Progress-focused

© 2004, Coert Visser Amsterdam, May 12, 2004 - There is probably not a single person more important to the invention and development of the solution-focused practice than Insoo Kim Berg. This fragile American lady from Korean origin has a gigantic reputation. She is one of the most important inspirators of nearly all of the solution-focused consultants I know. Together with her partner Steve De Shazer, she developed solution-focused brief therapy. Currently, she often travels the world doing consultancy and training people. Last year, she did a workshop in our Dutch training program for consultants and coaches. This year, I met her in an Amsterdam hotel and we had this conversation by the fireplace.

By Coert Visser Dr. Keith Stanovich, Professor of Human Development and Applied Psychology of the University of Toronto, is a leading expert on the psychology of reading and on rationality. His latest book, What Intelligence Tests Miss: The Psychology of Rational Thought , shows that IQ tests are very incomplete measures of cognitive functioning. These tests fail to assess rational thinking styles and skills which are nevertheless crucial to real-world behavior. In this interview with Keith Stanovich he explains the difference between IQ and rationality and why rationality is so important. Also he shares his views on how rationality can be enhanced.

By Coert Visser (2009) Eve Lipchik was one of the original core members of the Brief Family Therapy Center in Milwaukee, which created solution-focused therapy in the beginning of the l980's. She worked at the BFTC until l988, when she cofounded ICF Consultants. She is the author of the book Beyond Techniques in Solution-Focused Therapy: Working with Emotions and the Therapeutic Relationship and numerous chapters and articles. In this interview she looks back on the time the solution-focused approach was developed and she shares her memories of the process of developing the approach and of the people involved. She tells about the essential shift the team made from gathering information about the problem to focusing on constructing solutions with clients. Also, she reflects on recent developments and she explains the importance of describing the approach as encompassing both philosophy and techniques. Finally, she tells about some of her current interests and activities. Coert...

I am now reading an interesting book titled What Intelligence Tests Miss: The Psychology of Rational Thought by Keith E. Stanovich . The book is about the fact that IQ tests are incomplete measures of cognitive functioning. There is, as studies have show, in fact only a low to medium correlation between rational thinking skills and IQ test performance. And because rational thinking skills and IQ are largely independent it is not surprising that intelligent people can easily behave irrationally and hold false and unsupported beliefs. Several things are really interesting about this book. One is the authors insight that we do not need to stretch to non-cognitive domains (to notions as emotional intelligence or social intelligence) to see the lacunae in IQ tests. Another is the very specific and research based analysis of the topic matter. The author presents an elegant and rather comprehensive model of cognitive functioning in which three types of major thinking processes and their...

When I first heard about Barack Obama's book The Audacity of Hope: Thoughts on Reclaiming the American Dream (Vintage) , a few years ago, I had never heard of Obama and thought the book was a new self-help book and Obama was some new guru. Well, I don't have to explain that was not entirely right. Only now have I read the book and I like it. Let me not provide a conventional review the book here. I am not sure I can add much to the 743 reviews here . Instead, let me share with you 10 quotes from the book which I found appealing. So here we go.

There is a new book called The Cult of Statistical Significance by Stephen T. Ziliak and Deirdre N. McCloskey which seems to be an important one to me. The book shows how many scientific disciplines rely way too much on the concept of statistical significance. I have read the book and I find it convincing. The authors show how the focus on statistical significance has taken away attention for 'real' significance. In other words: the focus on statistical significance often means that researchers fail to ask whether their findings matter. In statistics, a result is called statistically significant if it is unlikely to have occurred by chance. So testing for statistical significance is asking the question how likely it is that an effect exists. It tries to answer that question by looking at how precisely the effect can be measured. It does not answer at all how strong and important this effect is. And this latter question about the effect size is much more important from a sc...

The Growth Mindset © 2006, Coert Visser Carol Dweck is a professor of Psychology at Stanford University. She is a leading expert in the field of human motivation and intelligence and through the years she has developed an extensive body of theory and research. This year, she has published a remarkable book called Mindset: The New Psychology of Success . The book is a true gem, not only because of the clarity of the writing and structure but also, and foremost, because of its important and useful message. This message is that the way you view your own intelligence largely determines how it will develop. In this interview I ask Carol Dweck about the book and about what the practical implications of her work are for managers. I’d like to start off with a question about the intriguing title of your new book ‘Mindset: The New Psychology of Success’. Can you explain what the importance of mindset is for success?