What's working well?

How often do you take the opportunity to reflect on “What’s working well?” around you - in your life or at work? To truly take stock, explore deeply and make the most of that part of your reality? 
This powerful question is the focus of this episode in which I am sharing the value of shining the light on areas of our lives and work that are typically ignored or taken for granted. At best, they might be acknowledged but not truly valued, inquired into and actively used. I hope you enjoy this special “treasure hunt”!

Transcript

Welcome to the fourth episode of the powerful questions podcast. My name is David Shaked and today, just like in previous episodes, I will introduce and talk about a new powerful question. This time, we’ll take a look at: “What’s working well?”

Let me start by posing this question to you… what is working well in your life and in your work, right now? What are you pleased about? What aspects of your life or work are you enjoying or finding joyful, fulfilling, satisfying – perhaps even exciting?  What, exactly, is working well about these aspects? How have they evolved over time to be so good? What did you do to help this evolution?

I’ll pause here for a few seconds to let you think about it! 

Let’s carry on now but if you need more time to reflect, feel free to pause and continue reflecting about the parts in your life that are working well.

How easy did you find it to respond to these questions? What impact did the questions, and perhaps the responses that came to mind, have on you?

There’s a good chance that you were surprised by the questions and perhaps struggled to come up with answers. That is a very common reaction. However, given time, most of you would eventually find some aspects, perhaps small, perhaps more significant, in your life or work that are working well and worth acknowledging and celebrating!

Each day we are bombarded by bad news from the media or the people we come in contact with around us. The news reports always tell us, in detail, about what’s not right with the world. Our team members moan about a challenge they are facing, maybe a client complaining about poor performance or a colleague that isn’t communicating clearly … Even family members or friends might share their current struggles with us when we catch up with them. Does this sound familiar? 

How often do we take the time to look for what’s working well? And I mean to REALLY look for and at it, not just briefly acknowledge its existence, but truly appreciate, validate and celebrate it? Are we doing justice to what’s working well in our life by giving it such little attention or interest? Are we doing justice to ourselves?

What could happen if we regularly gave the same time and space and applied the same rigour or expertise to analysing what is working well as we do to what isn’t?  Why is it not happening naturally? 

In fact, most of us have been conditioned to focus on what isn’t working – by our upbringing, the education system we experienced early in life, the skills we have acquired professionally, the responsibilities that have come our way, and the feedback we receive and give now. We have learned to believe that focusing on what isn’t working is helpful, that it can let us improve or fix situations, overcome challenges, become better or stronger. 

In fact, the reality might be very different. Focusing on what isn’t working might be helpful at times but, more often than not, it saps our energy and motivation or reduces the speed of the progress we make. But we still follow this line of inquiry, mostly out of habit and because it is so common – we experience those around us focusing on what isn’t working well. 

By the way, some of us call this part of our reality a challenge, an issue, a weakness or a problem. Others try to put a positive spin and might call it “an opportunity for improvement” or “an area for development”. In either case, we pay far too much time and attention focusing there. We acknowledge, validate and try to understand in detail as well as attempt to resolve what isn’t working. 

So, many of us believe this scrutiny of what isn’t working well is useful. But, as I said earlier, it can sap our energy and slow our progress. Moreover, it deprives us of noticing so many other opportunities for positive change and further progress. What we focus on blossoms and takes shape   in our mind. We very quickly discover more and more things that aren’t working, which generates a sense of helplessness. 

In comparison, the benefits of taking the other approach – focusing on what is working – is remarkably different – provided you give it time and attention, and don’t just acknowledge in passing the things that are working. Ask yourself:

how come they are working?

What helped create the conditions for the positive outcomes?

How did you contribute to them? 

Who else contributed?

And… what more could you do, now that you are more aware of it? 

Noticing what things are working and actively inquiring into why they are working so well can create more of these experiences and offer us surprising solutions to address areas that perhaps aren’t working as well.  

To be able to consider what is working well in our lives, we need to train our eyes, our minds and our ears to notice what is working well. Often what is working well can’t be seen clearly, or the volume of the voices pointing it out seems muted. If you are more used to noticing what isn’t working well, I recommend creating some space for yourself at first, through either simple mindfulness exercises, taking time to do something you truly enjoy or simply taking a few deep breaths. Then you can take the next step of reflecting by posing the question “what is working well in my life or work”. Create a list of all the things that come to mind, in no particular order. If you run out of ideas, try asking yourself “what else is working well in my life?” and continue capturing the answers. 

If you wish to pose this question to others, a useful approach is to start with an assumption that something is indeed working well for the person or the people you are asking this question – no matter if it is something small or something more important to them.  If you hold onto that assumption, you are more likely to generate positive responses to the question – your own confidence that you will be able to find things that are working well will help the people responding to you to switch their own focus and reconnect with the better parts of their lives.  This is particularly important when talking to people who are going through a challenging period. They might initially struggle to find something that is working well. Even if they start by talking about their challenges or negative events in their lives, remember to hold on to your own internal belief that they DO have something to share that is working for them after all. The point here is not to keep them from talking about what isn’t working. It’s to ensure that you create an opportunity to also talk about what IS working.

And let me share with you another technique that can super-charge your quest for what is working well with the people around you.  If you find them so overburdened by the weight of their challenges that asking “what is working well” seems too difficult or perhaps too insensitive in relation to what they are struggling with, give them the time and space they need to talk about their struggles, acknowledge that you’ve heard what they are sharing and their courage or trust in sharing it, and perhaps then ask “Is this problem or challenge present consistently? Are there times when it is NOT present or perhaps present to a lesser degree?” Most of the challenges everyone faces from time to time aren’t present 100% of the time. If we start to pay attention to the moments or times when the challenge does not occur, we may notice ideas about what is actually working well, even if that is only sometimes. I learnt this approach from the practise of Solution Focus Coaching which originated from Solution Focus Brief Therapy. It’s a very useful approach to supporting people in challenging situations.

When I ask these kinds of questions of others, I love watching the moment of realisation on people’s faces and their levels of energy rising.  It is so visible and palpable!  You don’t need to do much other than pose the question with a conviction that something that is working well will be discovered – or perhaps re-discovered. 

It’s also useful to pay attention to the clues that something is working well when you visit or talk to your friends, colleagues or clients.  I say clues because people might mention these things in passing without paying attention, but if you notice them, you can probe further and raise their awareness of these positives. You will be able to see the powerful impact it has on the people you are speaking with, and probably on you too. 

Paying attention to these little clues can also be observational, not only by inquiring and listening. In fact, there is a whole approach to creating change called Positive Deviance – the approach is based on noticing the person or small group of people that are doing something different, often better, to what everyone else is doing when struggling with a big challenge. It can work with small or large teams, whole organisations and even communities. When we pay attention to what works well in those situations, the paths to solving the problems faced by those groups becomes a lot clearer and more feasible. 

So, what do you think? Are you inspired to reflect and inquire into what is working well in your life or work? Would you like to start with yourself or with others around you? Either way, it would be a great way to experience for yourself the power of this simple question! 

Good luck with your treasure hunt for the things that are working around you!