is always thinking about opportunities that make a difference. That, to me, is one of the purest things that I can say about the book; he writes from within, and you can read that in every word.

Coert Visser & Gwenda-Schlundt-Bodien Abstract SF co-developer Steve de Shazer wrote, in his classic publi- cations Keys to Solution in Brief Therapy (1985) and Clues: Investigating Solutions in Brief Therapy (1988), that SF prac- titioners should help their clients create an expectation of beneficial change by getting a description of what they would do differently once the problem was solved. Also, he claimed subtle and implicit interventions by the SF practitioner would work best. At the time, de Shazer did not support these claims with empirical evidence. This article provides evidence for each of the assertions made by de Shazer. Only part of the evidence presented here was already available at the time of de Shazer’s writing. Evidence is discussed from diverse lines of research like Rosenthal’s Pygmalion studies, Dweck’s research on self-theories, Fredrickson’s broaden-and-build theory, research on Winograd’s prospective memory, Jean- nerod’s research on the perception-action link, Wilson’s research on brief attributional interventions, research on Brehm’s reactance theory and Bargh’s research on priming. The article closes with some reflections on what these research findings imply for SF theory and practice

Meet with Rod on the 25 September to explore the field of complex organisational change. You can learn the key factors that make for a good experiment and how to amplify what works to get more of what we want.

The first Solutions Focus field book. This collection of articles from the AMED journal "Organisations & People" describes international experience of applying the positive power of Solutions Focus and Appreciative Inquiry.