A quick thank you to our readers. We know you are out there - the stats from blogger.com tell us that. It's good to know our readership is international. It would be great if some comments were made to really develop the strands and themes we pursue. Nevertheless, knowing we are not shouting down a deep pit to hear only our own voices come back is gratifying.
Ok, on to business. Thursday was an important day. I facilitated an event for a group of trustees who are the board of a large charity focused on a specific public service. The theme, broadly speaking, was thinking about and planning for the future of the charity and those who benefit from its services.
Across many years the SWOT model (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, Threats) has been an almost ever-present feature of sessions such as these that I have participated in, as a corporate team and board member. What struck me often in those sessions was that despite being a 50/50 model of the positive and negative, i.e. strengths/opportunities and threats/weaknesses, the conversations seemed to over-concentrate on the latter. Strengths/opportunities were almost taken for granted, of little importance when set against the need to really get under the skin of our threats and minimise our weaknesses. The best of our knowledge and experience were brought to bear on the twin 'evils' that threatened our future success and weakened our current position. The proportion of attention paid to the T/W was nearer 75%, leaving a meagre 25% for the S/O.
Shift forward many years and the writings of David Cooperrider, Jackie Stavros and others gradually opened doors on an alternative model. Yes, another four box model, but whilst the number of boxes and two of their titles, Strengths and Opportunities, were familiar, the overall impression and impact of the model was very different. At first sight it was also a little counter-intuitive, i.e. having four boxes that offered no apparent space and time for the deficits. The other two boxes were and are Aspirations and Results. How could his be? Where do our weaknesses go? How do we recognise the threats all around us? What do I do with my sharpened awareness of all that is difficult and draining?
Well, of course there will always be a need to recognise these deficits, and act upon those requiring attention, but the underpinning of appreciative and strengths-focused thinking places them in a more positive and embracing framework. By shifting the atmosphere and attention from the deficit to the appreciative, the conversations using this model changed. The energy in the room seems to remain at high levels for the whole of the day. There are no longer the familiar dead spots to planning and future search events. The wholeness of an organisation is held in the room for longer, as is the view that competition and risk can be set in a framework of opportunity identification and long term aspiration and ambition for the organisation.
So it was with the trustees of the charity on Thursday. As we worked across the day, first on the strategic inquiry elements of strengths/assets and opportunities, and then into the appreciative intent elements of aspiration/ambition and results, the temptation to drop into the deficit simply receded into the distance. Of course, the trustees at first almost stifled themselves from mentioning weaknesses and threats, but once they appreciated that it was fine to highlight these, 'though in this much more positive context and framework, the (re)balance of good and less good was easily achieved.
This is not the first time I have been able to use SOAR. In fact, across the past three to four years it has become a strong feature of the tools I use to work with leadership teams, boards, functional management teams and others. All, without exception, find it a little unsettling at first, the deficit paradigm being so strong even now, but as each event unfolds the potential of the model becomes more apparent to participants and a more natural response begins to develop. One that provides good breadth and depth of opportunities, strong ambition and hard-edged outcomes - all built on the strongest of bases, i.e. our strengths and assets; the best of what is.
Our group of trustees enjoyed the experience, identifying a host of possible opportunities; created some ambitious futures; and ended with specific, SMART goals and challenging future outcomes for their organisation. All of this alongside exploring and sharing a strong sense of where their charity is, what its assets are and how these influence the present and future.
SOAR - what do you have to lose?
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