Appreciative Inquiry

Appreciative Inquiry is possiblity centric.  As a result, people become highly engaged, creating more energy and sustainable momentum.

You will find appreciative inquiry interesting if you believe that 

• organizations are not like machines - they don't have an objective reality the way a table or a rock does;

• organizations are a social reality and social reality is co-constructed - we create the social systems we are in through our interactions with each other;

• important human processes like communication, decision-making, and conflict management are effected more by how the people involved make meaning out of their interactions than by skillful application of any particular technique

• attempts to find or develop the right formula for successful leadership and change are a misguided attempt to treat social reality as if it were objective reality.  Instead, every effective change process has to come from engaging the people in the organization in their own way on terms that will make sense to them.

Most change processes are based on problem-solving processes.  We start by asking "what's the problem".  When we do that, we focus energy on what we want less of and work to "fix" things.  Appreciative Inquiry is based on a different set of assumptions.  Here are some of mine:
 

1. You create more effective organizations by focusing on what you want more of, not what you want less of.

2. Whatever you want more of already exists, even if only in small quantities.

3. It's easier to create change by amplifying the positive qualities of a group or organization than by trying to fix the negative qualities.

4. Through the act of inquiry we create the social realities we are trying to understand.

5. Getting people to inquire together into the best examples of what they want more of creates its own momentum toward creating more positive organizations.

• Bottom up strategy and visioning

• Increasing operational effectiveness

• Designing new work processes and new organizational forms

• Creating collaboration and trust between people and groups who didn't trust each other

• Generating creative and innovative approaches to opportunities

• Creating a positive work climate where a negative one previously prevailed

• Discovering, understanding and amplifying the strenghts and abilities already existing in organizations

• Accelerating the development of new teams and  an alternative to conventional team building processes for existing teams

• Various kinds of community development

As a result of its AI Summit, John Deere reduced a  product development cycle from five years to three years. 

In less than six months, Dex, a billion dollar, for-profit subsidiary of the Fortune 100 company US West, achieved a huge return on investment of $15.62 for every dollar invested.  The Dex office that pioneered AI also improved product quality by 51%, cycle times by over 400%, and employee morale by 245%. During this same period, this U.S. office moved up to number one in employee satisfaction among all 46 offices.  Additionally, operating costs declined and customer satisfaction increased.

At Nutrimental Foods, the factory closed its doors for four days and brought together all 750 employees, the company's leadership, and 100 customers to create a new business model. A year later, profits were up over 200 percent and absenteeism dropped 300 percent. AI is now this company's annual way of planning. 

Appreciative Leadership and Appreciative Change Processes, on the other hand,  are techniques that anyone in any position can use at any time to get more of whatever they want to see more of.  To use appreciative change process  first you have to be clear on what you want more of (not what you want to "fix").  This could be something you want to see more of in a person (e.g., courage, listening, assertiveness, support, etc.) in a group (e.g., decision making, conflict management, teamwork, etc.) or an organization (e.g., innovation, customer orientation, operational excellence, etc.).  Second, you have to assume that whatever you want more of already exists, even if just in small ways.  You then go searching for instances of where that shows up and work to amplify it so that you get more of it.

Appreciative change process is a potent methodology that works by building on the strengths and wisdom that already exist in a person or system.  Appreciative Leadership and change processes was first described in a 1991 OD Practitioner in article by  Tom Pitman and myself.