🎙️ Toward Solutions Podcast | Episode 6: It’s not about being an expert. It’s about being interested with Paut Struik

and it can be rapid fire quick or it can be slow and thoughtful, but that you really feel hey something new that I've never thought of before is coming out of this. And that is the magic, with any solution focus conversation every time. Hello and welcome to the Towards Solution podcast where creativity meets practical application. I'm Deon Singh and I'm Jason Pasco. Together we dive deep into the world of solution focus, exploring its transformative power across a variety of contexts. Come join us each month as we engage in enlightening conversations with experts and practitioners who are applying solution focus in their unique environments. Whether you're looking to enhance your personal life, professional practice or community projects, our discussions will provide you with valuable insights and actionable ideas. Tune in to discover how you can implement solution focus practices in your own context, unlocking new possibilities and creative solutions. Let's embark on this journey of exploration and innovation together. If you like this podcast leave us a review and subscribe now so you don't miss an episode of Towards Solutions. Thanks so much for joining us and so by way of by way of introduction we had a chat with Chris Iverson, probably a month back. So we said who should we talk to next? We're on this fun journey of getting to know people and having conversations with people. Well thank you for inviting me. It's wonderful and to be recommended by Chris is something really good. He's one of my absolutely heroes in the field and such an amazing person to listen to anything he says and so yeah. So thank you very much for the invite and we'll see where this takes us. Yeah let's see let's see what emerges. How I was doing a little bit of reading you probably see that I've been on your LinkedIn bio and all that. Now you said something that really links with our first question. We've kind of got three or four questions that we ask everyone. We're not what order they'll come out in but we try and keep at least these questions consistent. You mentioned you mentioned your lovely granddaughter and then you said SF is my second love. What do you love about solutions focused? Where did I write this? I need to look it up. So okay so your question again is? What do you love about solution focused? What do I love about solution focused? Oh yeah I did hear you ask that question to your other guests and it's a tough one because it's so all-incumbersome but what always always stands out for me is the non-judgmental aspects of it that it is a way of engaging with people that is again non-judgmental. You don't have any preconceived ideas about what is right and what is wrong. You just open to whatever comes and whatever people bring to the table be surprised all the time and it works works both ways. In a good solution focused conversation you can both be surprised by the things you hear the other person say or even hear yourself say because that whole stance for me opens up a free-flowing arena as it were when new things emerge. It's like when you I was thinking before we came on about how it can be with a great conversation over drinks or at a dinner or a party or whatever that sometimes you have and you just bounce off each other and it can be rapid fire quick or it can be slow and thoughtful but that you really feel hey something new that I've never thought of before is coming out of this and that is the magic with any solution focused conversation every time. Yeah that's what I love about it. Be surprised. That's wonderful. I because I was reading that you were a physiotherapist and you went into management and then you thought I love this stuff I'm going to try it out and you went into your own consultancy. You shortened waiting times customer satisfaction when our professionals were engaged and happy with it and you could see a huge possibility in the in the fields of health and welfare and make a big difference. Yeah yeah yeah I came across solution focus in a very unexpected way and to this day I can remember the date the time the place who I sat next to where I sat in the audience because it was it was one of those moments that you think this is life changing. I was a manager in what I would call a kind of specialized social work organization at the time region manager. We were given the task by the government to transform our practice working with people with all kinds of of disabilities as we called it at the time to stop saying okay come here we will take care of you to hey let us try and support you lead your own life and get by in society which was sort of an amazing way of thinking but nobody had a clue actually how to do it because I feel that a lot of things going on in the social work arena and surrounding fields actually come from the medical model which I was trained in of course like okay we need a diagnosis we need a history and then we know what to do and we supplied that to all kind of social context so this was a brilliant way of thinking but we did not know how so my team and I have been exploring this for a couple of years at the time and did some good stuff and then this one day one of my team members said hey there's a lecture tomorrow by a lady from the UK and she's kind to talk about an approach that they're using and it might be of interest to us okay can I just come yeah yeah because the person who's organising this wants as many people to know about this as possible because he's very enthusiastic he was the new physician attached to the child protection agency he was a young pediatrician at the time and moved to that probably the country got into this job and so what misery what is this diamond cantering unhappy children unhappy parents unhappy workers but still it's very important work that we do because it's about children's safety but there should be different ways so he went exploring around the world to see okay are there any different ways of doing this he came across something from your brilliant country signs of safety but presumed well known to you guys Andrew to Alan Steve Edwards work yes and he had been to a conference and he said this is what I want to do and I want to establish it so anyway he organized this this evening I went along with my coworker and that was Vivian Hogg from Gateshead in the north of England and she started talking about what they had developed was they called it the signs of well-being model and it came directly from science and safety but they she and John Wheeler had adapted it to a more broad context so not just safety aspects but any if you will social work the element so they they simplified the reporting form and she had made a wonderful exercise where she would ask us the audience to think of a person that we were a little bit worried about nothing like threatening could be a neighbor could be whatever something you were a little bit worried about and she would ask his questions and she put them in a in a three column form with in the middle what's working well on the left what are your worries and on the right what needs to be done and she would put them on the screen and I was thinking about these questions for themselves and take notes and that's where the magic happened because I remember what I chose it was about one of my cousins whose parents were going through a divorce and I was a little bit worried about this young boy that who seemed to be struggling a bit and so I answered the question and at some point she said who is the most important person in this person's life and then I saw light bulb went off and said his dog so not even a person but they had a young puppy at the time and the dog and just don't know me that his relationship with that dog and how he was caring for it and how he did that with his mother and that would kill him through and I was completely reassured well during that time several light bulbs went off because I thought this is what we've been looking for these past four years. Because this gives ideas, thinking, theory, history, a way of talking about what it actually is that we do. So yeah, I fell in love with solution focus right there and then I did not know it was solution focus. I learned that later on. Because of course that's the basis of science of safety and therefore the basis of science of wellbeing. But yeah, that was, yeah, it's been a love affair ever since. That's very cool. Very cool. And the grandaught. Yeah, you see it in kids, don't you? The way they they pressure you approach things and give you a new outlook on everything that's going on around you. I love that they're the best. Yeah. Fabulous. Great. Tell us about what you so what do you what do you do now? How do you apply solution focus in, you know, in your context? In my business, I've been lucky enough to get loads of work doing a training, helping people to develop a solution focus mindset and applying it. And what I do a lot these days is applying it to the whole organization. Like it's one thing I always say when people ask me to come and talk to them. It's one thing to teach about this to your frontline practitioners. But it'll only be sustainable if I start with you guys, the management team, the people who are because you need to support them. And if it becomes a culture in your organization, that's when it starts to be really sustainable. So most of my the things that I do now are about that. And I thoroughly enjoy that because one day I'll be working with a group of coaches of volunteers or something like that or frontline practitioners or project managers or the CEOs of the organization that will that lead the whole process. So it's it's yeah throughout the organization. That's what I do mostly. And in that there can be some individual coaching or some team coaching whenever that's necessary. But I will say I'll do anything as long as I can use SF. Yeah, I think that was in one of the emails. I remember really reading that. I like it. That's great. So in the application across a whole whole organization, do you have some, you know, some, some examples or some ideas about how you're doing that? I think it took me a few years, but these days I'm bold enough to say, okay, I will only do this if I can start with you the top level management. That's not a lot of people that say no to that. I think maybe once that they said, no, no, no, that's not what we're looking for. And okay, fine. Then we're not a good fit. Oh, that's brilliant. Most other cases in it works that way. So I think that's important. Oh, that there's a vibe. Okay, that we really want this. That's very helpful. I don't know. It's it's it's in I think your training should be a reflection of what you're actually talking about. So I've learned from people that I've been trained with very well, but it needs to be parallel process in all aspects. So my training reflects what I'm talking about. I hope I try my try my very, very best. The way people are in leadership should reflect what they want their practitioners to actually do with clients. So it's it's that intertwining of things that I find is very, very important. Apart from starting with with management, it doesn't really matter. I've discovered what you do next or the intensity. You can start with really small groups that they, hey, this is interesting. Let's, well, let's go for it. Actually, I like that better than programs where they say, okay, we have 515 staff and we need them all to be trained and we'll assign when and where and when. But that works too. It doesn't really matter. Yeah, just start. I'm interested in what you're talking about the parallel process and training with the solution focused approach. What do you know, how do you do that? There's so many elements out there. Well, one thing is I'm almost right to program because people require that of you and sometimes there's a lot of limitations schemes that you need to write about that. But I love being very flexible in what I actually do on the day. So my day will usually training day will usually start with best hopes in any way shape or form. I would like to know the best hopes of the people that are there. And just and that's very, I learned that from brief a lot of christened and is hard being haven't. And just to dive in, if we have two really great days, what are your best hopes for what what would you like to come out of that and have them experience that in various forms. And only after that kind of hover over it and say, okay, what have we actually been doing here and then talk about that a little bit. So it's a constant of dive deep experience it yourself and then having a med of you and talk about what's been happening here and and leave it to the people there what they take out of it. I've learned over the years to have no preconceived ideas. Okay, at the end, I want them to be able to do this that and the other. And still accreditation programs will ask of you to write that down, don't they? I don't like it at all because they don't get what this is about. But okay, I'll think up something that will be fitting enough so to get the the foundation points. But to let go of that, I think this is very, very important. And again, be surprised what people do with it. Yeah. Yeah. That's really cool. And it's interesting like how you experienced solution focus. And so that was kind of your aha moment. And then you mentioned just then about having people in your trainings experience solution focus. What are what are some of the ways that you do that? Well, I love going to training and workshops and conferences myself and be inspired by the amazing people in this community who come up with a myriad of exercises and the greats of doing it. So there's not really one way, I guess. I know that if I come across something new and it appeals to me and think, Oh, I could try this out. And I'm happy to try it out the next day with a group. So it's um, well, a big favorite is it's always the the Björn exercise that we as we call it, it's from one of Jenny Clark's book 57 exercise that can't remember the exact title, the blue one, I'm sure you're aware of it. But Björn Jansson and it's where people go in groups of three and ask each other in a circular way the same question. And in a sense, it is about best hopes and how will you notice the change happening? And there's, I think it's one of the most brilliant exercises because it's in the form, in the construction, but also in the questions that you get so many ways of learning about solution focus. And I'm always amazed about how one person will pick out their own personal goals, that I think, Oh, I haven't realized, but this is what I would really like to learn and how I will notice the difference. Another one will take out of it, hey, I could do this with a group because there's magic in listening to somebody else answer the questions and then know that you will be asked that same question after that. And others will come out of it thinking, okay, I would rephrase this because those words don't really fit for me. And then you can have a beautiful conversation about what words would be fitting in your context and with you for you and with your client. So yeah, that is an exercise that I could almost spend the whole morning with. Yeah. Yeah. Wonderful. So that's a bug. My mind's looping back to the pre-workshop, right? Rather than activities, I'm thinking. When you said, you know, you say, now I'll do it if I can work with the senior managers as well to get it more sustainable. What are you or what are the clues that you're listening for or looking for that tell you the senior managers are interested in doing it? it themselves. What, looking for that actually? Yep. Because that's the fact that they're there and willing to work with me a little bit, that's enough. And I'm not in control nor do I want to be of how they are going to use it themselves. Or I'm not looking for clues that they're willing to do that. I think that's part of the letting go. Yeah, it's enough. But of course a conversation will be about, hey, if this whole trajectory will be successful, what difference might you notice? What would you like to notice? Over the years you've come to trust that just by asking those questions and seeing people think about them, something will happen, but I have no idea what and when or where. Which is fine. So no, it's not that I'm looking for clues that they're taking it on board or what they're going to do with it. Just the fact that we get a chance to talk in that fashion is, I've found it's enough. Yeah. I didn't know about what your experience is, but turnover in management teams can be quite high. Sometimes if you come alongside an organization for a few years, five years later, there's nobody left from the original management team. And what I found fascinating that in, I've been with a few organizations for a really long time now, that the new people are actually very solution focused themselves after a good, something in the culture changes, something in the hiring and something in the way the teams operate. And they become SF biosmosis as it were. They don't really know even what it's called or where it's originally come from. But when you talk to them, hey, it's there. Yep. That's fascinating. There's this one local government that I've been working with for 13 years now. In the beginning, I would do trainings with all the new staff. There are about 600 staff now with all the new staff every year and we would do two day trainings about solutions to focus about how they apply it fine. These days, a three hour workshop, one afternoon, and they come with the most amazing questions because they're clearly SF themselves, although they've never heard of it. Somehow it's in the order. That maybe that's helping me get to the essence of the question that I'm thinking about because you'll often have the practitioners or the frontline staff and they will say, yes, yes, we'll do this SF training. But there can be this leadership or management barrier where the SF practice stops at that level. And I'm curious about how you are engaging, not just the middle leadership, but the senior leadership level to participate. And therefore watch the out workings over time, ripple through the organisation to be able to tell the story you just told. How do you do that? Okay. Well, I guess part of what I will be talking about at the beginning of those conversations is how one of my fascinations with solution focus is that it's not just for frontline work. No, the whole thinking behind it is applicable to all aspects of life, but very much to leadership to project management, to organisational change. And so I talk a little bit about that and then do exactly the same as I would do in any training group, ask about their best hopes and pick topics from there. And it can be about how can we do more satisfying performance reviews or how can we make these projects run more smoothly. And that's what we start talking about. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah, work with what's important for them. Yeah, well, yeah, that's what I was just about to say. That's really, you know, your understanding what they, what their hopes are, what they actually want. Yeah. Yeah. And quite often what comes out of that are specialised, special workshops on certain topics like project management or strategic planning because they get an inkling, okay, this lady knows how to apply this thinking to that and let's give it a go. And they take us from there. They stay very close to what's interesting for them in that moment. Yeah. And of course, I work in the field of health care and welfare, whether it be in local governments or organizations with frontline practitioners. By nature, they are the kind of people that want to see things happening for their clients. I mean, so they're always very interesting up to the top level about success stories of the frontline work. That's what drives them. So it's not that hard. We're so motivated. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That's great. That's great. I find I've run workshops with senior leaders and others in strategic planning workshops and things like that. And always during or after they go, that was nothing like we thought it would be like and you know, that's that sort of comment. But I'm always interested in the beginnings of those conversations as well. Oh. Oh, thank you. Be curious about what's important to them and stay close to that. I think is super important. Thanks for me. One of the most important developments in what I learned about solution focus is this best hopes desire outcome. Start. And that just works in any, any context is you're immediately so close to what drives people. What is occupying their mind and what's important to them? And yes, no matter what context I find that if you can find a way to start with that, that's your off. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Excellent. I've got another vote here. Do you mind if I read you? Sure. Surprise me with what I've said. It starts with listening differently with different conversations and that is the power. If you know what you would like the change to deliver and how you are going to notice it, things in life and work run just a little more smoothly. I've been having lots of conversations lately and been running training about listening. It starts with listening differently and I'd love to get your perspective on that. Oh, thank you. Well I'm going to quote one of my dear friends and colleagues and Dutch. It was a family practitioner originally at Opaludownes. He always say he says, listen with your ears, not with your head. And I love that one and it always sparks a lovely conversation when you talk about that. Like try and listen to what is truly being said without interpreting, without letting it go through your head. And that will lead to being genuinely interested. I'm not too fond of the word curious. That has a connotation but be really interested in maybe in a way that, okay, I want to learn from you. Because I know there's wisdom behind that and let me learn from you and ask questions from that stance. That's different listening. It's all that is important I think in human interaction is that you feel heard, you feel seen, you feel being taken seriously. And what better way than to ask really interested questions no matter what the questions are. Yeah. Yeah. It's that stance. So listen with your ears, not with your head. That's one that's always stuck with me and I like to use that. If you left this conversation and you went to wherever you're going next and you bumped into your neighbor and your neighbor said, what's this solution focus stuff that you do? How would you describe, explain it to them? You know, after six, been 17 years of working with this, I find still find that one of the toughest questions to answer. I think my answer varies from the context. I mean a little bit. To a neighbor I might say something about, it's about having, not better, but nicer, more fruitful conversations. to get to where you want to go maybe quicker but at least in a more satisfactory way. Yeah, that might be one of the shortest ones. I've come up with so far. So thank you for the question Jason. I love it. It's a hard thing to quantify isn't it? One of the things that we really wanted with the podcast was that people who listened to it could learn something they could then go away and try experiment with in their own work and their own lives. What could you teach us and our listeners as something that we could go away and try? Okay, yeah, I heard you ask those questions to other people so it made me think. Something that is not 100% from the SF world but that we have incorporated in our trainings and teachings for years now is Nancy Klein's idea of asking an opening question at meetings. I don't know if you're familiar with her work time to think and more time to think or her books they're amazing and that is we start every meeting where I suggest to people to start every meeting with a question about that you ask of everyone there that is about something that is true that has happened to them personally that they did personally and that is in a positive direction. When it can be all kinds of questions it can be a question like what's the nicest compliment a client or a coworker gave you this past week and then everybody takes a turn thinking about that and answering that question or the holidays are coming up. What you already know that you will be doing in these holidays that will make your start to the new season just that bit better. Questions like that that are about your own actions in a positive light. The effects are amazing. Nancy Klein describes how it shortens meetings, how it makes them more effective but I've seen that in real life so many times it works and teams that have adopted that tradition they really find it works too. I'll never forget the first team that I encountered that did this. I was new to that team and they said that they did that and okay fine and the first few times they said this is interesting but later on I found that before going in I would start thinking hey what might today's question be and what might I answer so it does something to your mindset even before the upcoming meeting and that has an effect and in SF there's a lot of talk about pre-session change and things like that. This works that way too and then when a team does it for a while people will come up with questions themselves you don't have as the meeting leader to come up with it and who has an open questions for today and then nine out of ten times somebody yeah I thought of one on my way over and then you know when it had that effect it's very effective so yeah that's the one I'd like to tell you about yeah yeah that's really that's really great I um so I kind of accidentally have been doing this even though I didn't necessarily know that it had a um had a particular name it started out actually um when I was leading a team and we so we would do a morning meeting and I just um I'd learned and took some ideas from different places and so we would have you know an opening question you know something you're grateful for um maybe something you're proud of um and things like that and yeah and so I um I just I did it because I noticed the the shift in the kind of mindset of the people in the room and I did it recently with a workshop and asked a question about um you know what's a small um a small achievement that you're really proud of and got them to you know share that with the with the group and um yeah other questions like you know why is it that you do what you do like why are you here in this role and um when we chatted with Andrew Gibson on the podcast he talked about it as well about introducing people to each other and you so he was talking about um you know teams that think they know each other very well and they start to hear about you know people's motives and their values and why they're here anyway I love that idea um and it's something that I've been been using and totally agree I think it's a really great way um to start things off in a in a in a direction or in a momentum that carries on um you know for the workshop and um yes that's really cool yeah thank you very much okay I'm nice yeah and it really does shorten the meetings I hear that back from from teams that I've started using it and uh and yeah they feel more uplift it's so different from what is uh still I have to say uh common practice in in many of the fields that I work and say oh how are you today what's your mood and it that can go in any direction and then your 20 25 minutes along and people have sent it about everything that went wrong well we all know would be affected that don't we so yeah yeah that's still common practice in a lot of places so any chance to flip that around a bit I'm happy yeah so when when you do this and I'm curious about the process um and I'll tell you why in a second um are there any people just go around and and share that uh are there any follow-up questions or are there um do people ask questions of others or does that happen after the meeting that's uh the idea is just to each and everyone answer it for themselves and um uh because it needs to be short yep they're hey especially in a top-level meeting people are there to get business done they don't want to spend 20 25 minutes doing something like that but um once they encounter it's effective they're happy to spend five or ten minutes yeah yeah uh doing it so no it's it's quick fire yep um I've learned over the years not to go the round as it were yeah yeah but just to uh uh uh pop the question and look around and there's always somebody who will answer first and then there's somebody else um um and even if you don't answer it's fine we know by these days that even asking a question you don't require an answer for it to have an effect yes so and I just totally leave it up to the people there who won't forgive an answer and who goes first and uh so yeah that's what I do these days yeah the reason the reason I asked is because one of my previous careers I was um coordinating a national well-being in schools program and it was fully funded so schools got free professional well-being guy would come in and usually who someone who was leading the meeting had read one of the resources and they'd say just share a highlight from the week and you know everyone would go round and they should highlight but then it kind of felt like okay now let's get on to the real agenda and there was this abrupt uh and it was that I got that sense that it was like oh well the well-being guys here so we better ask a question like that and now we get so I started to add um and what difference did that make just a solution yeah yeah so that it did be something like just just tell me about something that's made you smile in a good way in the last week and what's that make and that added little bit seem to create a longer ripple I think through the meeting oh yeah that's a good that's a great one yeah I can see why in certain contexts that would be very useful yeah absolutely and when I do it like with uh people who are in in leadership positions or who chair meetings regularly I'll do something similar and have again this this meta moments where okay what actually happened what was the effect and and how might this be useful for you but when it's um just any group I'll just leave it there yep and sometimes there's somebody who will ask a question about it hey what is this we just did or why did you do that and then that's a good opportunity to talk about it so yeah I guess it depends I think that's right I think these are all about questions are and it depends um yeah true contextual always yeah yeah and flicking it out a little bit yeah is is always interesting because we do we walk into these situations as solution focused practitioners and use the skills and the tools and the listening to the approach but it's never the same it's every it's not as is different and we pull out little bits at different points based on answers and that help us or help our clients navigate this situations that they're in. And I think that's awesome. It's one of the most fascinating things about this approach isn't it? You that it's never the same. It's, yeah, it's the longest job I've ever held. I always say. I'm probably a lot earlier, earlier along in the journey. And interested in, this is one of the advantages of hosting people on podcasts. You get to ask them the questions that you're interested in. What advice would you have for someone like me who's, you know, training, facilitating is, you know, doing that for business? You know, what did what advice do you think is kind of, you know, important things to keep in mind? What I've always found very helpful and still looked for these days is try and have a group of people, preferably around you, that you can talk about this at length. Like you and Jason are doing like this podcast. I'm sure you, you have lots of talks about what you want to do. So you have these reflection, this reflection time with people who are like minded and who can ask you to do the questions that you will immediately recognize, but still be effect on yourself. And that will keep you further. One thing that I've been doing a lot of is what we call intervision, where you come together with a group of people and you can all bring something to the table that you'd like a little help on or that your stack quest and we approach that in a solution focused way so that it's, it comes from all directions. You get to be asked questions if you bring something to the table or you can ask other people and that's kind of a practice environment, but at the same time, very practical in that it helps you along in your day to day work. Is one thing that's great, but being part of one is very important for me, for my own personal development. And it's something that I would always recommend, especially if you're self employed and you have your own business, try and find a group of like minded people that you can ask good talks with. Yeah, that keeps it going. Yeah. Keep it, keep it fresh and remeoing. Yeah. When we interviewed Antoni mentioned intervision as well. And I've gone and done some searches and things on it because it's not, it's not mentioned very much in Australia. Are there a protocols to that? Is this a little bit like solution focused reflective teams? Is it? Yeah, I tell us some more about it. I'd love to know more. OK. OK. If you weren't asked to write a dove into this, that intervision is a term that appears to be only used in Dutch who German speaking countries. Very interesting. I have not known this because I've come across the term all my professional life because it's there. It was mainly something done again in the field of social work. It's spreading over the last 15, 20 years, but as a way of helping each other, but the traditional forms were always very problem focused. There were in-depth analysis of what held you back or why you were struggling with these kinds of issues. And I remember in this social work organization that I was talking about when I came across solution focused one day, my team came to me and said, but you may be provided with an outside intervision leader because we really feel the need for it. We haven't done this for a while. And I didn't know too much about it at the time. So yeah, tell me more. And if you think this is useful, of course, so facilitated. Well, I said, can I come to? No, no, no, no. This needs to be done within colleagues that trust each other and well known and everything that happens there stays there. And so, okay, fine, go ahead. If you think it's useful, I'd like to know if it's helpful and then I can find some more funding for next year, something like that. And then it started to happen every six weeks. And they locked themselves up for a whole afternoon. And I would see people coming out of there really with not very happy faces. Sometimes there had been tears. I could tell, oh, this is serious business. It didn't seem very uplifting, but then, I don't know, this is really helpful and really good to do to discover what's what's bugging you. Anyway, I left that organization starting my own business because I wanted to take this solution focusing further. And then I encountered a team locally that role, enthusiastic and they worked that way. They were mostly family practitioners and youth workers and trainers. And I was invited to come along. And they met weekly and they said, yes, we have weekly meeting, weekly, intervision meetings. I thought, oh my goodness. Is this what I'm looking for? What have I got myself into? But I wanted to try anything and, okay, I'll come along. It was a trial period and so on. Oh, we'll see where this goes. Turned out that they did it in a suction focused way. Starting with this opening questions and then doing things like the reflecting team, but lots of variations on that and brilliant. It was the the moment in the week that we all made sure we were there. Because even though we couldn't earn any money that day, because yeah, self-employed, but still we always made sure we were there because we needed it to learn, to develop, to get further with things that you did feel stuck with. Three and we've been spreading it from that team ever, ever since as much as we could. And I think back in 20s. I can see in or something. I go to the idea, hey, you don't just need to have a group of like-minded people that know each other well. The formats because they're solution focused, you could do this with people that don't even know each other that I've never met before. And so started experimenting with that every first Friday of the month. You're welcome in our office and we have these. They'll do it to this day. It's been online ever since COVID. And the nice thing is that people from all over can take part. And never met there from different fields. They have different roles. But if you talk about out of the box thinking, that's what you get. Because if someone listens to you who is not familiar with your field, they can ask really open-minded questions and come up with ideas, even that are from very different angles and yeah, people still love doing it. So and during that time I started looking into it. And because I wanted to talk about it at conferences in English. And then I discovered that the term wasn't known at all in the English speaking language. Yeah, peer groups supervision. But I like the word intervision because it's really between people and not somebody there who's maybe the knowledgeable guy or woman telling you in the end. Okay, I think you should do this or that because that's what I associate with supervision in our country at least. So yeah, I've stuck with the word intervision and I had to talk about it as much as I can because it's such a way of maintaining this SF culture in an organization and really learn from each other, get to know where your colleagues strengths are so that outside of those two hours, you can try. Hey, you talked about this and that. Can you tell me more or I have a client that I need to need you to look at? And so yeah, it's a great concept. So is there is there anything written in English on it? Because I couldn't find much when I went searching. I'm just curious. You know, we might attach a pay in English. But still, I'm still writing that work. It's not having a long way. There is one chapter in a book by the SFU. I've been doing this for really at Connie's SFU for years now. Every month we have a group and there's a group of there's a book come out last year with practices and one chapter I wrote about this intervention thing. So there is that. But yeah, the real book is, you can't see my study door, but they're supposed to solve the structure and I've written quite a bit, but it's not finished yet. Yeah, because I think it would be helpful if more, the aim of my writing is now, okay, how can I find the confidence to lead these interventions? Because I think that's the way we could spread it more. So that's the angle that I'm trying to find. Yeah. Yeah, I'm really interested in I think it's, it could be incredibly helpful. Oh my goodness, there's areas. Yeah, when you say, find the confidence to lead it. I know. Are you talking about helping other people to lead these sorts of sessions? Yeah, that's what I'm hoping that the book might bring because I wanted to spread. It's okay. We have quite a few people in the Netherlands that are very good facilitators of these innovation meetings. And after people have been there for a while and they feel confident in the solution-focused approach, they can do it themselves. But they always come back with a lot of questions, "Hey, I saw you're doing this. What's behind it?" And how do I deal with. For one, one thing can be you have a group before you and nobody has a question. Because they all come straight out of their work. They're busy. What do you do then? And just little hints and ideas for that. Or when somebody comes with a problem that others relate to and find it hard to detach themselves from their own struggles. How do you facilitate in such a way that the environment stays safe and that the focus is still on the person bringing the questions? But how do you care for all the others at the same time? It's it's. Yeah. There's a lot of teaching, training, leading leadership skills involved in doing it. It's great fun. But yeah. Yeah. It's fantastic. So if we were to. If we were to find out more about what you're up to and what you're writing, where would or what should we direct people to listeners to go find out? Is there anything you've written? I know you've also been on a couple of other podcasts. We'll probably link those. That's a good message, right? Yeah. That's always a problem when you work in a different language, isn't it? I have written quite a few things. Let's see what I've got here. This for one is a tool that we wrote about Intervision where we've written out lots of the formats. But it's in Dutch. Yeah. It's still a lot of memory of pictures around like I still think it's a lot of fun. So that's not real helpful. So yeah, I'm hoping to finish this book at some point and get that out. There's some stuff on the SFIO website, a video about this project with the local council that I've been with for 12, 13 years. So yeah, there's things like that. But yeah. Yeah, that definitely sounds like an interesting one. We'll have to link that one. Yeah. Okay. I'll send you some info. If you could say one thing to our listeners, the podcast is "Toward Solutions". Based on your experience with us today, what would you say to our listeners? Let's been a joy talking to you because you really asked the interested questions and your great listeners. I mean, what I say, well maybe don't worry too much about is this truly SF for what is it that I'm doing? Just go for it. Be good listeners. Be interested in what people have to say and then you're off. And yes, there is so much to learn about this whole field, but you don't have to be an expert before you can start. I love it when people have their first training. I want the other day, somebody who said, "Oh, I'm very sorry, but at three o'clock I have to leave for a bit because there's this meeting that I could not reschedule." Sure. Whatever needs to be. And this guy came back after a little over an hour, beaming. I said, "Okay, it looks like you have a story. Tell us." So we made real me said, "This was amazing. I didn't tell you what the meeting was, but it was with a very difficult thing that we had almost been adults at the whole time." And what I did is I just go for it. We sat down and said, "Before we start, can I ask you something?" And yeah, sure is it the other person. If we have a successful meeting today, what are you really hoping to get out of it? And he said, "It totally changed the dynamic." But the first time we talked person to person and he could listen to what I had to say. And I could hear what he had to say. He said, "Sold." So yeah, it's just, if you hear anything that is worth trying, have go for it and see where it takes you. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I love it. I love it. Okay. Thank you so much for your time. Thank you for having me. I'm really excited for this to go up and our listeners just try something. Just start. Thank you. No, you're welcome. We're slowly talking to you. Even if it's right and early in the morning here. Thank you for that. You got me going for the day. I love it. It's one of the things, isn't it? I feel like talking solution focus and doing solution focus, it is it's energizing, isn't it? Like it's fun. It's fun. It's fun. Yeah. Thank you so much. Thank you for joining us on the Toward Solutions podcast. We hope today's insights inspire you to apply solution focused in your own life and projects. Whether you're applying these strategies in your personal life, professional practice or community projects, we're excited to see the impact you create. If you found this episode useful, please leave us a review and share it with others who might benefit from out of discussions. Your support really helps us to reach more people and continue to bring you quality content. Stay tuned for more enlightening conversations, subscribe now and let's continue this journey towards solutions together.