Transcript Exploring Appreciative Inquiry - re-news

Exploring Appreciative Inquiry
Joan Cheverie
Lauinger Library
Georgetown University
Positive Organizational Scholarship
Washington, DC
November 8-9, 2004
www.libqual.org
Appreciative Inquiry (AI)
• A positive revolution in change.
What is Appreciative Inquiry?
• AI is a methodology that allows leaders to
focus on the positive instead of the
negative.
• Rather than focusing on problems, AI elicits
solutions.
What is Appreciative Inquiry?
• Change Management theory - What
problems are we having?
• Appreciative Inquiry theory - What is
working around here?
Problem Solving Model
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Identify problem
Analyze causes
Brainstorm solutions and analyze
Develop action plans
• Assumption: An organization is a problem to be
solved.
Appreciative Inquiry
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Appreciating and valuing - What is
Envisioning - What might be
Discussing - What should be
Innovating - What will be
• Assumption: An organization is a mystery to be
embraced.
Appreciative Inquiry Model
4-Step Cycle
Discovery
• Strategic Context
• Positive Core
Destiny
Dream
• Structure
• Purpose
• Implement
• Vision
Design
• Relationships & Organization
How To Do It
• Begin with the topic.
– If what we focus on is magnified by our
attention, be sure we are magnifying something
worthy.
• Create the questions to explore the topic.
– Focus on questions that will find out what
works.
The Art of the Question
• What’s the biggest problem around here?
Rather …..
• What possibilities exist that we haven’t
thought about yet?
• What’s the smallest change that could make
the biggest impact?
Basic Elements of the AI
Question
• Positive introduction to the topic.
• Then questions such as:
– Describe peak experience or high point
– Things valued most about the experience
– Image of desired future
What Makes AI Questions
Important?
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Positive language used
Focus attention
Create energy to answer
Opportunity to think creatively
Break automatic thinking about problems
Alter internal dialogue and storytelling
Specific positive future envisioned
How To Do It
• Conduct the inquiry or interview.
• What to do with the information generated.
– Share with larger group to discover common
themes of success.
– An iterative process that takes time.
Next Steps
• Provocative proposition
– Does it stretch, challenge, innovate?
– Grounded in examples?
– Does it bridge the best of “what is” and “what might
be”?
– Is it stated in affirmative, bold terms?
• Provocative proposition moves from individual
will to group will, which achieves more than the
sum of the individuals.
Remember …
• Appreciative Inquiry does not work as a
technique within the problem-solving
model.
• Appreciative Inquiry is a transformative
process because it helps us derive the future
from reality.
The Transforming Nature of AI
• We can see it, we know what it feels like,
and we move to a collective, collaborative
view of where we are going.
• Unlike other methodologies that can be
recipes, the results are invented with
experience that lead to innovation and to
action.
Resources
The Appreciative Inquiry Commons
(http://www.appreciativeinquiry.org/)
Cooperrider, David L., et al. 2003. Appreciative Inquiry
Handbook. Bedford Heights, OH: Lakeshore
Communications, Inc.
Hammond, Sue Annis. 1998. The Thin Book of
Appreciative Inquiry. Bend, OR: Thin Book Publishing
Co.
Whitney, Diana, et al. 2002. Encyclopedia of Positive
Questions. Euclid, OH: Lakeshore Communications,
Inc.