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Leadership Coaching Tip: The Issue Buster

Steven Saunders

Steven SaundersTHE ISSUE BUSTER is a powerful tool for working with both problems and goals:

All decision-making and innovation comes from within human minds. It makes sense to understand how to make the most of our powerful natural resource: the mind! One way this can be done is through using simple patterns of six questions with pauses between these sets of six of questions. These are the stages of an emergent process called “The Issue Buster” that resolves almost any problem or goal into clear understanding! All the questions are asked six or more times.

The questions are repeated as a recursion—not as a repetition. They work with the mind’s natural ability to think about a thought—about a thought—about a thought, to finally escape the perceptual binding of the nearest thoughts about thoughts. Relating this to social systems theory, the three nearest neighbours tend to reinforce a belief, but beyond these the opposite polarity may come to light. Thus, six repetitions helps us to escape the local minimum in the neurology and finds a new perspective. However, don’t analyse this; try it first!

A typical example of the use of this process is to become really clear about a job or task. As achieving such clarity is part of our daily lives the process applies to anything with which one engages. One person doing this had a few others calling him up with jobs fitting his new desire before he had even finished the process. Now that is what one can call magic! It is a bit like before the process all the atoms of a metal are pointing in different directions. Afterward they are aligned and magnetised.

I also recently (a few weeks ago) ran this process with a client who was applying for a top executive job. He went from fearful to positively towards. The next day a new job was offered, far more aligned to his desires, at the same top salary. He now has his perfect job and position to influence the world integrally.

So try this out when faced with your next leadership challenge: Write and draw the goal and everything about it on a large piece of paper (e.g., A1 or several sheets of A1); place it somewhere and then stand or sit in the right place in relation to the goal, and add anything else that needs to go with to the information.

Then, six or more times, ask yourself, “And what else do I know about that?” Then pause and reflect and update any information on the paper.

Then ask, “And what else does that [goal] know?”—six or more times, and pause to reflect.

The next stage, context, uses, “Is there anything else about this?”—also six times and then a pause.

Then the sources and causes are addressed with “And where could this have come from?”

After this, pause and consider what you know now. After this point one can understand the entire system. From this insight one can reconceive a goal or project or negotiation and create a new way ahead.

So, ask, “And now what can happen?”—several times.

And finally, “Is there anything else?”—again, several times.

Notice what has changed in your perception of what you are addressing.

Steven Saundersis Founder and Partner of Holigral International LLP, a leading training and coaching firm based in Glastonbury, UK. The name stands for Holistic & Integral and plays with the words and meaning of the ‘Holy Grail’. Holigral innovated Neuro Linguistics Programming and Coaching from its traditional ‘doing to’ to ‘working with’ the client’s system, and the Holigral Leadership Programme emerged. This programme is best described as a new self empowered operating system for being. Holigral is working with organizations and individuals in Australia, Canada, USA, Holland, India, Portugal, Spain, New Zealand, UK and more. Currently it’s negotiating world-wide marketing rights and the widespread release of the holigral change technology.
For more information please visit: www.holigral.com.
Steven can be reached at steve@holigral.com.