Description of Challenge
We often tend to approach our challenges by focussing on difficulties instead of on what is going well. To make things worse, we often go on to focus on how others have contributed to these difficulties.Solution
Appreciative Inquiry (AI) strengthens a system’s capacity to apprehend, anticipate and heighten positive potential. AI seeks out the best of what is, to help ignite the collective imagination of what might be.
Cycle of Appreciative Inquiry:
1. Discovery: identify and appreciate the best of what is
2. Dream: expand potential in grounded ways – generative
3. Design: develop provocative propositions through dialogue
4. Destiny: deliver on the new images of the future, sustain by nurturing a collective sense of purpose
5 Principles of AI:
1. The Constructionist Principle: Social knowledge and organizational destiny are interwoven.
2. The Principle of Simultaneity: Inquiry and change are not separate moments – Inquiry is intervention.
3. The Poetic Principle: An organizations story is constantly being co-authored.
4. The Anticipatory Principle: The image of the future guides current behaviour.
5. The Positive Principle: Momentum for change requires large amounts of positive affect and social bonding, attitudes such as hope, inspiration, and the sheer joy of creating with one another.
“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? Don’t get me wrong. I’m not advocating mindless happy talk. Appreciative Inquiry is a complex science designed to make things better. We can’t ignore problems. We just need to approach them from the other side.”
(Thomas White, GTE Telephone Operations)
References: Cooperrider, Whitney, Stavros: Appreciative Inquiry Handbook, Crown Custom and Berret-Koehler Publishers, 2005
