73. To LISTEN, it can help to be SILENT

These two anagrams can go hand in hand so well – as shown by this recent JSFP article

I have recently been in conversation with Francis Laleman in Singapore. Francis is a fascinating fellow who has really dug into both Host Leadership and Solutions Focus. We have been talking every couple of weeks to discover new angles on each other’s work.

Francis pointed out to me that LISTEN and SILENT are anagrams! I hadn’t noticed. What a great combination. I think this is very fundamental. Listening – really listening – can so often involve shutting up and clearing your head to listen to every word. Not just the gist of what is being said, but every word. This is a key skill in Solutions Focus (SF) work. We seek to re-use our client’s language as much as possible and refrain from adding our own words into the conversation. It’s a discipline.

The people on my SF Business Professional online course are just at the point of getting the hang of this skill – it can come as a surprise that things like ‘active listening’ turn out to be talking in disguise. You probably know how it goes; listen and then paraphrase and summarise to demonstrate that you’ve been listening. What you are actually demonstrating are that you haven’t listened closely enough, that your words are better than theirs, and that you (not them) get to decide which words are better. Hmph.

This time I’m going to look at ways of using silence to enhance listening, with particular reference to an important new paper in the Journal of Solution Focused Practices.

Using silence constructively

In one-to-one sessions

A key role for an SF practitioner is to give space to our clients to say what they want to say (with a little help from our context-setting questions). Once someone gets onto a useful roll (for example about their Future Perfect day when their best hopes have been realised), then it’s good to let them talk. Keep the space open. Which means being (mostly) silent. I say ‘mostly’ because there’s a role for encouraging mm-hms, nodding, smiling, learning forward and so on to keep the client going. But mostly it’s about shutting up. Many experienced SF practitioners would advise just listening and not worrying about the next question to ask until the client has come to a stop on their answer (and even then ‘what else?’ can keep things going).

In Solution Focused Reflecting Teams

I love the SF reflecting team process. It’s a method of group wisdom-sharing where a group of people put themselves in service to someone with a tough situation to face. The process was originated (in the classic form) by the Bristol Solutions Group in the mid-1990s, led by Harry Norman and John Henden, as a method of clinical supervision. (Full disclosure: I was also a member, as was my partner Jenny). There’s not time to go into the whole thing here so let’s focus on the role of silence.

The crux of the process is when the team members reflect on the situation, one idea at a time, going around the room. Only one person speaks at once, using a talking stick (so the others are expected to be quiet). The person facing the situation, however, has to be silent throughout this phase. (We sometimes suggest that they move their chair back, disengage from eye contact and focus on taking notes of whatever emerges that seems useful.) This is really key – it means that the person cannot make an instant rejoinder (“I’ve tried that!.” “I can’t do that!” and so on) which would interrupt the flow of the reflections. They may think that but they have to stay quiet and focused – because there’s more ideas coming along in a few seconds.

So silence can help listening in many ways. There’s a striking example published recently in the Journal of Solution Focused Practices (of which I am the lead editor).

Unspoken Answers

The paper is Unspoken Answers: Using Silence in Session – Engaging Client Silence With Thoughtful Solution Focused Questions to Address Family Discord by Joe Lettieri and Ayse Adil of Family Based Solutions in Enfield, north London. Joe, Ayse and their team have become widely known and respected in the SF world over the last few years; they hosted a series of over 100 FBS Chats, online Zoom discussions with leading figures from across the SF world. These are all available still on their Youtube channel.

Joe Lettieri and Ayse Adil, Family Based Solutions

The paper describes a session by Ayse with a mother and two daughters (15 and 17) (and the family dog) held on Zoom. The session gets off to a noisy start with the family arguing and bickering. Ayse decided, on the spur of the moment and without any preparation, to turn it into a silent session; she asked the questions and the family silently thought and wrote down their answers. The session develops usefully, and at the end the family say it has been much better than they expected. No-one could ‘hear’ the others’ answers, so everyone was able to listen in silence to her own responses.

The idea of a ‘silent session’ is not totally new. British SF practitioner and teacher Eileen Murphy wrote about it as long ago as 2006 (as the paper makes clear). Indeed, Paul Z Jackson and I used a very short version of a silent session in the early 2000s as a demonstration of the difference in impact between problem-focused and solution-focused questions (which works well with a large audience, as everyone has their own experience which they can then discuss with others). However, this current paper is important and notable for several reasons.

• Ayse did a whole session with a complex family with multiple difficulties – and carried it off

• She looked around the room for things to utilise in the questions: the chairs they were sitting on, a photo of the family at a theme park

• We have the whole session recorded in detail (easily possible on Zoom)

• There is a huge amount of follow-up documentation; post-session interviews with all three participants, plus the mother agreed to join an online session at the2024 SF24 international conference to talk about it in conversation with SF practitioners from around the world.

The paper is very well worth reading. It is detailed, comprehensive and insightful and developed during the peer-review process from feedback from very experienced SF practitioners. The link is:

https://journalsfp.org/article/126338-unspoken-answers-using-silence-in-session-engaging-client-silence-with-thoughtful-solution-focused-questions-to-address-family-discord

Reflections on ‘Unspoken Answers’

Some years ago I wrote a paper for JSFP on ‘SFBT 2.0: The Next Generation of Solution Focused Practice has already arrived’. This has been the most downloaded paper (over 13,000) in the history of the journal. In it I outlined a key development which has appeared since Solution Focused Brief Therapy arrived in its initial form around 1987: are we asking the questions so WE can hear the answers (to construct an intervention) or so the CLIENT(S) can hear the answers (and thereby change themselves). Initially it was clearly the former, then both. SFBT 2.0 is what happens when we double down on the latter. I described later developments from BRIEF in London, my own practice and elsewhere, which seem to support this as a feasible approach. It also points towards a possible mechanism for change in such a process; that the client ‘stretches their world’ as the conversation goes on, creating new options for interaction and process.

What better indication of the power of the client (not the practitioner) hearing the answers to SF questions than Joe and Ayse’s paper? The family ends the session in a very different place from where they start, and the impacts ripple out into their lives and conversations. Even the dog is affected - in fact, that turns out to be the first thing Ayse notices at the start of the follow-up session two weeks later!

Conclusions

This use of a silent session demonstrates a powerful way to work in a startling different fashion from the way therapy and coaching normally proceeds. It won’t be the answer all the time, but it shows courage and commitment from the practitioner, skill in action and a lasting impact on a family who were in a very challenging place. Above all, it shows how giving space to think, reflect, be honest with oneself and just let go for a few moments are key elements of SF work in action.

Now, if you haven’t already, read the article! And if you want update from JSFP about new papers, book review etc, sign up free to the journal’s own Substack account.

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Dates and Mates

FBS are amazing practitioners, fundraisers and SF workers. They also have to be excellent fundraisers to support their work. I love this artfully-shot festive video of their team performaing Huey Lewis and the News classic The Power Of Love. If you like it, maybe given them a small festive donation?

Last week I made a rare joint appearance with co-author Paul Z Jackson on a UKASFP call to celebrate the third edition of The Solutions Focus book. The call was very professionally hosted by Martin Buckley, and we ended up talking about how we got into print all those years ago and how those wishing to write could get into it now. The call is on Youtube:

Steps To A Humanity Of Organisation will be taking a break over the holidays. I’ll be back with the next piece on Wednesday 8th January 2025. Very best wishes for a happy and peaceful Christmas and a properous New Year.