Dr. Klaus Schenck
Klaus Schenck has been a part of the SOLworld since 2003, when he also transformed from having been a molecular biology researcher and medical device company’s manager to becoming a self-employed trainer, coach, consultant, lecturer, therapist, and author.
For more than ten years now, he has been applying SF, CF, systemic, lean and agile ideas (and the power of metaphors, too! ...) to help organisations improve their performance, and people from many backgrounds to improve their quality of life.
Both SF and CF have changed and deeply influenced his own way of looking at, and moving along in, life and work.
Solutions Flow through Bottlenecks
In organisations, “solutions” equal activities that create value for customers, income for the enterprise and satisfaction for the people doing the work, simultaneously. A sustainable flow of valuable solutions (aka “value stream) from the organisation to the customer is a core goal of any organization.
To contribute to this, Solution Focus (SF) over the years has opened itself up for contact with, and at times integration of, neighboring approaches, from Appreciative Inquiry to Agile Teams.
Here, I would like to share my very positive experiences with a combination of SF and “Constraints Focus (CF)”.
My conviction is: SF and CF are like two sides of the same coin, or two eyes in the same head, providing “depth of vision” by the different, but complementary views. And their combination is even more valuable to customers (and more fun for coaches and consultants ...) than each of the approaches alone.
While SF will probably be familiar for most people attending this conference, CF may be new to many, so let me explain briefly, some core concepts:
- Every organisation performing to serve a purpose or mission (e.g. to create value for customers) does provide its services at a certain maximum rate: Just so many cars sold or students educated or patients cured or managers coached per year.
- Of all the elements in the network of interactions needed to provide that service, there is usually ONE at each point in time that limits performance the most. This is called the “Constraint” of the organisation.
- A whole, well-established framework, the “Theory of Constraints (ToC)” emerged around this idea, at around the same time as SFBT emerged.
- Albeit CF is not a new idea at all – it has been described in the 19th century for agriculture already – it is not well known outside the ToC community – even as people like Jeff Bezos or Elon Musk publicly declare to have founded their companies on ToC’s principles, with impressive results.
- One consequence of a Constraint is: If you try to improve the organisation’s performance, all attempts that keep the throughput rate at the Constraint unchanged, are wasted: they require and create effort, while the performance stays the same – still limited by the same throughput rate as before the extra effort was applied.
- This is true for all kinds of production, development, change and transformation project environments.
- So to improve performance, understanding the concept of a Constraint, knowing how to find it and what to do about it, is wise and useful – even for experienced SF practitioners.
Here, I would like to share what I learned about taming change and bottlenecks, and improving the performance of organisations, through a combination of SF and CF (Solutions and Constraints Focus), having known and applied both for decades.
I will provide some input of “maps” for the “territories” of SF and CF. You will have ample opportunity to explore, reflect, and apply this, in small groups, to your personal experience, in your respective coaching and consulting environments
Warning: This combined approach may help change and improve your own performance in significant ways.
If you dare, don’t mind, or even welcome that risk, then come in and enjoy!
Format: Presentation & Workshop
Level: Intermediate/Advanced
No maximum number of attendees
