Many of the people I counseled would ask what they could do if they got stuck, again. They wanted to know if there was something they could do on their own instead of coming back to counseling. They asked me to give them some background on how I was able to help them resolve their conflicts and provide them with a step-by-step guide to repair their relationships again. This book is the response to that request. The book is based on the ZG method which I used in counseling for over ten years. This isn't a book of helpful hints from some expert; rather it promotes change by asking future-oriented questions so the participants can find their own solutions. Following this method is as simple as following the script with over thirty sample questions to choose from. Directions are given on what to say and what not to say. Other parts of the book stress how to stay positive and utilize a person's strengths through the whole process. The theory behind the ZG method is discussed and the actual mechanics of the method are explained in great detail. The book talks about positive change and how to bring it about, using many examples. It explains in great detail, using a step-by-step format, how to use the ZG method at home and in the workplace to resolve conflicts. Another advantage of using this method is that it doesn't go to the past and revisit past hurts, so it isn't a painful experience. Whether you need to work on your own relationships or you would like to help someone else with relationship conflicts, this book is very helpful.

Better than a Stick in the Eye

A Method for Resolving Conflicts and Bringing about Changes in Marriages, Families, and the WorkplaceBy Ziba Graham, Jr.

AuthorHouse

Copyright © 2009 Ziba Graham, Jr.
All right reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-4389-8688-3

Contents

Acknowledgments.........................................................................................viiPreface.................................................................................................ixChapter 1: My Story.....................................................................................1Chapter 2: An Interactive Together-Help Book............................................................9Chapter 3: The ZG Method................................................................................12Chapter 4: Understanding the ZG Method..................................................................14A New Way of Thinking...................................................................................14Find the Solution.......................................................................................26Go to the Future and Envision...........................................................................30Ask the Right Questions.................................................................................33The Solution Is in People...............................................................................38Chapter 5: Laying the Groundwork for Success............................................................40Be Willing to Change Yourself...........................................................................40Be Aware that People Don't Usually Resist Change........................................................42Be Ready to Accept the Changes in Others................................................................44Be Principled in Your Change Process....................................................................47Chapter 6: Sample Questions.............................................................................48Scaling Questions.......................................................................................49Miracle Questions.......................................................................................56Other Questions.........................................................................................61Summary.................................................................................................70Chapter 7: How to Use the ZG Method at Home to Resolve Conflicts........................................72Chapter 8: How to Use the ZG Method at Work to Resolve Conflicts........................................87Chapter 9: Maintaining the Change.......................................................................107Persist in the Change...................................................................................107Stay Positive, Focus on the Future, and Emphasize Strengths.............................................110Visualize the Person as Having Already Changed..........................................................112Chapter 10: Tough Cases.................................................................................116Chapter 11: Conclusion..................................................................................119Appendix I: Scaling Questions...........................................................................122Appendix II: Scaling Questions Answer Sheet For Bob and Sue.............................................123Appendix III: Sample Questions for Use at Home..........................................................128Appendix IV: Typical Marriage Session with Bob and Sue Using the ZG Method..............................131Appendix V: Questions for Use at Work...................................................................154Appendix VI: Typical Workplace Questionnaire and Summary Report Using the ZG Method.....................156Appendix VII: Questions for Workplace Teams.............................................................162

Chapter One

My Story

My story starts with a big change-a career change that I had been thinking about for quite some time. My work life had consisted of three years in the navy, mostly at sea; a master of business administration degree; and twenty-five years' experience running a family agricultural business in southwestern Indiana. At age fifty, I decided to leave the family business, go back to school, and get a master's degree in social work (MSW). It just seemed that everything came together so I had the time to pursue this change. Our three children were just finishing college, my wife Cathy was a junior college professor, and a succession plan was in place at the family business.

When I was in college and graduate school, I had focused on business classes and had no time for electives outside of the business school. Even though I always had an interest in taking some sociology and psychology courses, I never could because of my full schedule. Thus I was looking forward to trying a new field. I enrolled in a special program where I could take classes two full days per week, including nights. At the end of a year and a half, I received my MSW. After graduating, I worked for a social services agency for three years and then on my own as an independent counselor for seven years.

When I was planning my career change, I always thought I wanted to do mostly counseling, but after my first few counseling sessions, I became very disillusioned. I started out counseling the way I was taught. Basically it goes like this: The client comes in; the counselor says, "Tell me what is happening in your life"; the client talks for fifty minutes, sometimes nonstop; and then the counselor schedules another appointment. Over the course of many appointments, the counselor tries to listen, makes appropriate suggestions, and asks questions to help the client change. The clients keep coming back because somehow they think they feel better for having told their story to an impartial listener.

The first thing I discovered was that just telling their story didn't help clients to resolve their conflicts or change their lives. In fact, it seemed that telling about their broken relationships and all the other bad things in their lives created a barrier to their changing. It was almost as if they were giving themselves permission to be dysfunctional because of their terrible life history. For me, as a counselor who believed in positive change, this was a very sad experience.

Often, I would have clients, who were very successful professionals, come in for counseling because their marriage or other family relationships weren't working. They would come in with a hopeful, self-assured manner, but they would go out after fifty minutes looking sad and defeated because of the stress of reliving the tragic events in their lives. This scenario would play out over and over. After a few months of listening to all these tales of woe and seeing very little change, I began thinking I had made a big mistake in becoming a mental health counselor. The work was taking a heavy mental toll on me personally. Listening to people spill out all the bad stuff that ever happened to them, for hour after hour five days a week, was getting me down. It was endless, and my clients didn't change to make their relationships better, but they seemed to be getting worse. Just having a professional counselor listen to their stories seemed to reinforce their attitude of unwilling victim.

Not only was this a downer for me as someone who became a counselor to help people, but I found that they were becoming dependent on me. I was being asked to judge things the client said, such as "Should I put up with that?" "Shouldn't I have a life, too?" "What should I do when he says [this]?" "Should I confront her?" "How should I do that?" I discovered that clients have a tendency to become dependent on their counselor. This is why most counselors have an unlisted home telephone number.

There is nothing worse than for a counselor to get a phone call from a client who is in the middle of an argument with his spouse, asking what he should say next. This dependency can get bad enough that the client can't make the simplest decision without checking with his counselor. I once met a man who had been in marriage counseling for four years-with a standing appointment every Wednesday. I wondered to myself if he would continue going to any other helping professional for help for four years. If your medical doctor treated you once a week for two or three months and you weren't getting better, you would probably leave and try someone else.

Faced with this disappointing start to my counseling career, I knew I had to change my counseling methods or get out of the field altogether. Since this traditional method wasn't working, I started looking for a method that really worked. My previous professional experience had been focused on making things work. In the military, in business school, and in the agricultural business, I was constantly solving problems to help make things work better, cheaper, and faster.

Farmers, in particular, are very inventive and are quick to incorporate new ideas and products into their operations to make them work more efficiently. They have to be as efficient as possible because, as my grandfather used to say, "Farming is tough because farmers buy all their inputs at retail and sell their products at wholesale." Farmers also share any new innovations very freely with each other. This willingness to help a neighbor become more efficient is in great part because they aren't in competition with each other. If a nearby farmer produces an extra ten bushels more than you do, it doesn't affect the price you receive for your grain. After having spent about twenty-five years in many different aspects of the agricultural business, I was definitely in the "Do what works" mode-or "Keep trying different things until it does work" or "If it doesn't work, stop trying it and do something else" mode.

My counseling practice served the "worried well." The focus was on people who were mentally healthy but who were impacted by stressful life events and experiencing relationship difficulties within their marriage, family, or professional life. Since what I had been doing wasn't producing positive change in my clients, I determined what outcomes I wanted and then tried to devise a method of therapy that would produce these outcomes.

For starters, I wanted a way to measure outcomes so that both counselor and client could track the progress that the client was making. I also wanted a method that was positive and concentrated on the future instead of the past. This method also had to provide answers to problems instead of creating more problems and needed to bring results quickly because my clients couldn't afford the time or money for long-term therapy. This method needed to be structured and directed by the counselor, but the ideas for change should come from the clients. And finally, this method must result in both cognitive and behavioral changes and needed to produce independence for the client instead of a dependency on the counselor.

I found a lot of helpful tools in the work of Steve de Shazer, Insoo Kim Berg, and their colleagues at the Brief Family Therapy Center in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. In the creation of the solution-focused brief therapy approach during the 1980s, Shazer, Berg, and their team developed several ground-breaking therapeutic tools, such as the miracle question, scaling questions, and more.

After experimenting with various counseling tools, including parts of solution-focused brief therapy, I developed a way of approaching counseling that seemed to produce most of the outcomes that I wanted. I call this counseling approach the ZG method, and when I used it, I started to see real change in my clients. Many of the tools used to execute the method are borrowed from other successful therapies, bringing together the best techniques. The ZG method is a way of resolving interpersonal conflicts by helping to bring about changes in people and better their relationships.

Using the ZG method, most worried-well clients reported that their relationship conflicts diminished in severity after just two or three sessions, and usually after five sessions, they didn't need regular appointments anymore. By focusing on small, easily made adjustments that produce enormous differences in a rippling effect, the client can start to see change quickly.

In order to measure outcomes, the ZG method uses self-reporting scales similar to the ones used in hospitals to communicate the severity of pain. Scaling questions use answers on a scale from one to ten, with the initial rating not as important as the direction and amount of change over time.

The ZG method focuses on answers, not on problems. Instead of spending time discussing what the problem is or might be, the concentration is on the solutions that can be implemented so that the problems are solved or diminished. Focusing on answers helps to eliminate blame and creates a positive outlook.

The ZG method also encourages the client to look to the future and envision how it will be when the problems are solved or become manageable. Rather than focusing on the past and rehashing old problems, clients can look to the future and adjust their life to how they want it to be. The past is not the future, so why dwell on it?

Pushing faults and weaknesses aside, the ZG method stresses each person's unique strengths and gifts. People are helped to discover the areas where they excel and are encouraged to steer their energies in that direction.

The ZG method is positive, focuses on the future, and encourages the client's independence rather than dependence on the counselor.

What a difference using this type of therapy made in my counseling life! Clients were upbeat and positive about where they were going instead of depressed about where they had been. And best of all, they could usually see real progress immediately, even after the first session. People were really changing and developing better relationships. They were becoming happy in their marriage again, and families were coming back together.

One big change for me, however, was that I kept getting the pink slip! Over and over, at the end of the third or fourth session, the person or couple I was counseling would say, "We seem to be getting along well enough that we don't need your services anymore." It was a great day for me when I got fired. I decided early on that I would try to help all clients resolve their difficulties as quickly as possible so they could become independent, fully functioning people again, and to see that happening was terrific.

With most of my individual clients getting better and not needing counseling anymore, I decided to try these counseling techniques in the workplace. Having been in the business world for twenty-five years, I knew that many times businesses are severely hampered by interpersonal conflicts. Like most business leaders, I somehow got through four years of business in college and a master's program but was never really taught how to solve interpersonal issues. We talked a lot about leadership and read all the books and essays, but we never really learned what to do when two vice presidents won't talk to each other or the bookkeeper won't accept the new person who was hired to do accounts payable.

Learning how to solve interpersonal conflicts in the workplace becomes more important the further up you go in the organization. And when you get to the top, your whole day is spent getting people to collaborate. All the technical expertise a person used to get up the ladder is now performed by someone else, and what remains is to figure out how to get Charlie and Debbie to work together.

When I applied this same ZG method in the workplace, I got similar results. People were able to get over their petty animosities and really work together. The setting would sometimes be different-mostly groups instead of one on one-but the results were excellent. I discovered that what works in marriages and families also works in businesses, factories, and institutions because, essentially, they are all the same-groups of people working together to get something done. They are all people with interpersonal conflicts, and they all need to mend their relationships.

When I retired from counseling, I wanted a way to share the ZG method with other people so they could use it in resolving their own conflicts and mending their own relationships. This book is the result of that desire to help people and share the accumulated wisdom of ten years talking to couples, families, bosses, and employees. The ZG method is a resource that is easy to learn and apply. It works quickly and effectively to bring people together and doesn't harm anyone. Most importantly, it helps people change for the better by allowing them to have control over the process and the solution. You will learn what to say, what not to say, and how to get unstuck, but discipline will be required to stay with this method and not slip back into old problem-blaming habits. What I have to offer you is hope-the hope and the possibility that things are going to get better when you use the ZG method. Having people use this method successfully to enhance their lives would complete this journey for me, which began fifteen years ago with my own change.

Chapter Two

An Interactive Together-Help Book

Relationships are important. Throughout human history, people have realized that much more can be accomplished by working together than by working alone. The need for good working relationships became obvious to even our earliest ancestors. Human culture is built on relationships, because it is only by working together that a civilization can advance. As the world becomes more advanced, relationships become even more important, and they are always changing because the people are changing. That is why this isn't a "self-help" book, but rather a "together-help" book. In relationships, it is impossible to have only one person change. When one person changes, the relationship changes, and therefore the other person must change, too.

People get sick, go to school, change jobs, have children, get married, get old, and move away. Each time, their relationships change. One of the main reasons married couples came to see me for counseling was that through many years of change, they had simply drifted apart. This continual change is why relationships must be constantly tended and why it is very important to maintain good relationships, especially the high-stakes ones, such as marriages, families, and work. In order to be successful in life, you have to promote and maintain good, healthy relationships, but when a relationship stretches and strains over time, sometimes you are not sure how to get it back on track. This book is about helping relationships change for the better. Learning better relationship skills might be one of the most important things you do in your life!

As you read through this book, you will learn about the ZG method and how it is used to bring about change and resolve conflicts. You will learn the rationale behind the method so you can understand what is happening and why it works. You will also learn to demystify the process of change by realizing that much change is simply rediscovering what you already know. In addition, you will learn how to identify and let go of bad habits that are harming your relationships.

I once was counseling a man who was having marriage difficulties. When I suggested some things he might do to help make his marriage better, he replied, "I'm not going to do that because that is what she wants me to do." Obviously, he had a bad habit of simply resisting everything she wanted him to do.

(Continues...)

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