We have been using ‘appreciative inquiry’, or organisation change and team building for some time now. This is radically different from other change initiatives as the focus is on what is working within the system instead of focusing on problems. It is a concept and approach conceived and described in the work of Dr. David Cooperrider and his colleagues at Case Western Reserve’s School of Organisation Behaviour. The positive, affirming nature of appreciative inquiry, where people discover and then build on the root causes of success rather than dissect problems, can be a powerful stimulus to change. It’s non-threatening and empowering.
Appreciative inquiry utilises a four-stage process focusing on:
Discover: The identification of organisational processes that work well.
Dream: The envisioning of processes that would work well in the future.
Design: Planning and prioritising processes that would work well.
Destiny/Deliver: The implementation (execution) of the proposed design.
The discovery phase starts with a question like this: Think of a time when you were on a hugely successful team, a time that you felt energised, fulfilled and most effective, when you were able to accomplish even more than you imagined. What made it such a great team? Tell the story about the situation, the people involved, and how the team achieved its breakthrough. This immediately puts the team members into a positive mental state. Remember, you tend to see and get what you focus on. Go back to the day you bought your new car and went out. Chances are that you saw the same brand of cars more on that day.
Once the life giving force in the system is identified, the group moves on to the dream phase where they look at the future and ideal scenarios. Here, we always ask the participants to act out the ideal future in groups or create presentations. Once the future is clearly visualised and established, the group moves on to creating processes and systems that would lead the organisation to the desired future and create action plans to create the destiny.
I have found that an appreciative inquiry, where people listen to each other’s stories about micro moments in organisational life where the best in us is touched, can create a unique climate for collective dreaming where the forces of ridicule and repression are momentarily suspended.
Though we have also done this for smaller teams (around 25 people), the real energy could be tapped only when we do this as a large group intervention. Imagine 300 people from an organisation going through a two-and-a-half day offsite where everyone participates to co-create the organisation’s future. Here, you do not have to worry about cascading down the strategy or change initiative as everyone is present and contributing already.
The next time you are worried about getting everyone on board, or getting everyone engaged, try the appreciative inquiry approach. But then, you need to believe that in every system there is something that works and by expanding and appreciating what works we could create positive energy and a bright future.
Written by Santhosh Babu
Published in The Financial Express: Saturday, December 23, 2006.
