Thanks for your thoughts and words this edition, Mark. I am steadily moving beyond a rudimentary understanding of SF work through these posts - but still very much apprenticing.
I am a middle leader in education and am feeling a great potential for more professionals within schools holding conversational (or even strategic) spaces that have a greater emphasis on the direction of ‘better’ rather than an off the shelf solution. I also wonder how this will positively impact on improving perceptions of self-efficacy, collective teacher efficacy and agency - all of which are major players in the satisfaction and retention of teachers/leaders.
Are you aware of such an approach in schools in Australia or elsewhere? I ask this because much of the rhetoric in school improvement plans is on deep problem analysis, framed by causal analyses, fishbone diagrams, etc, but I am yet to hear from a school or system who have adopted a SF approach.
Hi Mark, great to hear from you. I have been working for some time with Growth Coaching International in Australia and they (and many of their alumni) are using SF conversations in the educational institution space. I particularly recommend the work of Maria Serafim, currently director of Educational Leadership in NSW (look her up on Linkedin). She wrote a very nice chapter in the Host Leadership Fieldbook in 2019. http://hostleadership.com/field-book/
Thank you for another nice and inspiring text! it is really nice to read them several times! thanks for the reminder that SF is such a successful way to approach wicked problems. I guess that's why I think that it has worked so well to use also in the borderland between psychiatry and social work, for example with families, addiction treatment, social psychiatry and crimeprevention. the complex has a place in SF.
And in workplaces and in work groups SF contributes to both psychological safety and social safety, I think.
Thanks Annika. Yes, SF is definitely a great way to approach wicked problems (with fuzzy boundaries, unclear definitions and unknown interconnections). And yes also, I think SF is a super fit for workplace type conversations. Asking 'what's wrong' tends to drive people apart with blame, disagreement and hopelessness. Asking instead 'what do you want', on the other hand, seems to pull people together much more. And it's OK to want something that others may not have mentioned (yet).
Thanks for your thoughts and words this edition, Mark. I am steadily moving beyond a rudimentary understanding of SF work through these posts - but still very much apprenticing.
I am a middle leader in education and am feeling a great potential for more professionals within schools holding conversational (or even strategic) spaces that have a greater emphasis on the direction of ‘better’ rather than an off the shelf solution. I also wonder how this will positively impact on improving perceptions of self-efficacy, collective teacher efficacy and agency - all of which are major players in the satisfaction and retention of teachers/leaders.
Are you aware of such an approach in schools in Australia or elsewhere? I ask this because much of the rhetoric in school improvement plans is on deep problem analysis, framed by causal analyses, fishbone diagrams, etc, but I am yet to hear from a school or system who have adopted a SF approach.
Hi Mark, great to hear from you. I have been working for some time with Growth Coaching International in Australia and they (and many of their alumni) are using SF conversations in the educational institution space. I particularly recommend the work of Maria Serafim, currently director of Educational Leadership in NSW (look her up on Linkedin). She wrote a very nice chapter in the Host Leadership Fieldbook in 2019. http://hostleadership.com/field-book/
Thank you for another nice and inspiring text! it is really nice to read them several times! thanks for the reminder that SF is such a successful way to approach wicked problems. I guess that's why I think that it has worked so well to use also in the borderland between psychiatry and social work, for example with families, addiction treatment, social psychiatry and crimeprevention. the complex has a place in SF.
And in workplaces and in work groups SF contributes to both psychological safety and social safety, I think.
Thanks Annika. Yes, SF is definitely a great way to approach wicked problems (with fuzzy boundaries, unclear definitions and unknown interconnections). And yes also, I think SF is a super fit for workplace type conversations. Asking 'what's wrong' tends to drive people apart with blame, disagreement and hopelessness. Asking instead 'what do you want', on the other hand, seems to pull people together much more. And it's OK to want something that others may not have mentioned (yet).