Transcript No Slide Title

Appreciative Inquiry
Finding our Positive Core
A strength based approach to just
about anything
Ann Brown, MA
LearningAdvance
Connecting the knowledge in the organization: people, process & information
Appreciate Inquiry
Finding and Building on our Positive Core
– What is Ai: Power of the Question and the
Power of the Image
– An Ai experience
– The Ai Process
– Appreciative Quality Practices
– Foundations of Ai
What Do You Appreciate?
Tell your “best buddy” about
something you appreciate in
your life.
New Challenges Require
New Thinking First
“The
world we have made as a
result of the level of thinking we
have done thus far creates problems
we cannot solve at the same level of
thinking at which we created them”
–
Albert Einstein
Definition of Insanity
Doing the same things
the same way and
expecting a different
result
The Power of the Question
“It all starts with Inquiry…the questions
we ask, the things we focus on, the
topics that we choose determine what
we find. What we find becomes the data
and the story out of which we dialogue
about and envision the future. And so,
the seeds of change are implicit in the
very first question we ask.”
Cooperrider, 1995
The Power of the Question
• We get what we pay attention to,
so the first question is fateful
• Measurements – another way of
asking questions?
The Power of the
Image
Our image of the
future drives our
ACTION!
Pygmalion Effect
Change a teacher’s image of a
student, and their behavior
changes
Internal Conversations
toward the student, improving
student performance
Studies of pre and post operative
patients. Difference in recovery
Sports
between positive and negative
Vivid visualization of one’s
imagery.
performance guides physical
performance. Speed of learning when
Placebo Effect
only correct images are reviewed. Construct an image of how
something might happen,
drives behavior which
Sociology
The study of problems creates an creates a change in that
direction
increase in number & severity of
problems..
The Three Ages
What did you see?
Another Look
Creating the Dominant
Image
Assumption
Conversation
Challenge
and
examination
Dominant Image
Exclusion
Reinforced
Assumption
The Positive Core
• The Positive Core is all the capacities of the
organization – past, present and future.
• Organizations are homes of infinite capacity
and imagination
“The task of leadership is to create an alignment of
strengths, making the organization’s weaknesses
irrelevant”
Peter Drucker
Comparison to Problem
Focus
Problem Solving
• What to fix
• Underlying grammar =
problem, symptoms, causes,
solutions, action plan,
intervention
• Breaks things into pieces &
specialties, guaranteeing
fragmented responses
• Takes a lot of positive emotion
to make real change
• Assumes organizations are
constellations of problems to
be overcome
Appreciative Inquiry
• What to grow
• New grammar of the true,
good, better, possible
• “Problem focus” implies
that there is an unknown
ideal. AI breaks open the
box of what the ideal is first
• Expands vision of preferred
future. Creates new energy
fast
• Assumes organizations are
sources of infinite capacity
and imagination
Transformative Change in
Organizations
The Power of the
Question
+
The Power of the Image
= AI in organizational
What is Appreciative
Inquiry?
It is a philosophy, and
mind set and an evolving
process that asks:
Who are we when
we are at our very
best?
A Brief Appreciative Inquiry
• Tell me about a peak experience
with a quality initiative, big or
small. What was happening, who
was involved, what was your role?
• What gave the experience it’s core
energy for you?
• What do you value about yourself
and your participation ?
Appreciative Inquiry
• Appreciate
– Recognize the quality, significance or
magnitude of
– To be fully aware of or sensitive to
– To raise in value or price
• Inquiry
– The process of gathering information for the
purpose of learning and changing.
– A close examination in a quest for truth.
The “5 D” Process
Define the intent
Frame the question
Identify the core team
Plan the approach
Develop the interview
protocol
Conduct interviews
Share stories
Highlight the themes
Define:
Choosing
the Positive
Discovery:
Appreciating
that which
gives life
Continuing the inquiry with
micro AIs into aspects of
Delivery:
the change
Sustaining
the Change.
Provocative propositions of
what could be
Vision, mission, purpose and
values
Dream:
Envisioning the
Impact; shared
images for a
preferred
future
Design:
Coconstructin
Micro propositions
g the
Build the social
future
architecture
Continue the conversations
Create action plans
Repeat the AI processes
Take action on the plans and monitor progress
AI Foundations
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
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In every human system, something works.
What we focus on becomes our reality.
Reality is created in the moment and there are
multiple realities.
The act of asking questions influences the group
in some way.
People have more confidence & comfort to move
to an unknown future when they carry forward
parts of the past.
What we carry forward should be what is best
about the past.
It is important to value differences
The language we use create our reality
Appreciative Practice
Bringing an
appreciative
approach to
what we do
Fishbone for Classroom
Behaviour
People
Materials
Eliminate
behaviour
problems
Environment
Instructional
Methods
Fishbone for Good classroom
Behaviour
People
No karate or
Play fighting
Keep your hands
And feet to yourself
Work quietly
Garbage in
The can
Environment
Marilyn Redmond, Roland Michener, Ottawa
Materials
Be nice to
Keep things sorted
Each other
Don’t take other
People’s things
Good
Classroom
Behaviour
Do not touch
Paper cutter
Don’t touch
Do not go near
Teacher’s things
The fan
Instructional
Methods
Appreciative Practice
• How could an appreciative
approach be applied to your
function in the organization?
• What benefits might you
expect to see?
Users of Appreciative
Inquiry
• Dalai Lama and 20
World Religious
Leaders
• City of Chicago
• City of Dallas
• South Carolina
• United Way - Denver
• Motorola
• AVON
• Paine Webber
• GTE
• Body Works
• Hunter Douglas
• Nutrimental Foods
Carol Sutton,
Communications
• I think it makes several differences. One that
delights me is the look of surprise on people's
faces when asked to think of something
"good", rather than a problem. I get a real
kick out of that!
• Taking an AI approach to the initial exercise in
my workshop ("Not by words alone!") enables
participants to reframe their attitude toward
workplace communication into a positive
perspective. It takes us toward what we want,
rather than pondering how to fix what we
don't want. There also is personal benefit in
that I feel the AI focus lifts my energy and
revitalizes my facilitation of the session.
Thomas White, President
GTE
• In the long run, what is likely to be more
useful: Demoralizing a successful workforce
by concentrating on their failures or helping
them over their last few hurdles by building a
bridge with their successes?
• When you get survey results that tell you that 94
percent of your customers are satisfied, what do you
do? Do you conduct additional research to find out
what makes those 94 out of 100 people so happy –
or do you send your entire research department out
to gather as many negative stories as you can from
the miserable 6 percent? “
Things that make you
go….hmmmm
What is Quality?
In simple terms is quality the…
• Absence of problems
• Presence of something else?
AI Resources
Books
• Appreciative Inquiry:Change at the Speed of Imagination,
Jane Magruder Watkins & Bernard J. Mohr, 2001, JoseyBass/Pfeiffer
• The Power of Appreciative Inquiry, Diana Whitney and Amanda
Bloom
• The Encyclopedia of Positive Questions, Whitney, Cooperrider
et al.
Links
• AI Commons ai.cwru.edu
• Writes of Passage www.learningadvance.blogspot.com
Workshops
• In Vancouver and Fraser Valley – AI Introductory ½ day in
January/February
• AI Virtual Group starting in April
• AI Intensive, Vancouver 2 day March 2005
• AI Group - Langara - ongoing
Our Inquiry Must Be the
Change We Want to See in
the World
There are two ways to live your
life. One is as though nothing is
a miracle. The other is as
though everything is a miracle.
-Albert Einstein
LearningAdvance
Connecting the knowledge in the organization: people, process & information
Email: [email protected]
Tel: 604 921 1135
Please get in touch if I can help you with your
appreciative process.
Let me know how you are applying your appreciative
thinking and how it works out!
If you have a question or need a quick review of
your inquiry question or “plan of attack”, email it to
me and I would be happy to take a look.
Ann