Review of Positively Speaking; The art of constructive conversations with a solutions focus

18th May, 2011 - Posted by stellacollins - 2 Comments

By Paul Z Jackson and Janine Waldman

This book will give you ideas if you manage, motivate or coach people.

When this book arrived I was surprised because it’s really a workbook taking you through a 6 week programme learning how to have constructive conversations, rather than an academic discussion of solutions focus thinking.

It’s divided into 6 ‘weeks’ rather than chapters, with the premise you take the ‘course’ instead of just reading the book.  The writers have clearly taken a structured approach to learning and incorporated it into a workbook.  They are generous in their acknowledgements of other people and the tone is friendly and, not surprisingly perhaps, constructive.

Each chapter has a firm structure with theory about solutions focus and constructive conversation, exercises, case studies, reference for further reading.  And you are constantly encouraged to apply the ideas to your own conversations and to experiment.  There’s forward pointers to the next ‘weeks’ session and then a summary of the main points.

Week 1 begins with an introduction to the concepts of the solutions focused approach and exercises to get used to the differences between ‘problem talk’ and ‘solutions talk.’  I like the idea I’m encouraged to eavesdrop now.

In the 2^nd ‘week’ you learn to open up conversations constructively and consider outcomes for all conversations, however small.

By week 3 you’re introduced to practical tools for helping you have constructive conversations that can really change the focus of a conversation from criticism to constructive action.  There are some good examples of how an ordinary conversation might go compared to one where these tools are applied.  And it becomes clear they are practicing what they preach; for example one exercise starts with ‘Given what you know now about scaling…..’ which demonstrates the concepts they’ve just been discussing about building on progress people have already made, rather than focusing on skills gaps.

Half way through the book is a ‘mid-course assessment’ so it’s an excellent place to stop and find out how much you’ve taken in.  I found myself wanting someone to mark this for me and tell me how I was getting on – but that may be a personal preference.

Week 4 is about prompting and fuelling action in others and teaching the importance of ‘the small action’.  These ideas would be really useful for anyone who’s tried to make changes and feels they’ve failed, or is trying to encourage someone else to make changes.

I’ll keep you curious so you go and look at the book yourself and won’t tell you about weeks 5 and 6, apart from them being called ‘Putting it all together’ and ‘Keeping the Conversation going.’

This is a really practical workbook and would appeal to anyone who really likes the idea of having ‘constructive conversations’ but isn’t quite sure how to go about it consistently.

My only reservation is that despite there being plenty of white space, diagrams and examples more pictures would have brought it to life and it’s very monochrome .

So having been a little sceptical at first, I’ve been really won round and am looking forward to putting the workbook into practise rather than just reading it through.

At £14.99 I’d say this is an excellent investment for anyone who needs to manage, coach or motivate and is a really practical and sustainable approach to implementing ‘solutions focus’ ideas in the real world.  And I’ll give it 9.5 out of 10.

We’ve decided we’re going to do the ‘course’ in our office over the next few months to really get the impact.   We’ll let you know how we get on.