Category: Solution focussed

Solution focussed is a particular way of thinking about improvement work. Similar in some ways to Appreciative Inquiry, it draws attention to a person’s strengths, what they do well and the positive future they want to see. You can read my overview of the solution focussed approach here.

4th November 2022

The Seven Habits of Highly Effective Scrutineers (remixed 2nd edition)

This is a revised version of a previous list that you can find here.

What are the things that effective scrutineers do that help to make them effective? What are the habits and behaviours that help them to make a difference?

Well, taking inspiration from Stephen R Covey’s The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, and drawing from the many sessions I’ve run with scrutiny councillors, the many meetings I’ve observed and the Centre for Governance and Scrutiny’s principles of effective scrutiny, below are my seven habits.

Of course this is just my list, you may agree or disagree with my suggestions, or know others that might be missing. Either way, I hope it’s a useful list for self reflection and a helpful tool for discussion.

1. Bring something thought provoking

Rather than simply responding to reports, effective scrutineers are independent minded and proactive – not just passive. They bring something new to the governance party. They offer something that the executive and officers might not have thought about.

It might be a concern that they have heard from partners or the public, a new way of doing things that has worked in another council, a really good question that starts a discussion or it might be an alternative approach to the policy being offered.

Ultimately we know something has been thought provoking by the way that it lands. We know a contribution has been challenging by the response of the person that it has been shared with. They might say, ‘ah, that’s interesting’ or ‘we need to go away and consider that’. Eyebrows are raised as they take a moment to process – that’s the kind of reaction that scrutineers should be aiming for.

Ultimately it is the executive who decide, who have the power to shape policy and strategy so, it’s by getting the executive to think in a new way about something, that scrutiny can influence change.

2. Work towards improvement

Even if our instincts are to focus on what’s gone wrong in the past, effective scrutiny is about looking forward and asking ‘how might we do this better?’ and ‘what do we want to happen instead?’

After all, while accountability is an important aspect of scrutiny, citizens and people using services are interested in improvements and how things are going to be fixed – not just hearing about the problems.

Some of the most effective scrutiny work involves seeking out solutions to significant and pressing issues and this is also the work that I know many councillors find the most rewarding.

One helpful idea here is to ask ‘how’ and ‘what’ questions rather than ‘why’ questions.

‘How’ and ‘what’ questions are better for encouraging constructive and solution focussed conversations. For example, ‘how might that be improved?’, ‘what’s worked well before?’ and ‘how will people know when that’s working as it should?’

3. Prioritise

Scrutiny councillors have limited time and resources to work on what can be a very, very long to-do list. For this reason, to be effective, councillors need to invest time in prioritising.

There are three things to mention.

The first is your own personal involvement and commitment. How much time have you got? How are you going to have the greatest impact? Which issues do you want to get involved in? Perhaps those issues are the ‘glasses’ through which you read your papers and prepare? Perhaps you are the specialist on the committee, leading questions on your area of expertise, for example.

The second thing to mention is the annual work planning process. This is often a chance to contribute suggestions and debate the suggestions that others make. I know many councillors find it useful to be involved in these processes both to influence what happens but also so they know why a particular topic has been chosen when they come to look at it.

The other thing to mention is meetings. Because the value of scrutiny comes from looking at things in depth it also helps to have no more than two main items on the agenda. You want to give everyone time to contribute and people are far from their best if meetings run on a long time. No one wants to feel like they are just watching a conveyor belt of items go by.

4. Prepare

When I ask scrutiny chairs what advice they might give to new councillors, the most common answer is ‘prepare!’ Whether it’s reading the papers, seeking advice from officers or attending briefings, effective scrutineers come to meetings ready to be productive.

Working through the papers can be a challenge, particularly the big agenda packs. I know many councillors spend time with highlighter pens, picking out the things that they might want to raise and jotting down potential questions. Briefings with officers can also be useful as can having someone who knows their stuff and is happy to answer a few quick questions before the meeting.

And remember that preparation is a team sport. Effective scrutineers work with colleagues and support officers to get the best results. Whether that’s in pre meetings or through email and whattsapp groups – there is always a conversation to be had about what the focus might be and who is going to ask what.

5. Invest in relationships

Scrutiny has some formal powers but it’s soft power that really helps to get things done. Effective scrutiny is built on good engagement with the executive, the organisation and with partners.

Whether it’s working with cabinet members, senior officers or partners, it’s the informal meeting, email or quick call that can help the formal aspects of relationships to be effective. This is what I hear from many councillors when I ask them ‘what helps to make scrutiny effective?’

Good habits I hear about include having regular informal catch ups over a cup of tea, having the conversation about the conversation, in other words asking; ‘how are we going to work together? and ‘what would help you to work with scrutiny?’ as well as explaining what’s helpful for scrutiny and giving a heads up about what’s coming up and what topics are likely to be raised in meetings.

Another thing that helps to build relationships is the contributions to make in meetings – if they are respectful and considered, addressing the issue not the person – then helps to build future cooperation.

Of course these are professional relationships – you don’t have to be best friends (and do be careful if you are!) – but you do have to find ways of working together for the benefit of citizens and people using services.

6. Build conversations

Change comes through cooperation. Whether it’s with the executive, officers, partners or the public, scrutiny brings change through conversations.

Effective scrutineers have ‘back and forth’ exchanges with executive members in meetings and this is where meaningful challenge can take place. As the Institute for Government reported, in ‘Being an Effective Select Committee Member’:

Interviewees told us that the most impressive members were those who actually listened to the answers that witnesses gave and then used follow-up questions to probe and drill down into those answers.

Starting with open questions, effective scrutineers are able to listen carefully and focus on issues and concerns that matter – working with the executive member to identify areas and ideas for improvement.

7. Keep in touch with what’s going on

Effective scrutiny amplifies the concerns of the public. To do this, councillors must have methods for regularly keeping in touch with residents and service users. Whether through visits, consultations or through simply being visible and available in the community, councillors with the keeping in touch habit are better able to channel the voice of the public into their work.

Examples might include:

Rota visits to residential care homes
Arranging informal visits to talk to staff
Attending residents associations and community group meetings
Having an email list of people that are willing to be contacted at short notice about an issue

Bonus: Self scrutinise

Scrutiny is challenging and the world around scrutiny is changing all the time. Perhaps more than any other aspect of council governance, scrutiny has a wide choice of different methods that it can use and the opportunity to be creative in how it works.

It’s important, therefore, for scrutineers to apply the same critical appraisal to their own work as they apply to the work of others – a case of physician heal thyself!

This might involve a ‘wash up’ at the end of a meeting to have a quick discussion about how things went, it could mean development sessions about to discuss how things are going for the committee or for scrutiny as a whole or perhaps seeking external input to provide some independent challenge.

8th January 2018

How to move the conversation from problems to solutions

Here are three questions you can use to turn your conversations from a negative problem focus to a constructive solution focus. These are particularly handy for the chairs of committee and board meetings to have up their sleeve but can be used in any context really.

One of the things I love about solution focussed approaches is the assumption that you don’t need to understand the problem to make progress.

In fact, ‘problem talk’ can actually make it harder to find solutions. Placing attention on the things that are wrong distracts from what’s working well and what we want our positive future to look like.

Sometimes of course people need to talk about what’s wrong, to download and to get things off their chest. Sometimes people have to talk about their problems before they can move on to talking about their solutions. But other than ‘clearing the decks’, talking about problems is not necessarily helpful from a solution focussed perspective.

However, given that people will want to, and may need to, discuss problems, it’s useful to have a few simple techniques for moving people to ‘solution talk’ when the time is right.

Below are three questions that do just that. I’ve picked them up from the world of solution focus but actually they are useful for any situation to move things from negative to positive.

1. What would you like to see instead?

This is one of my favourite questions. People are very good at describing what they don’t like or don’t want but this question encourages people to construct something positive and a direction to travel in. So, if someone says ‘I wish we could have less arguing in the team’, asking ‘what would you like instead’, might get a suggestion like ‘people agreeing together what do do next’ or ‘a friendly atmosphere in the office’. It’s much easier to work out how to make progress when you have positive goals to work towards. Particularly if you can get people to describe in detail what ‘reaching a consensus’ or ‘a friendly atmosphere’ might look like in practice.

2. Can you think of an instance when this didn’t happen?

For every problem or bad behaviour there is almost always a time when that problem wasn’t present or that behaviour was absent. Ask people to think about exceptions and you can then move to discussing the circumstances that led to that positive instance. That time the team worked really well on a particular project might get mentioned. What was it about that project? What helped the team to work well together that time? Attention is then switched to how the positive circumstances can be captured and reproduced.

3. What are they like at their best?

Often problem talk revolves around an individual or group who are seen as challenging or difficult. By asking what the people in question are like at their best you are encouraging a conversation about their positive behaviours and qualities. You can them follow up with questions about what might have led them to be at their best and how they might be supported to be so in future. Maybe John made a really big contribution to the team when they took on a particular project. What qualities does he bring to the team when he is at his best? What helps him to be at his best?

Of course these questions might not work every time and you might need to persevere – particularly where problems talk is the default. However I’ve certainly found these three simple questions useful for nudging conversations from something negative to something more positive and productive.

Photo credit: https://flic.kr/p/8DzMig

9th October 2017

Improve public engagement by noticing what you do well

Looking elsewhere for good practice may be useful but it’s not always necessary. By noticing the things that work for you already, you can do more of what works and get inspiration for new things to try. This point was really well demonstrated at a workshop I ran at last year’s Centre for Public Scrutiny Annual Conference on improving public engagement.

“What works for you already?”

People involved in local government scrutiny want to improve their public engagement work but it’s a challenging aspect of their practice. It was no surprise, therefore, that this was chosen as a workshop topic at last year’s Centre for Public Scrutiny’s annual conference. It was also no surprise that the workshop was well attended by people who felt stuck on this issue and were keen to find out how to make progress.

However, by focussing on ‘what works for you already?’, we learnt about some great examples – even from the people who felt that they weren’t doing much – it turned out, in fact, that they were!

We used a zero to ten scaling question to find out how well people felt they were doing. Even though the scores people gave themselves were sometimes quite low, they were able to highlight some really positive practice that had got them to those scores. In fact, once you start really noticing the things that have worked, you might realise that your score really isn’t as low as you thought.

One example from a council was as follows. When asked to give a score about their experience of public engagement they gave it only one out of ten. When then asked if they had ever had a good experience, after some reflection they said yes, once we had a really good meeting about the proposed closure of a health centre. After some careful questions it became clear that this had happened because the issue had been spotted by the team in the local press. Noticing what had worked before led to the idea of scanning the local press for topics that would be of public interest.

Scrutiny practitioner ideas for better public engagement

Just to give you a flavour, below are ten of the good practices for better public engagement that participants noticed. But remember, the things that are likely to work best for you, in your particular context, might not be the same.

Use third parties to engage with people for you such as partner organisations, voluntary groups and the local media
Use existing council processes to engage through e.g. budget, planning, residents’ associations, social media, media releases, council newspaper
Involve the public in developing your work plan work
Talk and listen to the user / interest groups linked to your council
Use the council comms team to get the most out of traditional and social media
Use committee members to get messages out about scrutiny business and support the especially active councillors to do more
Talk to residents associations and go to their meetings
Use your contacts in other council teams to advise and help you to engage with the people they work with e.g. schools, tenants, community groups
Use social media to contact interested parties
Scan the local media to pick up issues of public concern / issues the public will want to engage with

Noticing what you do well

So, the ideas above might have given you some inspiration but why not try this little exercise yourself?

Ask yourself where you are on a scale of zero to ten, where zero is ‘our public engagement is a complete disaster’ and ten is ‘our public engagement is completely wonderful’.

Got a number?

Good.

Now write down ten things you have done to get you to that number, ten things that mean you are not at zero.

See, you do some good things already. Now get out there and do some more.

P.S. Details of the 2017 Centre for Public Scrutiny Conference can be found here.

Photo credit

5th October 2017

Zero to ten scales – simple, useful and solution focussed

Zero to ten scales are a really useful technique for any governing body (or anyone else for that matter) to have up their sleeve. They are simple to understand, can help you to notice what you are doing well and helpful for identifying practical next steps. So here is a brief description of how you might use these scales and of some of the questions that go with them.

I’ve started using zero to ten scales a lot in my work. They are an important technique for a solution focussed* practitioner and I have found many different opportunities to use them. They are a useful tool for governing bodies to have in the toolbox – not least for when reviewing what they do.

Making a judgement

The format of the first scale question is simple:

“Imagine a scale of zero to ten, where zero is the worst things can be and ten is the best they can be. Where would you say we are on that scale?”

As a governing body you might use a scale question like this when reviewing an issue like transparency. Going round the table and asking everyone what they would give as their score will give you a good feel for where everyone is, how everyone feels.

Of course what you are asking for is a judgement, not a scientific statement of fact. If there was a simple measure of the subject under review you would of course use that instead. But, when it comes to a question like ‘how transparent are we?’, there is no simple objective indicator to be used – that’s why we need to employ subjective human judgement.

In some ways the first question (and the number itself) is not that important – more important is the process of making the judgement because this process leads into further useful areas of questioning.

Noticing what we do well

Once you have a score from everyone you can ask each individual what got them to the score they suggested. Even for a ‘one’ or a ‘two’ there must be some positive things being done to get them to that number.

It might be asked like this:

OK Janet, you gave a five for transparency. Can you share some of the things we are doing as a governing body that get us up to that five?

One of the many things I learnt from my solution focussed training with BRIEF, was that writing down lists of things that we do well can be very powerful. Not only does it build confidence when we reflect on our positives but it gives us inspiration for things to do more of and for new things to do. These things are what Mark McKergow calls ‘counters’ – things that count towards achieving what we want to do. These are things we can often fail to to notice – scale questions help us to notice them.

Being ambitious

Of course we can’t always be a ten and sometimes we don’t even want to be. Scale questions can help us to get a sense of just how ambitious we want to be.

We can ask:

OK Jane, you said we are at a five. Where on the scale do you think we should be? What number should we be aiming at?

Once a number has been given it’s then possible to discuss what that that would mean. What would people notice if we were at that seven or eight? What would you notice?

Taking the next steps

Another great thing about the zero to ten scale is that it can help us to identify improvements.

The next question is the ‘plus one’ question that might go something like this:

OK John, you gave us a six for transparency. What could we do that would get us up to a seven do you think?

What I like about this question is that we are not being asked to come up with some detailed or long term strategy. Rather the question invites us to suggest small, practical steps that might move us towards our preferred destination. Going round the table with this question should help to generate a whole list of things that will help to move the governing body forward.

Another way of asking this is like this:

“OK John, you gave us a six, but what would people notice was different if we moved up to a seven? What would the public notice? What would our partners notice? What would our staff notice?

Again, the aim is to get people thinking in concrete terms what improvement might look like.

It’s all about the destination

It’s worth noting that scale questions work best when you have a clear destination in mind – the more detailed the description of what good looks like the better. Ideally you will want to develop your own descriptions but ready made ‘destinations’, say from expert organisations, can be used if they make sense to you.

This destination is often referred to in the solution focussed world as the preferred future.

Assessing progress

Zero to ten scales are also a neat way of discussing progress.

OK Jane, last month you thought we were a five for transparency. Where do you think we are now? Oh, a six you say? What tells you we are now a six? Interesting…. now what would a seven look like?

You get the picture.

Benefits of the technique

Of course this is not a technique that will suit everyone and every situation – but it can be very useful. Here are some things I like in particular:

As a solution focused approach it places attention on assets and aspirations rather than problems
Scale questions allow you to be both ambitious about the future AND realistic
The approach helps to ensure that conversations stay manageable and practical
It’s easy to move quickly from an assessment of the current situation to what the response might be
It’s easy to explain and to get people engaged – you could use scale questions as the basis for public engagement, for example.

*I’ve written about what it means to be solution focussed here.

Modifiable image from pixabay.com

3rd October 2017

What does it mean to be solution focussed?

Solution focussed is something everyone aspires to be, right? After all, who wouldn’t be interested in solutions? It may seem obvious at face value but solution focussed does have a particular meaning and implies a distinctive practice that might not be exactly what you expect. As an approach I think it has lots of potential to help with organisational change and improvement. And, as I describe myself as a solution focussed practitioner, so I think it’s worth setting down something about what it means.

Let me start by saying that I’m not an expert and there are many others who are much more experienced. I’ve been interested in the approach for a couple of years and have experimented with some of the techniques. I’ve also had some training with the excellent BRIEF organisation but I’m very much still learning. Having been involved with a number of different approaches to organisational change over the years, however, this approach feels right to me.

By the way, solution focussed approaches were originally developed by therapists in the US in the 1970s and have many similarities with other asset based approaches such as appreciative inquiry. It will already be familiar to many people working in therapeutic roles in health, education and social services for example. More recently it has been applied to organisational challenges — hence my interest (Mark Mckergow has written a few useful books on this topic).

This, then, is my take on the approach.

Assumptions

Here are some of the ideas that underpin solution focussed practice.

Progress is always possible because organisations are made of human interactions, language and stories. This means that people, through their own behaviours, can influence social change.
The act of describing a preferred future in detail can help to make that future a reality.
Change is something you do — not something you get others to do.
Because your reality is complex, considering the perspetives of others can help you to construct your preferred future.
It’s possible to make progress towards a preferred future without dealing with perceived problems — in fact, focussing on problems can make it harder — at best this wastes time and at worst draws people down into a negative spiral.
As everyone’s context is unique, discovering ‘what works’ to achieve a goal starts with ‘what works already, for me, in my circumstances’. General theories and ‘best practice’ are of limited use.
You are the expert in your own world. Sometimes you might not realise that you have the solutions but the right questions might help you to find them.
Change is continuous and unpredictable — sustainable change, therefore, comes through small steps, feedback and reflection.

Of course people don’t get to choose their circumstances. Social, cultural and organisational contexts can be extremely challenging. Nevertheless, it’s powerful to know that organisations can be changed for the better — sometimes simply by acting out the future that you want to see (this is very similar to the liminal thinking ideas of Dave Gray as Esko Reinikainenpointed out to me yesterday).

In Practice

In practical terms, being solution focussed involves one or more of the following activities.

DECIDING where you want to go. It’s important to establish a positive goal before you set off. This may be obvious and it may not (by the way, an absence of something is not a destination).
DESCRIBING in detail the reality you want to see once your goal has been achived — this will help you to make that preferred future a reality.
NOTICING what’s already working to help you to make progress towards your preferred future — even when things are really bad there are always exceptions that you can build from.
IDENTIFYING small steps to help you achieve your goal. These steps might include doing more of what’s already working, or might be things inspired by what’s worked well for you in the past.
EXPERIMENTING with these small steps and reflecting on what has been better as a result.

This is not an approach that suits every situation and it is not always successful (although proponents will point to evidence that it usually is). It is, however, often helpful for making progress complex situations, particularly when things seem stuck.

Originally posted on Medium