appreciative inquiry: an introduction
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Appreciative
Inquiry: An
Introduction
JESNA – ADCA WEBINARS:
LEADING COMMUNITY
CHANGE
Friday, April 30, 2010
Acknowledgements
• The Appreciative Inquiry Commons -
http://appreciativeinquiry.case.edu/
• Powerpoint presentations by:
– David Cooperrider
– Debbie Morris
Why Appreciative Inquiry?
• Conventional approaches to community change often
– Focus on problems, gaps, and weaknesses
– Are cumbersome
– Are slow
– Fail to engage key participants
– Cause division and tension
• Appreciative Inquiry
– Builds on strengths
– Generates positive energy
– Fosters a sense of community
– Involves individuals in multiple roles
– Can be implemented efficiently
Defining “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.
Problem Solving vs. AI
Problem Solving • What to fix
• Underlying grammar = problem, symptoms, causes, solutions, action plan, intervention
• Breaks things into pieces & specialties, guaranteeing fragmented responses
• Slow! 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 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
How It Works
• First, understand the positive core of a living system.
What makes it most effective and vital, in economic,
ecological and human terms?
– We move in the direction of our deepest and most frequently asked
questions.
• Positive guiding images of the future trigger action in
the present.
– Images are found in our dialogue with each other.
– Ratio of positive to negative statements is a success factor for change.
– Individuals & groups can then weave the best of what is into formal and
informal practices.
Key Principles
1. Constructionist: We live in worlds our questions create. Knowledge
and organizational destiny are interwoven. We see the world we describe.
2. Simultaneity: Change begins at the moment you ask the first question.
3. Open Book: We can read almost anything into any organization.
4. Anticipatory: Deep change occurs first in our images of the future
5. Positive: The more positive the question, the greater and longer-lasting
the change.
The AI 4-D Model
Discovery “What gives life?”
The best of what is.
Appreciating
Dream “What might be?”
Envisioning Results/Impact
Design “What should be –
the ideal?”
Co-constructing
Destiny “How to empower,
learn, and improvise?”
Sustaining
Affirmative Topic
An Alternative Version
Discovery: Opportunity Context
Positive Core
Dream: Envisioning what might be; shared images for a
preferred future
Design: Finding innovative ways to
create that future; Breakthrough propositions
Delivery: Sustaining the
Change
Topic (What you Want
More of)
Choose an Affirmative Topic
• Organizations move in the direction of what they study.
• Questions we ask determine what we find.
• Process choice point: Who does topic choice: executive team; core team; or “whole system?”
• Topic Re-framing Can Lead to Exciting Breakthrough Results
• Example: Not “How do we stop kids from dropping out?” but “How do we provide teens with a magnetic Jewish educational experience?”
Discovery: Learning from One Another
• Interviews and small dialogues
• Sample Questions: – Best experience: a time when you felt most energized…
– What do you value about… yourself, your work, our educational system, our community?
– What do you think is the core life-giving factor or value of our Jewish educational system – that which if it did not exist would make it totally different than it currently is?
– If you had three wishes for this community, what would they be?
– As we think about the future we know there will be many changes…but what are those things we want to keep, even as we change?
• Compile and share what we’ve learned to discover the “positive core”
Dream and Design: The AI Summit
• Foci
– What do we want our future to look like?
– What do we need to do to get there?
• Success Factors
– “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)
– Uncommon Action/Follow Through
What Do We Mean by Design?
• Both a product and a process
• To design is to invent, to innovate, to conceive and to
make choices - about the purpose, principles, roles,
processes, practices and structures which will house,
support and give life to the organization’s or
community’s members and the dream they have
created.
• The creation of new forms, new containers, new
practices and even new directions which embrace and
are infused by the positive core unearthed in
Discovery and imagined in our Dream.
Principles for Design
Inclusion principle
When the whole system and its voices (i.e.- all levels,
functions, key stakeholders) are in the room, the
richer the conversations and the greater the possibility
for true innovation.
Continuity principle
Building on successes of the past provides hope,
energy and confidence in our ability to create the
world of our dreams.
From Design to Destiny
Design as improvisational and ongoing
• All “designs” are “best bets” about what will work in a
given environment.
• Regular cycles of inquiry are needed to deepen the
understanding of what is working and to stay in tune
with the environment.
• A sense of “it's never done” is core to the always
emerging, continuous quest to discover the best
alternatives.
Destiny: Sustaining Inspired Action
Level of
Engagement
& Inspired
Action
Time
Large Group Summit
Action Groups
Integrated Collaborative
Community & Online Events
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