Developing Industrial Resilience

Christophe Bourgon, Jenny Clarke

Introduced by John Brooker

Christophe is Head of Business Management Operations in Skyguide, an organisation that provides air navigation services (air traffic control) for Switzerland and adjacent parts of neighbouring countries. It has 1500 employees at 14 locations in Switzerland and guides some 1.2 million civil and military flights a year. It is part of a complex system of independent air traffic control organisations across Europe.

COVID 19 has impacted the industry heavily, and Christophe views Solution Focus as one way to help the industry adapt, to become more resilient. SF practitioners in the therapy and organisational contexts (e.g. Baeijaert and Stellamans, in their book, ‘Resilient People, Resilient Teams’) have written about how Solution Focus can increase personal and team resilience. This notion of using Solution Focus to develop ‘industrial resilience’ is interesting, as it takes into account a much broader system. As I listened, I reflected whether SF practitioners could use Christoph’s positive experience of SF’s use in Skyguide, to influence other air traffic control organisations.

Christophe uses Solution Focus within Skyguide to lead his team and create change and transformation in Skyguide. He uses SF to create a nurturing environment and to help people make their own decisions. He notices that It has changed his way of leading; he takes a broader perspective and moves faster, creating a snowball effect.

I like how he uses it to validate service levels to internal clients, e.g. asking ‘how has our service helped your customers’ value chain?’.

As well as the above, Christophe also uses SF in two positions valuable for an organisation where people experience stress as part of their role:

• A coach in his role as a ‘person of trust’, someone who can listen to people when they need it
• as an ombudsman to mediate conflicts.

As he says, you can summarise the Solution Focus approach in an A4 page, yet you can do so much with it.

Listen as Jenny explores with Christoph how he is using Solution Focus to help transform Skyguide, in an industry driven by regulations, compliance and safety.