Scaling for Success

One way in which we support people in Solution-Focused work is using a technique called Scaling. Scaling is typically used to bring to light what someone is doing right in order to solve a problem or for professional development purposes.

Scaling is based on a concept familiar to us all: on a scale of 1-10 something is ______.  Recently, I was asked to scale on a health questionnaire for a work wellness program .  The questions went something like this:

On a scale of 1-10
...how happy are you with your overall health?
...how much stress do you experience in a typical day?
...how much do you value your personal health?

We are all very familiar with this kind of scale, often used on feedback forms and assessments to gather facts.  In Solutions-Focused work, the scaling questions starts out very much the same, but the heart of the technique lies in the follow up conversation. We ask the 1-10 question to get the baseline number which is noted and used to ask the more salient questions of:

• What did you do right to get to this number?
• What can you continue to do to make the number just a tiny bit better?

In the case of solving a problem, asking these two follow up questions shifts the spotlight from what's not working to what the person is already doing right as a foundation for progressing to the next level and solving the problem.  Let's make this very concrete now, and illustrate the steps:

1. Pose a question using a 10 point scale (1 being the absolute worst and 10 the absolute best) to assess where the person perceives themselves or the situation.
2. Repeat the number the person gave and said why X and not X-1? What are you doing right?
3. Based on what's working, what might you do to go from X to X+1?

Pretty straight-forward, right?  Now let's put this in a real-world scenario. Let's take a common situation in which one staff member is not getting along with another. Here's how a conversation might go:

Question: On a scale from 1-10 how would you rate the relationship with Sally?  1 is so terrible you can't even stand to be in the same room as her and 10 is that you have a relationship of mutual respect and you collaborate on a nearly daily basis to be better teachers.   How would you rate your relationship?
Answer: Probably a 3.  I haven't walked out of the room when she walks in, but I've been close a few times.

Question: 3, that's interesting.  Why a 3 and not a 1 or a 2, someone must be going right?
Answer: Well, like I said I haven't walked out of the room even though I wanted to.  And sometimes she has good ideas that I use in my classroom, but what bothers me is the way she talks down to me all the time.

Questions: So you said that you haven't walked out of the room, that tells me that you have some good self-regulation skills when it comes to managing your frustrations with Sally. And you said that she has some good ideas that you also use in your classroom, so that's another great thing to draw from.  How do you think you might use these 2 good things to move the relationship just one small step from a 3 to a 4?  What would that look like?
Answer: I guess I could ask her for some ideas on this unit I'm doing next week.  And I think that I might try telling her about how the activity I did last week went, since I got that idea from her classroom.

Of course the sample above is a concise best-case scenario, and despite your likely reservations (I know you're thinking it's too good to be true), it really is as simple as this. People new to this technique will veer into the negatives quickly and your role is to continue to quickly bring them back to illustrating what's working or might work.  Also very important here is to continue to bring the person back to what they can do to make this work, and stay away from the focus of how someone needs to change. I frequently remind my staff, "you can't change the other, you only have the power to change yourself, so let's bring this back to what you can do improve the situation."

As you see, with this line of questioning we’re intentionally not asking for a huge monumental change here, just for the person to start to imagine a teeny tiny inkling that something might change.  This bring us to a basic assumption of Solution-Focused work If something’s working do more of it. So with scaling we shift the person's thinking from the negative and problems and instead what works so they can do more of it.

Another basic tenant that sometimes arises from scaling is If it’s not working do something different. A Solution-Focused conversation can help bring to light new approaches to a situation that might also apply.  Solution-Focused practitioners believe that everyone has had experiences in their life that have been successful from which solutions can be derived.  Using the case illustrated above, this staff person must have some relationships that are successful, so we may be able to lead her to apply solutions from other relationships to this one.

Stay tuned for the next post - using scaling for professional development.

No Playing with your Food: Finding Solutions not Defeat in Rules

Like many other programs, each year we conduct an very thorough new staff training to orient our newbies to the ins and outs of our program.   It’s my role to orient them on everything Education/classroom related in our program: curriculum, lesson planning forms and practices, education related policies and procedures and so on.

During the Curriculum & Education training this year, I struck a nerve with a new teacher.  As I was talking about the role of food in our program I explained our policy on “no playing with food.”  I gave the history of the Perry Preschool Project (AKA as high/Scope) and how this philosophy on food came about.  The essential idea is: when there are people going hungry in your community and in the world, you do not play with food, as it is a life source and some people are going without.  Courageously, this new teacher spoke up and said “I grew up poor, we had 3-to-a-bed and never purchased new clothes or toys.  But my parents gave me rich learning experiences by letting me play with beans, rice, flower, salt, and other food items.  I will not short change children by taking away valuable experiences they can have with measuring, texture, filling, emptying, weight, and other stuff just because these kids are poor.”  

Wow, what a moment I had here!  In the past, I would have begun some sort of diatribe on the value and virtue of this philosophy.  I would have stood my ground, assertively, but also tried to win her over to my viewpoint.  But, not the Solution-focused, Olivia.  This was my time to play!

I capitalized on this moment to begin a Solutions-focused journey with the brand new staff. I started with appreciating her for speaking up and said “I have mentioned to you before I have training in using Solutions-focused techniques.  Let’s take a minute and apply them here. Instead of looking at this problem - "no playing with food," let’s look at our solutions.  To do this, I would like to begin by uncovering our objectives when we give children food to play with.  I heard you say (as I write these terms on the marker board): weight, texture, measurement.  What other concepts are children learning when they play with food items?” The three staff members in the training went on, “viscosity, 1:1 correspondence, fine motor...” and so on.  

I followed this up with “these are things that MUST be present in all good early childhood classrooms, and you clearly know this and want to provide these important experiences to children.  Now let’s envision that you have access to every non-food item you could ever want. You had all the scales, measuring cups, bowls, buckets, sieves, spoons, etc. you could ever want. Now let’s brainstorm a list of items you can use to meet these same objectives” Within 3 minutes we had a list of 25 things that could meet this.  I then asked, “is there anything on the objective list that would not meet your aims, so you would have to substitute with food items?”  The answer was no, and the response was  a genuine "thanks!" from the teaching staff.

With Solutions-focused techniques, I had an opportunity to shift the focus in the room away from the problem (the negative) to the solutions (the positive); where the mood in the room might have gone sour, instead we got to build on a real emergent learning moment together.  Had I chosen the strategy of “I’m the boss and these are the rules,” the new staff would have been in a place of defeat at only the 3rd day of work, believing they might never win.  But instead by envisioning our desired outcomes we got creative together had an extensive list to pull from and a positive and excitement that lead us to the next training agenda items with our minds and hearts open to possibilities.