Appreciative inquiry

Appreciative Inquiry (sometimes shortened to "AI") is an organizational development method that seeks to engage all levels of an organization (and often its customers and suppliers) in its renewal, change and improved performance. It may be particularly applicable to organizations facing rapid change or growth.

Also known as an "asset-based" or "strength-based" approach, the philosophical underpinnings of the method may date back centuries, possibly as far back as the 6th century BC, when Sun Tzu was credited with creating The Art of War, a military strategy based on leveraging a warrior's strength in battle.

The concepts have been carried forward through the centuries and with the advent of managerial or organizational theory, it is David Cooperrider who is widely credited with coining the term 'Appreciative Inquiry'.

It has been mistakenly called a theoretical approach to management, but it is an applied or hands-on model of organizational development, rather than a purely theoretical one.

The model is based on the assumption that the questions we ask will tend to focus our attention in a particular direction. Traditional methods of assessing and evaluating a situation and then proposing solutions are based on a deficiency model. Traditional methods ask questions such as “What are the problems?”, “What’s wrong?” or “What needs to be fixed?”.

Instead of asking “What’s the problem?”, the question may be couched in terms of ‘challenges’: “What are the challenges?” Regardless of whether the question is asked harshly or softened with less antagonistic language, the model remains as one of deficiency. The thinking behind the questions assumes that there is something wrong, that something needs to be ‘fixed’ or ‘solved’.

Appreciative Inquiry flips all that on its head. It is an asset-based approach. It starts with the belief that every organization, and every person in that organization, has something good about it. Each person has something valuable to contribute and the organization itself has merit of some kind. It asks questions like “What’s working?”, “What’s good about what you are currently doing?”

Some researchers believe that excessive focus on dysfunctions can actually cause them to multiply or become intractable. By contrast, when all members of an organization are motivated to understand and value the most favorable features of its culture, it can make surprisingly rapid improvements.

Strength-based methods are becoming more widely used in the creation of organizational development strategy and implementation of organizational effectiveness tactics. The practice emphasizes learning how to perceive organizations as entities that are alive, vital, and dynamic. The appreciative mode of inquiry often relies on interviews to explore the life of an organization. It seeks to enable members to inquire deeply into the essentials of an organization's experience and its potential. The objective is to create an understanding of the assets and personal motivations that are of fundamental value to the particular organization. The following sequence describes some of the distinctions between Appreciative Inquiry and more traditional approaches to organizational development:

        PROBLEM SOLVING                  APPRECIATIVE INQUIRY
          
          Felt Need                         Appreciating
   Identification of Problem(s)       Valuing the Best of What is
               
           Analysis                         Envisioning 
          Of Causes                        What Might Be

     Analysis of Possible                   Dialoguing 
          Solutions                       What Should Be

       Action Planning                      Innovating 
         (Treatment)                       What Will Be

___________________________________________________________

     Basic Assumption:                  Basic Assumption: 
  Organizing Is a Problem             Organizing Is a Miracle
       To Be Solved                      To Be Embraced

Appreciative Inquiry employs a particular way of asking questions and envisioning the future that fosters positive relationships and builds on the basic goodness in a person, a situation, or an organization. In so doing, it tends to enhance a system's capacity for collaboration and change. Appreciative Inquiry utilizes a cycle of 4 processes focusing on:

1. DISCOVER: The identification of organizational processes that work well.
2. DREAM: The envisioning of processes that would work well in the future.
3. DESIGN: Planning and prioritizing processes that would work well.
4. DESTINY (or DELIVER): The implementation (execution) of the proposed design.

The basic idea is to build organizations around what works, rather than trying to fix what doesn't. It is the opposite of problem solving. Instead of focusing on gaps and inadequacies to remediate skills or practices, AI focuses on how to create more of the exceptional performance that is occurring when a core of strengths is aligned. This line of reasoning is assumed to act motivational, since the work doesn't stop when a particular problem is solved but rather focuses on "What is the best we can be?" The approach acknowledges the contribution of individuals, in order to increase trust and organizational alignment. The method aims to create meaning by drawing from stories of concrete successes and lends itself to cross-industrial social activities.

There are a variety of approaches to implementing Appreciative Inquiry, including mass-mobilized interviews and a large, diverse gathering called an Appreciative Inquiry Summit (Ludema, Whitney, Mohr and Griffin, 2003). Both approaches involve bringing very large, diverse groups of people together to study and build upon the best in an organization or community.

The basic philosophy of AI is also found in other positively oriented approaches to individual change as well as organizational change. As noted above, " AI ...fosters positive relationships and builds on the basic goodness in a person, or a situation ...." The principles behind A.I. are based in the rapidly developing science of Positive Psychology. The idea of building on strength, rather than just focusing on faults and weakness is a powerful idea in use in mentoring programs, and in coaching dynamics. It is the basic idea behind teaching "micro-affirmations" as well as teaching about micro-inequities. (See Microinequity Rowe Micro-Affirmations and Micro-inequities in the Journal of the International Ombudsman Association, Volume 1, Number 1, March 2008.)

AI has been used extensively to foster change in businesses (a variety of sectors), health care systems, social profit organizations, educational institutions, communities, local governments, and religious institutions.

See also

• Brainstorming
• Geoffrey Vickers introduced concept of 'Appreciative Systems'(1968)
• Kenneth J. Gergen instrumental in social constructionism
• David Cooperrider is known for the Appreciative Inquiry Handbook and other works on the topic of AI.

External links

• Appreciative Inquiry Commons at Case Western Reserve University
• Appreciative Inquiry at Harvard Business School
• Inquérito Apreciativo Template:Pt icon
• Appreciative Inquiry Conference 2007 The Power of Positive Change
• Begeistring Organisations-The European Network around Appreciative Inquiry and Strength Based Change
• [1] Appreciative Inquiry: An Overview
• Cooperrider, D. L. (2007). Business as an agent of world benefit: Awe is what moves us forward. Retrieved February 21, 2008, from [2]