Page 56 - text

SeCtion tWo Change approaches & management tools
APPRECIATIVE INQUIRY (AI) Description
Many approaches to change begin with identifying the ‘problem’ to be solved and working back to understand what are the causes of the problem and therefore how can it be addressed. In contrast, AI frames change as a mystery to be embraced and starts from identifying the best of what could be, discussing what should be, and innovating what will be. It is sustained by the belief that social systems evolve in the direction of the positive images that individuals hold about them – looking forwards and extending ‘that which is going right’.
Use
The approach applies positive questions with the aim of surfacing, and then extending, those ‘positive core’ ideas across the networks of individuals which make up organisations. By making positive human spirit publicly available, self-organising networks begin to construct a more positive organisational future, leading to revolutionary transformation.
Stages in Appreciative Inquiry
1. Discovery: Exploring the positive capacity present in the organisation through engagement by and with large numbers of organisational members in order to discover and share awareness of positive potential.
2. Dream: Coming together to share findings, positive feedback leads to the development of a vision (of a better world), purpose (to create the vision), and strategy (towards this end)
3. Design: Once a dream has been agreed, redesign is undertaken in order to realise it. Sources of resistance are reduced to the extent that the dream is widely shared by participants
4. Destiny: The transformative effect of changes in the way that people think and talk about the world results in realisation of the vision. The organisation is created anew through organisational members connecting and co-creating and so mobilising the potential for change. (Adapted from Cooperrider and Sekerka, 2006, pp. 225–26)
(Magruder-Watkins et al. (2011) offer detailed guidance on each, and add a preparatory stage (‘Define’) to incorporate initial discussions between those facilitating the process and those who instigated it)
53