John Brooker & Cathy Macharis Synopsis Cathy Macharis and John Brooker co-hosted an open space session at the Unconference titled “Frameworks for creating sustainability and change - what can we learn.” The session was a collaborative effort to explore how Solution-Focused (SF) practices could enhance sustainability frameworks within organisations. While they had originally planned separate sessions, Cathy and John combined their sessions, reviewing the two frameworks together to see what they and the attendees could learn.
Lien Tettelin Synopsis Lien Tettelin’s open space session on “Good practices in the public sector” focused on strategies for enhancing organisational sustainability. The session explored how public sector entities can integrate sustainability into their decision-making processes, develop relevant strategies and KPIs, and redefine notions of profit to encompass social benefits.
Critical strategies discussed included starting conversations around the environmental impacts of decisions, such as carbon footprints, and developing targeted strategies for sectors with the most significant potential impact.
Netta Jakola Synopsis The diagram illustrates the interconnected relationship between three key aspects of sustainability: Environment, Economy, and Equity (or Social dimension).
Here’s a breakdown of the visual elements and their meanings:
Environment: This represents the natural world and is fundamental to sustainability. It emphasises the importance of preserving natural resources and minimising environmental impact. Economy: This aspect focuses on the financial and economic factors that must be sustainable to support long-term prosperity and stability.
Peter Röhrig Synopsis Peter Röhrig’s “Talking with your children” session centred on employing solution-focused (SF) techniques to enhance intergenerational communication about sustainability. This informal conversation illuminated the importance of SF values in nurturing constructive dialogues between different age groups within families.
Key concepts discussed included ‘holding space’ for open conversations, actively listening to each other’s perspectives, and appreciating each other’s contributions. These practices help to build a shared understanding and co-construct a family reality that includes all voices.
Andrew Gibson Synopsis Andrew Gibson’s open space session delved into innovative methods for integrating solution-focused approaches discreetly within various organisational contexts. Participants shared various strategies tailored to subtly foster positive change without overtly disrupting existing structures or workflows.
For example, Roy introduced the concept of “Guerrilla solution-focused practice,” which involves being solution-focused in meetings even if one is the only proponent of such methodologies. This approach includes thinking aloud in a solution-focused manner and maintaining a structured review process in meetings to ensure constructive outcomes.
Wendy Van den Bulck Synopsis The game, ‘The Power of 5’ consists of a playground and reflection questions. We have based it on working interactions in nature, more specifically on five core elements of natural horse behaviour and how they can help human interactions become more sustainable on the different levels of interaction:
Intrapersonal (interaction within team ‘Me, Myself & I’) Interpersonal (interaction between individuals) Intragroup (interaction within teams, associations, groups, …) Intergroup (interaction between teams, associations, groups, …) Using “The Power of 5” tool within networks and ecosystems can significantly contribute to creating more sustainable organisations and societies.
Ania Smolka Synopsis The open space session facilitated by Ania Smolka on designing ‘sustainable leadership’ programmes was an intensive exploration of ideas on integrating sustainability into leadership practices across various organisational layers. Ania asked three teams to consider the challenge and we show their outputs below. As well, one of the teams highlighted the concept of Regenerative Leadership (subtly different from Sustainable Leadership). Below, you can download a PDF article on the relationship between this concept and Solution Focus.
Annie Bordeleau Synopsis In this Open Space session, the group explored the British Columbia First Nations Principles of Learning to discover just how deeply intertwined they are with the Solution Focus (SF) approach and our efforts to create a more sustainable world. These Principles are shown below: Exploring the Principles Here we explore the Principles in more depth from two perspectives - sustainability and Solution Focus. We also suggest example questions the SF practitioner might ask.
Haesun Moon
Synopsis Haesun Moon’s “The Loving Organisation” session explored the profound impact of integrating love, expressed as empathy, compassion, and care, into the workplace. This session, inspired by the work of Apruv Gupta, MD, and Kristin Bodiford, Ph.D and grounded in Khalil Gibran’s quote, “Work is love made visible,” aimed to elucidate how such emotions can be a driving force in organisational settings, particularly in healthcare but applicable to other sectors as well.
Paul Z Jackson
Synopsis At the SOLWorld Unconference, ‘Exploring How Solution Focus creates sustainable organisations’, Paul Z Jackson led a session to explore what SF distinctively offers for treating organisations as sustainable entities that aim to persist and evolve. The outcomes of this exploration add to the more familiar idea of SF Projects, which merely conclude.
The group discussed organisations as living systems that adapt continuously to survive, challenging business paradigms that often prioritise quick profits and short-term political gains.