Appreciative Inquiry: A Positive Revolution in Change

Presented by Betsy Mullen

Source & Resource:

Appreciative Inquiry Handbook; The First in a Series of AI

Workbooks for Leaders of Change

A Time For Re-thinking... Human Organization And Change

A Time For Re-thinking... Human Organization And Change

Global context of democratization

End of Apartheid

No limits to cooperation, e-company connect now

Shuttle into space & reality isn’t what it used to be

“Whole system” change Large groups... “Positive revolution”:

aiming higher

Appreciative Inquiry is a Shift

“No problem can be solved from the same level of consciousness that created it. We must learn to

see the world anew.”

“There are only 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

An Open Moment We Are “In It” Now.

“We are at the very point in time when a 400-year old age is dying and another is struggling to be born, a shifting of

culture, science, society, and institutions enormously greater than the world has ever experienced. Ahead, the possibility of the regeneration of relationships, liberty, community, and

ethics such as the world has never known, and a harmony with nature, with one another, and with the divine

intelligence such as the world has never dreamed.”

--Dee Hock, Founder & CEO--Visa

Exciting Stories and Results

• Hunter Douglas Culture Change Strategic Planning Total Quality

• Results Employee Engagement Leadership “Bench Strength” Strategic Vision & Alignment

Exciting Stories and Results

• Tendercare Assisted Living Center Business Results: Increasing Revenue Base from

Census Development Provider of Choice

• Results 10% Increase in Census within six weeks Union decertification vote initiated Improved employee morale

Exciting Stories and Results

• United Religions Initiative Annual Global Summits Organization Design

• Results June 2000 Charter Signing The Birth of a Global “Chaordic” Organization Centers on Every Continent Over a Million Pledges of Support

Exciting Stories and Results

• GTE Positive Change Network Culture Change Union Management Partnership Call Center Excellence

• Results 1997 ASTD Award Employee Surveys Contract Negotiations

1. Constructionist Principle: The way we know is fateful.

2. Principle of Simultaneity: Change begins at the moment you ask the question.

3. Poetic Principle: Organizations are an open book.

4. Anticipatory Principle: Deep change = change in active images of the future.

5. Positive Principle: The more positive the question, the greater and longer-lasting the change.

6. Principle of Wholeness: The whole system can have a voice in the future.

Six Principles of Appreciative Inquiry

Positive Image Positive Action

• Powerful Placebo• Pygmalion• Positive Affect• Imbalanced “Inner Dialogue”• Rise and Fall of Cultures• Affirmative Capability

A Theory of Affirmative Organizing

• Organizations are made and imagined• No iron laws• Metaphor: heliotropic hypothesis• Healthy organizations = 2:1

positively imbalanced “inner dialogue”• Educative effect of positive imagery• Positive image (discourse) as an obstacle• Organizations do not need to be fixed• Leadership = affirmation

?Where Do Positive Imagesand Stories Come From?

#1 Moments of Magnified Meaning Making

Peak experience or a high point in your life.

Exploring Moments of Leadership in Your Life?

• A story or “high point” experience … leading positive change.

• What things do you value most about … Yourself? The nature of your work? Your organization?

Your Vision of a Better World

Business as an agent of world benefit?

How is it organized?

What are its practices?

How to bring out the best in human beings?

An AI InterviewActivity #1: Discovery

• A dialogue in pairs.

• A interviews B, and B interviews A (45 minutes each).

• Engage in a spirit of Discovery.

• Listen and take good notes.

• At the end … summarize and thank you.DIS

CO

VE

RY

• Identify Problem.

• Conduct Root Cause Analysis.

• Brainstorm Solutions & Analyze.

• Develop Action Plans.

• Metaphor: Organizations are problems to be solved.

• Appreciate “What is” (What gives life?).

• Imagine “What Might Be.”

• Determine “What Should Be.”

• Create “What Will Be”.

• Metaphor: Organizations are a solution/mystery to be embraced.

Problem Solving Appreciative Inquiryvs.

Deficit Theory of Change, and Cultural Consequences of Deficit Discourse

“The key accomplishment of the industrial age was the notion of continuous improvement. It remains the secular

religion of most managers … has reached the point of diminishing returns in incremental improvement

programs.”Gary Hamel

-Leading The Revolution

Cultural Consequencesof Deficit Discourse

• Fragmentation

• Few New Images of Possibility … Self-Fulfilling Frames/Questions

• Exhaustion & Visionless Voice

• The Experts Must Know

• Dependence on Hierarchy

• Spirals in Deficit Vocabularies

• Breakdown in Relations/Closed Door Meetings/Decrease in Public Space

Deficit Based Change: Unintended Consequences

Deficit Based Change: Unintended Consequences

Much lamented fragmented responses Slow: Puts attention on yesterday’s causes No new positive images of future Visionless voice... fatigue Weakened fabric of relationships &

defensiveness…negative culture Out of sync with the embedded economy of speed,

partnerships, alliances, & e-commerce

“YES” MEN

MISSED COMMITMENTS

BURNOUT

CriticalThinking

Gap Analysis

TURF BATTLES

New Circuit Failure Rate

REORGANIZATION

Repeat Reports

Spell Check

BLOCKED CALLS

UNFAVORABLE

TROUBLE REPORTCUSTOMERCOMPLAINTS

RISKPERFORMANCE REVIEW

DEBUG

Red Tape

WARNING SILOSDown Time

Deficit Language at GTE

Organizations Grow In The Direction Of What They Study

REGION '95 YTD '95 YE 6/96 '96 YTD '96 OBJ FAV/UNF) '95 YTD '95 YE 6/96 '96 YTD '96 OBJ FAV/(UNF)

California 96.3 96.5 95.7 96.6 96.5 0.1 96.9 97.6 97.8 98.1 96.1 2.0

Florida 93.4 94.6 96.5 96.0 96.5 (0.5) 96.2 96.7 96.3 97.2 96.1 1.1

Hawaii 89.9 90.7 94.2 94.4 96.5 (2.1) 95.9 95.5 97.7 97.1 96.1 1.0

Midwest 90.9 92.2 89.8 92.4 96.5 (4.1) 95.0 95.8 95.1 96.0 96.1 (0.1)

North 90.8 91.0 91.9 92.1 96.5 (4.4) 96.3 96.5 94.0 95.2 96.1 (0.9)

Northeast 91.7 93.0 94.4 95.2 96.5 (1.3) 94.9 96.1 95.7 96.8 96.1 0.7

Northwest 94.9 94.4 94.2 93.4 96.5 (3.1) 96.1 95.4 95.4 95.1 96.1 (1.0)

South 87.1 89.2 87.6 91.8 96.5 (4.7) 93.6 94.5 90.3 94.5 96.1 (1.6)

TX/NM 94.2 93.7 95.6 95.5 96.5 (1.0) 94.6 94.7 96.7 97.2 96.1 1.1

Virginia 92.9 93.5 92.2 94.4 96.5 (2.1) 96.6 97.1 94.6 96.5 96.1 0.4

Total Telops 92.7 93.3 93.6 94.5 96.5 (2.0) 95.7 96.2 95.3 96.5 96.1 0.4

Objective Not Met

JUNE RESULTS Business Commitments Met Residence

To a hammer everything is a nail!

Words Are Tools

Ap-pre’ci-ate, v.,

1. valuing; the act of recognizing the best in people or the world around us; affirming past and present strengths, successes, and potentials; to perceive those things that give life (health, vitality, excellence) to living systems

2. to increase in value, e.g. the economy has appreciated in value.

• Synonyms: VALUING, PRIZING, STEEMING, and HONORING.

In-quire’ (kwir), v.,

1. the act of exploration and discovery.

2. to ask questions; to be open to seeing new potentials and possibilities.

• Synonyms: DISCOVERY, SEARCH, and SYSTEMATIC EXPLORATION, STUDY.

What is Appreciative Inquiry?

It is the discovery for the best in people, their organizations, and the relevant world around them. It is an art and practice of

asking the unconditional positive questions that strengthen a system’s capacity to apprehend, anticipate and heighten

positive potential. Instead of negation, criticism and spiraling diagnosis, there is discovery, dream, design and destiny. It

works from accounts of the “positive change core”. AI links the energy of the positive core directly to any change agenda

and changes never thought possible are suddenly and democratically mobilized.

What would you call it?(all these things taken together)

• Achievements

• Strategic opportunities

• Product strengths

• Technical assets

• Innovations

• Elevated thoughts

• Best business practices

• Positive emotions

• Financial assets

• Cooperative moments

• Organization wisdom

• Core competencies

• Visions of possibility

• Vital traditions, values

• Positive macrotrends

• Social capital

• Embedded knowledge

• Business ecosystem +s eg. suppliers, partners, competitors, customer

The Positive Core

Whole Organizational Connection to the Positive Core

• ELEVATES: positive emotions of hope, inspiration, confidence, joy; raises intelligence; expands the language of life (internal dialogue); increases in appreciative interchange and mutually elevating relationships; high creativity, better decision making, increased collective capacity.

• “Undo” NEGATIVE IMPACTS: letting go, makes irrelevant, finishes the residual of negative past.

• PROTECTION IN FUTURE: Increases health-ability; resilience; accumulation of power; like an increase in immune system functioning.

WHAT IS (NON-DEFICIT) POSITIVE CHANGE …. “Any form of organization change, re-design, or planning that begins with comprehensive analysis of an organization’s “positive core” and then links this knowledge to the heart of any strategic change agenda.

Because human systems move toward what they persistently ask questions about, positive change involves the deliberate discovery of everything that gives a system “life” when it is most effective in economic and human terms.

Link the positive core directly to any strategic agenda, and changes never thought possible are more rapidly mobilized while simultaneously building enthusiasm, corporate confidence, and human energy”.

,

Appreciative Inquiry: The “4-D” Cycle

Discovery“What gives life?”(The best of what is)

Appreciating

Discovery“What gives life?”(The best of what is)

Appreciating

Dream“What might be?”

(What is the world calling for)Envisioning Results

Dream“What might be?”

(What is the world calling for)Envisioning Results

Design“What should be--the ideal?”

Co-constructing

Design“What should be--the ideal?”

Co-constructing

Destiny“How to empower, learn,and adjust/improvise?”

Sustaining

Destiny“How to empower, learn,and adjust/improvise?”

Sustaining

AffirmativeTopic Choice

Best Way to Build High Enthusiasm?

• Do an organization survey of low morale?

• Magnify and learn from moment of highest enthusiasm?

Topic Choice

A Fateful Act:

Organizations Move in the Direction of What We Most

Frequently and Systematically Ask Questions About!

?

Deficit Problems &Affirmative Topics

Deficit IssuesSexual Harassment

Mid-mgmt. TurnoverFear of Job LossLow MoraleTurfism/SilosDelayed OrdersCustomer ComplaintsLack of TrainingMissed Commitments

Affirmative TopicsPositive Cross-GenderWorking Relationships

Recent Topics

• Lightning-Fast Consensus

• Optimal Margins

• Magnetic Connections With Customer

• Outstanding Arrival Experience

• Environmentally Sustainable Enterprise

• Digital Spirit

• Crushing the Non-Union Competition

• Transformational Dialogue (Improbable Pairs)

• Revolutionary Customer Response

• Courageous Acts of Goodness• Empowering and Enlightened

Leadership• Business as An Agent of

World Benefit

GroupsCreate “Topics” for Our Future

• Build on AI from this morning…patterns• Now go beyond the data: 3-5 topics• Good topics are -

Bold…a stretch….beyond status quo Desired…you want it Potential to energize, mobilize, strategic Can “link” seeming opposites (both/and)

• List topics on flip chart….(make the case!)

Websites for other AI slides and for sharing AI Tools

http://appreciativeinquiry.cwru.edu

This is the Appreciative Inquiry Commons at the Weatherhead School of Management, Case

Western Reserve University.

Please submit/share your new tools, stories and studies.

British Airways

• Approximately 1000 employees• 22 Stations throughout North America• “Pecos River” Workshops

Personal Awareness for all Employees Target of Change - the People

• Appreciative Inquiry “How to engage everyone in creating a culture of

outstanding service?” Target of Change: the Organization

Getting to Transformational Topics

• Final Topics:People are OwnersContinuous People DevelopmentBig Picture Harmony Among Work GroupsExceptional Arrival Experience

Baggage Problems Service Recovery

Service Recovery Exceptional ArrivalExperience

From To

Selecting Significant Topics Activity #2: Dream

• Based on the stories you heard in your initial interviews.

• Select 3 - 5 affirmative topics.• Record your topics on a flipchart.• Prepare to present your topics to the whole group

and explain why they are relevant to the future success of the organization.

• Time: 1.5 hours.

DR

EA

M

Genius is Creating the Question

“What would the universe look like if I were riding on the end of a light beam at

the speed of light?”--Albert Einstein

The Art of the Question

• What’s the biggest problem here?

• Why did I have to be born in such a troubled family?

• Why do you blow it so often?

• Why do we still have those problems?

• What possibilities exist that we have not thought about yet?

• What’s the smallest change that could make the biggest impact?

• What solutions would have us both win?

• What makes my questions inspiring, energizing, and mobilizing?

Basic Elements to the Typical AI Question

• A Positive Preface (introduce your TOPIC)

• Then a 2-part question High point discovery Image of desired future

• Refer to The Encyclopedia of Positive Questions

4 Foundational Questions

Q1: Peak experience or high point?

Q2: Things valued most about … yourself? the nature of your work? your organization?

Q3: What are the core factors that give “life” to organizing?

Q4: What are three wishes to heighten vitality and health?

Creating the New Question

From a study of customer dissatisfaction and complaints to …

“Magnetic Connections”(Example of a Positive Preface)

“In the physical world, all matter is held together by the pull between opposite electric charges. Successful e-

companies are equally magnetic. People connect in new and innovative ways. Suppliers and customers are

pulled together and become seamless edge-to-edge organizations. Communities of interest form and are pulled

together by shared values and interests. Knowledge networks form as catalysts for innovation and creativity.”

Part A (past) & B (future)

A. Think of a time when you felt “magnetically” connected to your client, your colleagues, and your community. . . Connected in a way that the force was so strong that it could not be broken. What was that experience like?

B. As you look into the future, describe how we are connected to our customers and our colleagues in a way that is so strong that we are seen as inseparable business partners.

Example #1

From an analysis of Grievance Reduction to …

Engagement & Positive Energy

• Organizations work best when they are vibrant, alive and fun. You know, when the “joint is jumping!” You can sense that the spirit of the organization is vital and healthy and that people feel pride in their work. Everyone builds on each other’s successes, a positive can do attitude is infectious and the glow of success is shared. What’s more, this positive energy is appreciated and celebrated so it deepens and lasts.

A. Tell me about a time when you experienced positive energy that was infectious. What was the situation? What created the positive energy? How did it feel to be a part of it? What did you learn?

B. If positive energy where the flame of the organization, how would you spark it? How would you fuel it to keep it burning bright?

Example #2

From Analysis of Baggage Delays to …

Exceptional Arrival Experience

• Our goal is to provide an exceptional travel experience both in the air and on the ground. The handling of a flight’s arrival and baggage reconciliation is of equal importance to any other aspect of a passenger’s journey. The arrival experience is the time to leave a wonderful lasting impression. It also provides the opportunity to recover from any service shortfall the customer may have encountered. Focusing on Exceptional Arrival Experience demonstrates commitment to both our customers and to one another.

A. Describe your most memorable arrival experience, as a customer or, as airline personnel. What made it memorable to you? How did you feel?

B. Tell me a story about your most powerful service recover. Describe the situation.

C. Looking to the future how would you enhance the arrival experience?

Example #3

From Poor Performance and Margins to …

Discovering Optimal Margins

• With revenues, tonnage and sales at record levels one of the most important opportunities we face is to engage everyone in increasing positive margins now and to do so will call on discovery of new strengths, build on old strengths and carry us to higher levels financially. As you look at Roadway from the perspective of our capabilities,

and you think about the business context and opportunities, how do you define “optimal margin” for us? Define it: what is the positive margin you want and believe we have the capability to create? Right now? In the moderate time frame? Longer terms?

Discovering Optimal Margins

• As you reflect on your leadership at Roadway, times where you have mobilized or helped develop others, there have been high points and low points, successful moments, etc. Please describe one situation, or change initiative that you are proud about … an achievement in which you feel you had impact in realizing better margins. What happened? What were the challenges? What was it about you or your leadership style? Lessons learned?

• If anything imaginable was possible, if there were no constraints whatever, what would the nature of an ideal Roadway organization look like if we were to rapidly move into stage of delivering optimal margins? Describe it. What is better, new or different? Envision it!

GroupsCrafting the Question

• Select one topic that has energy for your group (you can work more if there is time)

• Crafting the AI question(s): 3 PARTS1. Positive Preface

2. A question to evoke a story from persons history

3. A question to evoke images of future

Management ofNOVELTY

Management ofNOVELTY

Management ofTRANSITION

Management ofTRANSITION

Managing Change:3 Essentials of Leadership

Management of CONTINUITY

Management of CONTINUITY

Functions of Continuity

• For individuals: pride, confidence to act, ethical guidance connection to others, freedom.

• For the organization: strengthened commitment, better decision making; decentralized control; mission stability; organizational learning; long term thinking; customized change.

What Makes AI Questions Important?

• Language: questions & statements…

• Focus attention

• Heighten energy…drive to complete, to answer

• Every creative act

• Rapport and relationship (people are honored)

• Fulcrum change: connect to strength, imagination

• Break automatic thinking, essence of learning

• Alter internal dialogue & storytelling

• Specific positive future (the fairway)

The AI Organization Summit Method

Increasing positive capacity through large group methods

Dream & DesignThe AI “Organization Summit”

• “Whole System” in the Room• Task is Clear...

• Future Focus--In Historical and Global Perspective

• Self-Management and Dialogue

• Common Ground (not conflict management as the frame of

reference)

• 3-Day event/100 to 1000 Participants

• Uncommon Action/Follow Through

Typical Results from Whole System AI Summit

• More Informed and Ultimately More Effective Change Efforts

• A Critical Mass of People Making Changes that they All Believe Are Needed

• A Total Organization Mindset• Simultaneous Change• Change is Perceived as “Real Work”• Fast…Entire Organization…Strong Implementation…

Action…Unifying…Spirit

AI “4-D” Cycle: Typical Summit

DiscoveryOpportunity Context

Positive Core

DiscoveryOpportunity Context

Positive Core

DreamPurposeVision

DreamPurposeVision

DesignConstitutional Principles

Relationship & Organization

DesignConstitutional Principles

Relationship & Organization

DestinyPeople/Members

StructuresPractices

DestinyPeople/Members

StructuresPractices

SummitTopic Choice

Nutrimental Foods

• Why is this so easy?

• The experience of wholeness…an amazing power….why? how?

A Story on Organizational Design:The Birthing of a “Spiritual United Nations”

• A call from the UN: the UN 50th• A Bishop’s vision• Hans Kung… “there will be no peace among

nations until there is peace among religions, no peace among religions until…”

• Huntington’s thesis…clash of civilizations• Can we make a contribution?

Three Types of Relations Between:The Past 100 Years

1. Canceling Conversation

2. Tolerating Conversation

3. Honoring or Strength-Building Conversation

How People Feel About the Initiative

• The World Context• The “surprise of

friendship”• Unifying power of going

to sacred places• Continuity,”long term”• From friendship &

dialogue to action• Enormous potential• Many requests…

Insights on Success

• Holographic Beginning• Polyphonic--Multiple Voices• Dislodgement of Certainty…Appreciative• From Negotiation to Narrative (Stories)• From Common Ground to Higher Ground• Retrospective Consensus…• Inspired Action on Behalf of the Whole• “Chaordic” Organizing

Design Phase

• Create the social-technical architecture

• Craft a provocative proposition

• Dream becomes a reality

Good Provocative Proposition

• Bridge the best of “what is” and “what might be”

• Challenge the “status quo”

• It should be desirable

• State it in affirmative and bold terms

• Fit within the architecture

• Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD)

• Participative process

• Balance the management of continuity, novelty and transition

Activity #3: Design(for business and society)

• Your Dream (theme)• Key Relationships Stakeholders• Corporate & Society Elements

Vision & Purpose Practices & Principles Communication Infrastructure Culture Structure Distribution of Wealth Other ….

DE

SIG

N

What Matters Most?

• Being a student of “organization alive”

• Power of the unconditional positive question

• Relational basis of knowing: communicamus ergo sum

• Our positive images of the future lead our positive actions…words create worlds, “nothing so practical…”

• Yoga with the positive change core

• Ai accelerates the non-linear interaction of the positive--a “convergence zone” for sudden dialogic repatterning

• The best in people…wholeness heals

• Letting go of deficit based change vocabularies

• AI is not a “thing”; in its infancy (5 %); many questions...

Activity #4: Destiny

• Delivery the design.

• Back to discovery, dream and design.

• Build AI learning competencies into the culture.

• No one best way to do it.DE

ST

INY

Destiny: Creating a Positive Change Network (PCN)

• GTE :How to invite 67,000 people to create a new culture?

• Storytelling and hope

• AI at the front line

• The “zealots are coming”

• Labor & management: an impasse

• The positive change network…ongoing!!

The PCN: What is it?

• Special invitation & call to people to be change leaders…

• AI program on positive change

• Many applications

• Self-organizing...

• Connected in knowledge sharing

Success Factors

• Great AI training• e-Knowledge

management• Strategic business

opportunities• Annual Summit (face-

to-face)

Impact Areas

• Reduce cycle time of change--change ready • Cost efficient leadership education• A positive culture• Rapid whole-system mobilization capability for

strategic planning • The power of digital storytelling• Measurable change in unit performance and

company morale

• Strategic change... “Org Summit”• Core business redesign• Quality…surveys…culture change• Customer partnerships• Labor-management relations• Transformation of measurements• Knowledge exchange: the “PCN”• Business ecosystem analysis...

Applications Appreciative Inquiry

Destiny – What Will Be?

Allow yourself to dream and you will discover that destiny is yours to design.

- Dr. J. Stavros

Activity #4: It’s all About You(take a time out for yourself)

• What do you do best already--from an appreciative perspective? The way you work with people?

• What would you like to do more of….(work or home)?

• One AI project (small or big) you would like to experiment with and do?

• Beliefs you have about yourself will help you succeed?