Self-Awareness – One of Our Greatest Strengths

Two weeks ago, the international alumni group of solution-focused organisational design experts at Go Beyond Project came together. Thanks for bringing this gathering alive, Elvira Kalmár and Peter Mueller!

Irene Rossi asked the group I was in for a session, to put together one sentence, which can explain what solution focus is, and the value it brings, to someone who has never experienced it.

 
She needed just one sentence. We came up with many creative ideas and finally found a sentence, but from that conversation, Tanja Tomanik shared an even greater idea: let's create a solution-focused Advent Calendar, with one question or message for each day.

💖What I love most about the solution-focused approach is how even small questions can gently shift our thinking in a stronger, more conscious direction - whether we talk about an organisation, a team, or individual leadership.

So I went ahead and created my calendar. Every day I'll bring two solution-focused questions or messages - one for organisations and one for individuals.

Today's solution-focused questions were inspired by my programme earlier today.

I spent the morning at a career orientation day at my former high school, the Deák Téri Evangelikus Gimnázium, where I shared the story and learnings of my career path and brought the students a few tools and perspectives for career choices and the world of work.

Wherever we are headed, and wherever we currently stand, one of our strongest resource we can rely on is — both at organisational and individual level — our self-awareness: knowing and living by our values, knowing and "using" our drivers, motivators, passions, interests, competencies, working mechanisms.
So it naturally became the topic for the first window in the calendar:

🎁 Solution-focused question and excercise for organisation

❓Which of your values showed up most clearly in the past week?

💡Excercise
1️⃣ Write down 3 specific situations where it was visible.

2️⃣ What could you do from tomorrow to build on this more intentionally?

3️⃣ Identify one small step that would further strengthen the existence of this value next week.

🎁Solution-focused question & excercise for individuals

❓Which of your personal passion, interest, or favourite activity helped you recharge today and enabled you to bring energy into your work or life?

💡Excercise

1️⃣Note down what gave you eneregy today? How? Under what circumstaneces?

2️⃣How could you repeat or amplify this tomorrow — or sometime this week? Think about it and make a plan. 

I hope today's question gives you a small boost — and tomorrow I bring a new one to explore.