In this rich and thought-provoking episode, we sit down with Elvira Kalmar, founder of the Go Beyond Project and a solution-focused organisation development and design consultant, to explore what happens when a solution-focused mindset meets the messy, complex work of transforming organisations.
Elvira has spent over 20 years working in and with organisations, and around 15 years ago discovered Solution Focus through a team coaching course with the Hungarian Solution Surfers. From that first moment, she started experimenting with taking the approach beyond individual and team coaching and into whole-company change, eventually leaving the corporate world to become an external consultant. She is now the author of the two-book Go Beyond: Solution-Focused Pocket Mentor for Work Evolutionists series, and runs the internationally accredited Native in Change course through the Go Beyond Project, teaching solution-focused organisation development and design in English, German and Hungarian.
In this conversation we explore:
- Why the solution-focused approach is "mind-blowingly different" for organisational change, and why so many transformations fail because they spend all their time diagnosing the problem instead of co-creating the preferred future
- The five parallel realities at play in every organisation - formal, informal, value-creating, legal and digital - and why so many change efforts fail because they try to solve every problem in the wrong one
- Why Elvira prefers the word "evolution" to "transformation," and how small, confidence-building steps compound into much bigger change than one big forced leap
- The four-part "calibration meeting" Elvira uses with teams: acknowledging what's been achieved, acknowledging individual contribution, a solution-focused stop/start/continue, and agreeing the next deliverables
- Why AI can only ever be as good as the notes and data you feed it, and what gets lost when you skip the human noticing
A simple tool you can try tomorrow: asking what your customers or clients would notice before asking what needs to change
This is a conversation about trust, permission, and the small experiments that add up to real evolution, whether you're leading a team of five or trying to shift an entire organisation.
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Show Notes Resources
Elvira's Books
Go Beyond: Solution-Focused Pocket Mentor for Work Evolutionists, Book 1: Start Transformations Today by Elvira Kalmar (SolutionSurfers)
Go Beyond: Solution-Focused Pocket Mentor for Work Evolutionists, Book 2: Support the Evolution of Complex Systems by Elvira Kalmar (SolutionSurfers)
Both books, reviews, and ordering info: gobeyond-project.com/resources/book
The Go Beyond Project
Courses, consultancy and mentoring with Elvira and her trained team: gobeyond-project.com
Native in Change
Elvira's internationally accredited Solution-Focused Organisation Development and Design course, run in English, German and Hungarian: gobeyond-project.com/native-in-change
Go Beyond Consultancy
Book a free mentoring session with one of Elvira's trained consultants: gobeyond-project.com/consultancy
Connect with Elvira
LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/elvira-kalmár-5b74661a
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