"Learning from our own diversity"

Biba Rebolj

Introduced by Lilian Ing

I love experiencing and working with people from different cultures, and this is what attracted me to this online workshop. I was not disappointed: 22 cultures were present at the meeting, bringing not only their wealth of diversity but also the common ground of being SF Practitioners. SF group learning is always fun, vibey, collaborative and light, and this session was no exception!

Who is Biba?

Biba is an SF Practitioner who works internationally with groups of people from different countries and cultures. Hence she is uniquely placed to facilitate learning about this topic.

What will you find in this video?

1. The video is an online workshop in which Biba shared her ideas, thoughts and experiences, in a fun and collaborative way. For example, the behavioural etiquette for sneezing in different cultures, and your cultural expectation when you start a conversation; both enable us to learn about others' cultures, differences and similarities.
2. Biba shares from her rich storehouse of experience, how she has handled diversity as an SF practitioner. For example, her work with differently-abled people, and the Slovenian government learning how to resolve conflict. Or her own experience in India making sense of the traffic rules, or learning to connect with the English by talking about the weather. The learning that emerges is:
   • Observe what is, and let go of what we think should be
   • Look for what is and join with that - a very solution-focused stance.
   • How we need to develop a joint project/platform that we can help the client work on
   • SF questions we can ask to help us to arrive at a common project
   • The importance of us being creative and doing something different if an approach does not work.
   • Find a way to accept the client’s views
   • Ask those SF questions that allow the clients to leverage their expertise,
   • Adopt the ’not-knowing position as the SF Practitioner, and enable the client to teach us what we need to know, to help them achieve their desired outcomes
   • Use the clients’ language and vocabulary
   • Look for opportunities to embed our SF Questions in the discourse with the client, to shift them from a problem focus to a solution focus.

   Watching this video should persuade you that the Solution Focus approach can work in any setting where you want to bring hope. And who doesn’t at these times?! Try it.

   SFiO · SF in different cultural contexts - Biba Rebolj