Teams and groups, collection of individuals – some implications for SF Brief practice

This blogpost arose from a question that arose during the 2014 Summer School at BRIEF in London. The question went something like “So what does SF Brief look and sound like when done with teams?” After being asked to prepare a response to this, my curiosity about difference went into overdrive pondering the question “When I work with teams and groups, what is it that we do together that is distinctly different from when I work with an individual?” And here is a short synopsis of what I offered as a response, organised around 4 principles and illustrated with 2 practices:Principle 1: when is a collection of individuals a team or a group?In teams, people depend on one another to achieve a common project.  What they achieve together goes beyond what each can achieve individually. Teams progress and succeed through their collaborative efforts.In groups, people take an interest in one another’s progress and success, but are not as dependent on one another for achieving their individual preferred future. Groups provide a supportive environment of mutualityA collection of individuals works independently in the context of others.Question for reflection: what useful differences might distinguishing whether you are working with a teams or groups or collection of individuals make for you? For them?Principle 2 – synthesise rather than compromise: Best Hopes / Preferred Future – it gets so messy when there is more than one personA commonly expressed worry I’ve heard from SF Brief practitioners confident in their work with individuals is around the diversity that arises when working with groups and teams. I hear questions like - “What do we do when the best hopes people express in groups or teams are different?” “What do I do next when they’ve all said different things about what they want from our work together?” “How do I handle the disagreements that can arise when what I am trying to encourage is constructive working together?”Earlier this year, Daniel Meier came to Cape Town, South Africa to work with us using his SolutonCircle Team Coaching Method. One of the events he offered was a live coaching session with a team of 8. This was an operational team involving 2 levels of authority within it. All were focused on achieving aspects of what contributes to supply chain success. Each member of the team was given the opportunity to write down their individual best hopes about what would result from the team coaching session- what they wanted to see happening in the days and weeks ahead. So, then Daniel and the team had 8 papers each with an individual best hope written on it. As the people watching the sessions waited to see what would he do now, many thought he would go the route of compromise or majority vote. Something like “Which do you all think is the most important one for this team?” or “which is the one this team can work towards in the next few weeks?” or some other options. Instead, Daniel was heard to say the following: “Suppose all of what you have on your pages represents the chapters in a book – your team’s book. What might be a fitting title for this book? Something which creates space for all these chapters to be worked towards and achieved?” And then he asked the team to discuss this amongst themselves and left them to it for the next 8 minutes – he stayed in the room but not in their circle. And they talked and exchanged and applied synthesis thinking and came up with a title for their book which they each were satisfied created space for their individual best hopes.Question for reflection: In what situations might you reach a strong consensus by seeking to sweep all the individual contributions together into one whole that makes space for them all, rather than settling for majority vote on priority or do-ability or settling for a mediocre compromise?Principle 3 – when working with groups and teams, connecting with each individual remains important and necessaryTwo options:

• After getting the briefing from the decision-maker that you will be working with a group or team, start by asking to have a 10-20 minute interview with each member individually – face to face or virtually. The topic of the interview is around “what does this team/ group need to achieve? With some follow-on questions like – on a scale, where would you say the team / group is in relation to this already? What contributions are you and others making to achieve this rating? This can then be transformed into a resource report which can be taken to the whole team/group at the first session. Read more about this route in Kirsten Dierolf’s work with teams http://www.solutionsacademy.com/
• Once the first team / group session has been conducted, indicate that you will be contacting each person individually to ask for a progress report – signs that each person is noticing in themselves or others that tells them they are moving in the direction of the best hopes expressed in the first session. Or, if no progress, what are they noticing about how people are contributing to staying steady rather than letting things deteriorate? Read more about this route in Daniel Meier’s work with teams - http://www.amazon.com/Coaching-Solution-Circle-Solutions-Focus/dp/0954974913

Principle 4: Using the interactional webMilton Erickson’s principle of utilisation informs this idea – do the best you can with what you have, rather than wishing things were different.When working with teams and groups the huge resource available right there is the web of interactions taking place between individuals. And, it requires of us to get out of the way after we have created a space in which the team or group can constructively interact. Resource gossip and the Walking Scale also known as the Solution Walk provide wonderful opportunities for this. Instead of staying in the conversation, invite and even direct team or group members to talk with one another. You may well find that they get very good at this very quickly and that your role is to be a resource detecting eavesdropper rather than an active conversation participant.Resource gossip as a practice allows gossip which is to someone’s credit to take place amongst the rest of the team while the person sits with their back facing those talking. This helps to ceate space and freedom. How to practice in actions:

• Resource gossip: each person had a turn to be gossiped about using "what are all the contributions that this person has made to where you are today - 25 years from when you started. We can design some alternative questions all focused on gossip about success or being at our best or highlights
• Walking scale / solution walk: I did 2 snippets using what the resource gossip had indicated about the team’s success. I demonstrated the "what helped you to stay steady in a time when things were not going that well? What helped to prevent it from getting worse? Team members talk to one another not coach. Then move from there to a place on the scale that it became possible to get to because of how they had weathered the storm. Walk to there and then team talk about the benefits of weathering the storm, what became possible once they'd recovered and moved forward etc etc
• Both: questions and comments and reflections from participants.

By paying attention to this 4 principles you will notice, what you do different with teams and groups, - and you'll have fun along the way.Svea van der HoornCapetown/South Africa