Transform. How We Work

 A SHORT CASE STUDY

As a senior manager, John Brooker. led a team to transfer a multinational call centre operation from London, England to Baltimore in the USA, over a six month period. Needing to to keep the operation live up to the moment of the switch over, he had to keep and motivate staff.

John  invited representatives from HR, call centre management and the call centre agents to a workshop to discuss how the team could best effect the move and keep staff motivated. One question John asked the agents was, “What can we do to keep agents motivated for the next six months and stay with us?”

To be frank, John  had planned for the answer, “Pay us a bonus” or similar. The actual answer was “We would like pot plants on every desk.” John had not planned for that.

They chose their pot plants and put them on every desk the next day. It cost £75 in total.

 All the team stayed to the end, never did ask for a bonus and were, in the words of one team member “more highly motivated than they had ever been.”

John learned a lot about people and transformation  from that project and over time, what he learned developed in to a personal philosophy based on a simple metaphor:

“Treat people involved in transformation as consumers rather than human resources.”

This simple change of metaphor can alter radically how people think when they need to transform individuals, teams and organisations.

In 2004 John discovered the Solutions Focus Approach and realised that there were a lot more people who shared his philosophy. Solutions Focus is an approach to transform individuals, teams and organisations that uses a specific style of questions, tools and principles to encourage, motivate and enrich people. These principles, in John’s words, are:

• Change is constant and should be positioned as motivating, enjoyable and inspiring

• The people influenced by change should help to create the desired future

• People have the internal and external resources to effect change if encouraged to look for them

• To focus on what is working creates more energy for change than a constant focus on problems and can transform people, teams organisations and services faster

• Small steps (or sprint actions) drive momentum to change and can be more efficient than giant leaps when people have to run the operation as well as transform the operation

• Leaders enable and encourage people to transform rather than drive them

John’s bases his work on these principles.

He is  trained and highly experienced in Solutions Focus on an international basis. John uses his 2 / 10 Approach to transform teams, organisations and services, having used it in the UK, Europe, China and other parts of the world.

It is a highly flexible approach that works brilliantly well with people related issues, especially where there are demotivated people, conflicting views, and a lack of direction.

In his organisational career John was a Senior Vice President in Visa International. In his sixteen years there he  conceived and implemented large scale transformation internationally.

Since 2001 he has run Yes! And… facilitating teams internationally to innovate and transform. He is a peer reviewed Full Member and  Board Member of the Association for Solutions Focus Coaching and Training.

John can work with you to understand your situation and use his experience and knowledge to design an intervention with you, whether that is facilitating workshops, consulting or coaching. He has a wide network of experienced international colleagues to work on larger programmes.

If you would like to read  full case study articles on how we conduct workshops with Solutions Focus, please go to Knowledge, “Case Study Articles“, “Using Solutions Focus to…”

If you work in a medium to large organisation and  need to transform individuals, teams or the organisation, ask for our Transform – Initial Questionnaire that will help you think through your requirements.

Contact John Brooker now without obligation:

SPEAK: +44 (0)20 8869 9990

WRITE: Via our Contact Us Page

READ: www.yesand.eu