Meet Annette Gray, Director of Strategy and Development with GCI, who has a passion for Solution Focus (SF) coaching. This extends beyond her own coaching and facilitation of the Solution Focused Masterclass to a high level of involvement with SF communities of practice globally. Annette shares some of her expertise with us in this podcast where she elaborates on the distinguishing features of SF coaching, emerging trends in the field internationally, and gives some tips for school leaders wanting to introduce more of an SF approach into their workplace conversations introduce more of an SF approach into their workplace conversations.

Annette Gray has pursued her interest in SF coaching with the same drive and energy she gives to her participation in ocean swimming events. Annette now works voluntarily as a reviewer for the global Association of Solution Focused in Organisations in certifying consultants in Solution Focused practice and leads the Asia/Pacific Solution Focus Webinar forums. She has also presented at national and international conferences including International Coaching Federation; SOLWorld, international conference for Solutions Focused practitioners (Oxford); and the Australian Council Educational Leadership conferences.

Annette has recently returned from the recent Aotearoa New Zealand Solution Focused Practice Conference, where Elliott Connie was a keynote speaker.

In the podcast Annette also mentions:

• Mark McKergow
• Harry Korman and Janet Bavelas
• Solution Focus On Tour where Elfie Czerny and Dominik Godat take a road trip through the USA, meeting SF practitioners and talking about SF practice in their weekly podcasts 
• Haesun Moon, who is Co-Director of the Canadian Centre for Brief Coaching. You can learn more of her work on microanalysis of dialogue and on the “dialogic orientation quadrant” (aka the coaching quadrant) via her interview with Elfie Czerny and Dominik Godat
• For a taste of Haesun’s Moon’s approach, here is her favourite quote about questions: “All questions are ‘loaded questions’; the practitioner’s choice is how to ‘load’ them with presuppositions that will be useful to the client.”
  Healing, S., & Bavelas, J. (2011) Can Questions Lead to Change? An Analogue Experiment. Journal of Systemic Therapies, 30 (4), p.46).

Want more resources?

• Solution Focus on Tour has a list of 21 Solution Focused Questions to enhance your daily life
• SOLworld has a blog, resources and annual SF conferences. Become a member to share in the group discussions.
• Solution Focus in Organisations is a network of SF practitioners who share and promote the practice of SF in organisations. For a small fee, you can become a member and gain access to many SF practitioners around the world. They have also published a TOP 10 booklist for those interested in refining their SF skills and practice.

Interview with Annette Gray

Kris Needham (presenter):
I am Kris Needham and I'm with Annette Gray, director from Growth Coaching International and we're talking about Annette's passion for solution-focused coaching. Annette, where I want to start is just go straight in for ... what's the main difference between solution-focused coaching and other forms or models of coaching?

Annette Gray:
The main difference for me is it's an approach to coaching, but it's also an approach to any conversation, and it particularly comes to the fall when things are complex, and things are ambiguous, and it's a more flexible approach to working with someone to help them move ... make progress, move forward. In some parts of the world, solutions that focus is called progress focused approach.

Kris Needham (presenter):
What fascinates you about Solution Focus?

Annette Gray:
I think because it's a simple approach, but then it's not easy. So, it's really accessible for people to learn how to do it, as long as they have been trained as a coach already because what we've found, it's hard for people to come to this straight without having any experience of coaching at all. So, what we recommend is do one of our other programs first, introduction to leadership coaching or fundamentals of coaching first, have a bit of a play with coaching, and then come to this when you've got a bit of a track record of applying coaching in your context.

Kris Needham (presenter):
So, really sort of play with it, and apply it, and use it intuitively when a situation arises.

Annette Gray:
Yes. Exactly because what people will learn is some tools to use that can be used in a flexible way, and what we call conversation expanders. What things make conversations go well. So, into the non-verbals that go on, certain questions that get asked, but very much solution-focused is an interactive approach on how you help people have conversations that help them make progress. I love Mark McKergow is where we all at GCI, have done his online program, and so have I through the University of Milwaukee, and I love the definition he uses, which comes from Gregory Bateson, which is change is happening all the time, our role is to identify useful change, and amplify them.

So what you'll notice when you start getting into solution-focused, how problem focused our conversations tend to be around what's not wanted, rather than what is wanted. What he says now that another iteration of that definition is, notice the useful change. So, if I'm giving you a specific example, I've got right into ocean swimming as you know, recently thank you for your donation to my cause.

What I noticed the last swim I did last weekend, is I noticed I was fitter, and I was higher out of the water, and so that is a useful change. So, I thought, "Wow, what have I done in the previous week, that enabled me to feel better in the water?" Because it was rough conditions, so it surprised me that I'd felt so good, and I've done two strength classes. So it wasn't doing more in the water, it was actually getting stronger upper body with weights and that sort of thing. That actually helped me in the water, but if I hadn't been really conscious in that swim, I would have missed that. That's what Mark talks about. Change is happening all the time, notice the useful change as it's happening.

That happens in the work context, change is happening all the time. Where's the good stuff happening? Where is the positive things that are happening that's moving toward where we want to get to? That's what being solution-focused is.

Kris Needham (presenter):
It's a really good idea, even as you're talking now, I've got things firing off in my head about conversations like that. Where do you think it gets its traction? What's the essential difference that it makes when we use these tools?

Annette Gray:
I think ... there're multiple things I can think of that ... it actually helps for better relationships, and if you think about a leader using this approach in their conversations with their team, you're helping people to make progress on whatever the work that they're focused on is. So, it can be a style of leadership, it can be a ... like we use at GCI, it's one of our key values, part of the principles of how we work. We're going to be focusing on what works, and building upon that, rather than looking for all the things that were wrong.

So, what happens in the relationship when you focus on the good stuff, and as Elliott Connie says in a recent conference I went to in New Zealand back in March, Elliott Connie is based in the US, and he's one of the leading thinkers in solution focus with his colleagues at Brief in the UK. They talk about how do you listen for the brilliance of the person you're working with, or listen for the person you're working with, the superhero in them.

So, when you have this as a value, or your premise of how you have conversations with people, people feel good, and they will shine because you're focused on their brilliance and what they do well, that then helps them excel. The result is a great collaborative working relationship. In other words, what it is, is you're co-creating with the person you're interacting with, what is it they want, and what is it they want to move toward, and whether they have any hints of that happening already in their past.

Kris Needham (presenter):
You mentioned Elliott Connie, I know that you're very much engaged with the international community in solution focus. What are you noticing as the emerging trends in that sort of

Annette Gray:
I think what's sparked my interest is this thing called microanalysis. I was actually lucky enough to hear Harry Korman, who's one of the founders of looking at solution focus in this way because I wanted to do some research around looking at the micro level of what makes solution focus work. So, he teamed up with Janet Bavelis and looked at, "Well what is it about the interaction, the conversation, everything surrounding it, what makes it work?"

So, they analyzed through video watching a whole lot of practitioners interacting using solution focus way, and could then identify some of the micro things that work. What emerged from that is when teaching solution focus, people like Haesun Moon, who's in Canada, in Toronto, and Sara Smock Jordan, who's in Texas ... I'm sorry, Las Vegas, and she's teaching at the University of Nevada. They use microanalysis to teach solution focus.

So, the very first time someone has a conversation in a workshop, they get videoed, and they watch that three minute ... only needs three minutes of the conversation, and watch it over and over, and over, and over again to notice all the micro things that worked in that conversation. What was happening behaviorally for the coach or the consultant? What was happening there and so that the person learning could pick up, "Oh, I frowned at that point, what was the impact on the coachee when I frowned at that point?" Or "I decided to select this part of the conversation to build on, what if I had selected another part of the conversation?" So, what I'm really enthused about and want to bring into our own workshops are ... particularly our solution-focused refresher program, is video use. Watch what happens, what actually happens in the conversation and where your little nuances or facial gestures, or hand gestures, or body language, and how is that impacting, and what are the bits you decide to inquire into and question about? Was that really useful? Or was there something else you missed that could have helped them move forward to where they wanted to get to?

So, what I'm really enthused about and want to bring into our own workshops are ... particularly our solution-focused refresher program, is video use. Watch what happens, what actually happens in the conversation and where your little nuances or facial gestures, or hand gestures, or body language, and how is that impacting, and what are the bits you decide to inquire into and question about? Was that really useful? Or was there something else you missed that could have helped them move forward to where they wanted to get to?

Kris Needham (presenter):
I can see how the principles are being applied to the actual video itself and what you noticed, and what works. There's this synergy isn't there, even deep in this microanalysis.

Annette Gray:
Yes definitely. We're actually encouraging our own coaches and facilitators to actually video record. Then in practice, and then watch it back, and then we'll have individual reflective practice conversations around, "What are you noticing about your practice that's really working?"

I know this is popular in teaching, people videoing themselves in the classroom, but we've been a bit slow to catch on to this. So, as practitioners, we think it's a really good way to go, and I'm really encouraging our own coaches and our facilitators to do this.

Kris Needham (presenter):
Well, the thing that's really useful here I think is the method of analysis. Isn't it? This sort of protocols for examining the video, because we are off videoing our own work, but then not really knowing how to get the most out of playing that back. So, these are really useful tools.

Annette Gray:
Yeah.

Kris Needham (presenter):
What else is happening in the international community?

Annette Gray:
The other thing that I've been really excited about, and I'm really used this as a resource quite a bit, is this podcast by Elfie Czerny and Dominic Goddard from Switzerland, and they've spent the year ... Well, actually even more than a year, going around America, and Canada, and interviewing all these wonderful solution-focused practitioners around the world, who are applying it in many different settings from therapy to healthcare, to leadership, and it's been a wonderful resource for my own learning the solution focus.

One of the podcasts I did was interviewing Haesun Moon, who is from Toronto, and she's come up with this lovely quadrant of how do you map your conversation with people your having and how solution focus is being, and her and Sara Smock Jordan, have actually using that as a way to teach people about SF as well.

So if you're up for it, I can share what the quadrant looks like. So, if you think about parts of our conversation, there's going to be some positive content. So, if you think of an axis, the Y axis, is positive content at the top, negative content down at the bottom. Then the other axis, the horizontal or X axis is past to future, and then present is in the middle. If you put those two axis's together, then you get this, what she calls ... Haesun calls the dialogic orientation quadrant. So, the first quadrant at the top which has the positive content and the future is, is the preferred future, where what is it people are wanting to move toward.

Then the second quadrant which is the top left, is the resourceful past. When have you had hints of what you're after happen already in the past, which comes back to, chang is happening all the time, and whenever we want something to be different, often we've already started doing that thing. Case in point, my swimming. It got better, but I wasn't sure what made it get better, and I looked back on my past week, it was the strength classes that I did. So, I want to get better at swimming, preferred future, but it's already happening, so what made that happen?

Then if we go drop below, into quadrant three, trot left bottom corner is troubled past. Often what we do when we have a problem, we want to unpack or in great detail why it's such a problem. So, go back to my swimming example. I'm not very fast, but if I unpack why I'm not very fast, that's not going to be helpful. Sticking with I noticed a tiny change here, what was that about? Is more motivating than unpacking the detail of why I'm not fast.

Then we go to the fearful future. Which is the bottom right quadrant, which people don't want more of the same. If you unpack the problem, you're probably just going to understand the problem in great detail, but that's not going to help you with moving forward. So what I love about this quadrant approach, the dialogic orientation quadrant, is I love that, where then people learning SF can go, "Well, how much of my conversation is in the preferred future, and the resourceful past the positive part of the conversation?" Or, "How much of it is in the negative part?" When you start doing microanalysis and videoing yourself, you'll start to notice, "Actually, I picked up on a point that was about the problem, and I inquired into that more, that wasn't very helpful."

So, what they've found with teaching people about SF is that they get them to map on these quadrants, just check when the conversation moves to the different parts of the quadrant to see where you could have moved maybe to the resourceful future ... or the preferred future, or the resourceful past.

Kris Needham (presenter):
I'm thinking about people who may have already had some experience with solution focus or people who might just be listening to this and thinking, "Wow, where could I start with this?" Have you got anything, tips for what people could do, which would be really simple things, which would advance their practice more into a solution-focused approach work in schools?

Annette Gray:
Yeah. Look, I love this question, which I've picked up from Mark McKergow, and many of the other SF practitioners is, when people come to you with a problem, it's not that your problem phobic, you do listen to it, but we quickly shift it to, so what is it ... it seems like you ... that you're stuck, or you're not in a great place. What is it you want instead? Quickly shift the conversation to what's wanted instead, and what would you be noticing if that was in place?

We describe it in an interactional way. So, what would you notice if you were teaching better in your classroom? What would your students notice? What your colleagues notice? So, we quickly moving them to what's wanted rather what's not wanted. I'd be strongly recommending, have a go at that.

Kris Needham (presenter):
For people who are interested in solution focus, but haven't yet started doing any coaching work at all, where could they start?

Annette Gray:
I would recommend doing one of our other coaching programs for growth coaching programs first, either the fundamentals of coaching, which is a one-day program or a two-day introduction to leadership coaching workshop. So, get some basic coaching skills under your belt, have a go at that, and then come back to our advanced coaching solution-focused master class, where they learn all the tools in solution focus, and the five conversation expanders.

Those who are into solution focus, and it's a bit like an addiction people get once you've had a taste, you want more and more, and more of it. So, we run a refresher for a one day refresher for people who've already done the solution focus master class that want to fine tune, and get more tips and skills to take their solution-focused approach forward. So, I say approach because as I said earlier, it's more than just ... it can be applied more than coaching, it can be applied in your leadership in all your interactions you have.

Kris Needham (presenter):
Which is really important isn't it for it to have that flexibility? So, it doesn't have to be in the context of being in a formal conversation, it's a way of being in an approach.

Annette Gray:

Yeah.

Kris Needham (presenter):
Thanks so much, Annette.

Annette Gray:

Thank you.

Kris Needham (presenter):
It's really exciting, thank you.