Effects of Solution-Focused Training on Leadership Behaviour and Productivity Solution-Focused Management Series

3 Solution-focused Approach (P. 26)

"A solution is a solution is a solution"

Steve de Shazer 1985

After highlighting the characteristics of Kirkpatrick’s four-level evaluation model, in this chapter the authors want to cover the solution-focused approach. Beginning with its roots, the development and the main characteristics of the solution-focused approach will be discussed. The underlying paradigm is also part of this section as well as the differences to other systemic theories. At the end of this chapter typical techniques and instruments of the solution-focused idea will be discussed and compared to the training design and methods of the leadership training-program in Disenå.

3.1 History

It is difficult to describe how the solution focused-process works. Steve de Shazer, who, together with his team developed the solution-focused therapy at the Brief Family Therapy Center in Milwaukee, described this solution focus process with "it" (cf.: Sparrer 2004, p. 27). The solution-focused approach is a ‘slim’ concept. By using simple but powerful methods, it can be used to deal with a large variety of complex and dynamic systems and situations (cf.: Eberling/Hargens 1996, pp. 13). Because the solution-focused approach has its roots in the field of therapy, to understand the thinking behind it one must have a brief look at the history of the ideas and the assumptions forming the basis of therapy models.

Walter and Peller (1992, pp. 1) argued in their book "Becoming Solution-Focused in Brief Therapy" that therapists developed therapy models out of some initial struggle or question and that these questions contain presuppositions. For example: Freud’s early model development of the repression barrier and the unconscious could be traced back to his question about the repressed sexuality of his Victorian clients.

3.1.1 "Cause and Effect" approach

Due to the objectivism of the traditional scientific method at the beginning of the last century the question "what is the cause of the problem?" has frequently been raised and has marked this period. The underlying presuppositions of this kind of question are:

· There is a definite problem

· There is a specific cause to that problem

· One can, in fact, find the cause of the problem

· The cause can be described

· There is a relationship between finding the cause and solving the problem

The process described is inherent in western science’s thinking and also consistent with our everyday common sense. The idea is that if you know the cause of the problem you can fix it, like an engine of a car, according to the laws of mechanics. During the last decades several approaches have been developed to identify alternative responses to the question, "what is the cause of the problem?". Depending on the assumptions about the nature of human beings, the answer to this question varies and is determined by which school of philosophy the modeler followed.

The causes of mental disorder have been described in different ways, like personality disorder, poor self image, unresolved conflicts, sexual repression, and poor object relations.