Appreciative Inquiry

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Appreciative Inquiry

por Alberto Levy | 24 de Febrero de 2010 | General

Me pidieron que suba esto en inglés, espero que les sirva.



• David Cooperrider, Ph.D. and Suresh Srivastva, Ph.D. A way of working that consistently and dramatically liberates peoples’ sense of individual and collective power. The liberation of that power, along with peoples’ willingness to exercise it on behalf of their organizations, adds “value” to the organizations and businesses in question. That philosophy, practice, and way of working is called Appreciative Inquiry.

• Why is it that participation so readily leads to innovation, productivity, employee satisfaction and profitability? What are the conditions that foster cooperation throughout a whole system of highly diverse groups of people?

• A power-full organization is one in which people care about and work towards being the best they can possibly be - personally, as well as organizationally. It is a place where people seek to work by what we might call “spiritual ideals” – peace, harmony, justice, love, joy, wisdom and integrity. It is a place in which people take responsibility for dreaming and for acting upon their dreams.

• A power-full organization is one in which power – the capacity to create, innovate, and to influence change – is an unlimited (vs. “zero-sum”) relational capacity and experience. It is shared freely; and in the process of being shared it grows. People exercise power in ways that are inclusive……that nurture and expand the people around them.

• “Positive core” (Cooperrider & Whitney, 1998). An organization’s positive core is described as the collective wisdom, knowledge, and capabilities - often undiscussed - of the organization at its best.

• “Appreciate” as follows:

• to value or admire highly;

• to judge with heightened understanding;

• to recognize with gratitude.

• to increase in value.

• “To inquire” is defined as meaning:

• to search into.

• to seek for information by questioning.

• Hence, Appreciative Inquiry guides us to ask questions with gratitude and a sense of “valuing”……in order to increase understanding and enhance value. AI is the study of what gives life to a human system, when it is at its best.

• Appreciative Inquiry, as a process, takes place over four phases, which are generally described as the “4-D Process.” Based on the assumption that change occurs through thoughtful inquiry into and dialogue about affirmative life-giving forces, the four phases of the process are: Discovery, Dream, Design, and Delivery.

Objective

• Launched a full-system appreciative inquiry with the intention of:

• Creating a collective vision for the future of the organization - one that would engage and excite the entire organization and its stakeholders.

• Re-instilling the creativity, flexibility, intimacy, and sense of community that had contributed to the Division’s original success.

• Building leadership within the organization (i.e., enhancing the skills of existing leadership, and building the “bench strength” by identifying and training future leaders)

• Transcending the silos that had recently emerged between management and the general work force, and across business units, as well as between operations and “support” functions.

Results

• Since the implementation of Appreciative Inquiry there were improvements in:

• Employees’ understanding of organizational goals.

• Employees’ understanding of how their work fit with the organization’s goals.

• Employee commitment to the organization’s goals.

• Employees’ sense of ownership for their work.

• Employees’ motivation to be productive, innovative, and creative.



The “4-D” Cycle
Discovery: Appreciating What Gives Life

• The Discovery phase is a quest to identify positive stories and spread them throughout the organization.

• The Discovery phase shifts the balance of organizational attention from what isn’t working to what is, and to what may possibly work in the future.

• Discovery begins with the introduction of Appreciative Inquiry theory and practice to the organization. The purpose of the effort is clarified, and a “core team” is selected to both guide the effort and select topics for the inquiry. Topics are affirmative, and are stated in affirmative language.

• Organization members are asked to focus on the things they want more of in their organization - the things they want to grow.

• “Appreciative interviews,” crafted around the affirmative topics, and an interview guide is created, exploring: a) people’s beginnings with the organization; b) what they value most about themselves, their work and the organization; c) their appreciative stories related to the topics being studied; and d) their hopes and dreams for the organization and its future. Discovery involves interviewing many - if not all - members of an organization, and often includes interviews with external stakeholders (i.e., customers, suppliers, and community members).

The “4-D” Cycle
Dream: Imagining What Might Be

• The Dream phase is a time for groups of people to engage in thinking big, thinking out of the box, and thinking out of the boundaries of what has been in the past. It is a time for people to describe their wishes and dreams for their work, their working relationships, and their organization.

• The activities of this phase often take place in a large group meeting of 50 to over 1000 people. Encourage participants to consider what their organization (department, business unit, or entire company) is being “called” to do. This connects the work of all members of the organization to a greater purpose and vision.

• Discuss the data and stories collected in the Discovery phase. Inspire them to imagine possibilities - what “might be” for themselves and their organization in relation to the world.

• One-on-one appreciative interviews, and small groups have been given guidelines for self-management. Participants have been encouraged to “check their titles at the door,” and listen for the “lone small voice” - the one with a different idea or a different way of looking at things. This focus on relationship and dialogue builds safety and trust, which in turn inspires lively, enlivening, participative, and highly creative conversations. In fairly short order, divergent groups of people begin to converge towards and focus on the things that bind them together, as opposed the things that pull them apart.

• Creative presentations to the larger group.

• Later, Dream activities occurred in conjunction with whole-system strategic planning – which was initiated as an annual activity, as a result of the first Organizational Summit.

The “4-D” Cycle
Design: Determining What Will Be

• Whereas the Discovery and Dream phases generate and expand the organization’s images of itself, the Design and Delivery phases ask members to make choices for the organization. Stakeholders draw on interviews and dreams to select high-impact design elements, and then craft “Provocative Propositions” (or Design Statements)

• Design Statements are written in the present tense. They recreate the organization’s image of itself by presenting clear, compelling pictures of how things will be when the organization’s positive core is boldly alive in all of its strategies, processes, systems, decisions, and collaborations.

• Bring the company Mission, and Strategic Vision to life.

The “4-D” Cycle
Delivery/Destiny: Creating What Will Be

• The Delivery process, however, focuses specifically on personal and organizational commitments and “paths forward.”

• Commitments are made to ensure that the Design Statements are realized. Alignment on actions to be taken is high, as a result of the extensive involvement of large numbers of people in the Discovery, Dream and Design phases. The massive number of people engaged in interviews, large group meetings, and critical decision making helps participants get strong sense of what the organization is really about, and of how they can contribute to the future through their personal actions.

• “Action Groups”

The 4-D Cycle and the “Six Freedoms”

• There are at least six pre-conditions for the liberation of power. We call these pre-conditions the “Six Freedoms.” It unleashes all of the “Six Freedoms,” over the course of just one complete 4-D cycle.

• The journey to liberation - from oppression to power - is one of “social emergence”. These are the voices of the “organizationally oppressed.”

• It is our experience that the “organizationally oppressed” live and work in all functions, at all levels and in all sectors of organizations.

• The first step toward liberation begins when people recognize the world and their organization as open to social change, as created by and through human interaction and creativity.

• When people realize that they – in relation to others – can and do make a difference, they experience true liberation. Theoretically, we call these people “social constructionists”: people who understand the socially crafted nature of our realities.

• Relational and narrative rich context which becomes the path on which the journey to liberation takes place. The Six Freedoms are:

1. Freedom to be Known in Relationship

2. Freedom to Be Heard

3. Freedom to Dream in Community

4. Freedom to Choose to Contribute

5. Freedom to Act with Support

6. Freedom to Be Positive

The 4-D Cycle and the “Six Freedoms”
#1 Freedom to be Known in Relationship

• “Despite our habit of seeing ourselves as separate, solid ‘things,’ our minds, our beings are not fixed. We exist in a web of relationships”. (Joseph Jaworski, Synchronicity)

• Human identity is formed and evolves in relationship. “Persons represent the intersection of multiple relationships”.

• Just as we know and become ourselves in relationship, so do we also contribute to our organizations in relationship. For many people, the quality of their relationships at work is one and the same with the quality of their work life.

• All too often in work settings, people are known in role, rather than in relationship. They are vice presidents and operators, doctors and nurses, employees and customers – in short, they are perceived as what they do, rather than who they are.

• Appreciative Inquiry allows us to know one another in relationship, rather than in role. “I want to be known, and to ‘belong,’” says Cade. “The animal takes care of survival, but the heart – the soul – wants to belong.”

• Breaks the cycle of depersonalization that masks people’s sense of “being and belonging.” The process affirms people in relation to others, Appreciative Inquiry doesn’t just build relationships. It also levels the playing field and builds bridges across the artificial boundaries that seem so prevalent in late 20th century organizations. The “contagious spirit” of the interviews results in a sense of connection to others.

• “The central economic imperative of the network economy is to amplify relationships”



The 4-D Cycle and the “Six Freedoms”
#2 Freedom to be Heard

• “I have seen over and over again – all around the world – what happens when people who are not used to being valued feel heard. The experience of being heard allows them to be present and to offer the best of themselves in a way that could not happen otherwise”. (The Reverend Canon Charles P. Gibbs, United Religions Initiative)

• In the process of being heard we become apparent. We go from a voice – the expression of “babbling ideas” – to a being. When another hears us – when they witness and repeat our ideas and stories - we be-come tangible . . . real . . . significant . . . somebody. The sense of not being heard, of having no voice, of not having a say, is the experience of the oppressed

• Being heard, on the other hand, is relational. But the one-on-one interviews do something equally (if not more) important, to open channels of communication and nurture people’s experience of being heard.

• It opens doors for people who feel ignored and without voice to come forward with information, ideas and innovations. It creates a rich context for knowledge creation and exchange.

The 4-D Cycle and the “Six Freedoms”
#3 Freedom to Dream in Community

• “It is up to each of us. As we move into the twenty-first century let us align with one another to bring our highest vision into manifestation. We can make personal and collective dreams a living reality. Let us work together. We are the architects of our own destiny”. (Rama Vernon, The Fabric of the Future)

• Visionary leaders have long been recognized assets to their organizations (Kouzes and Posner, 1987 ). Their capacity to put forth an image, a dream, a sense of possibility that others can rally round has been regarded highly among the traits of transformational leaders (Tichy and Devanna, 1986). But what of the dreams of the people? In today’s highly diverse world, neither leadership vision nor shared vision – alone – are enough. (Starhawk, 1999 ) We need leaders who invite everyone to dream and to realize their dreams. We need organizations to be safe places where people dream and share dreams, in dialogue with one an-other. We need the “Freedom to Dream in Community.”

• Through one-on-one interviews, story-based synthesis, and collective dreaming processes, Appreciative Inquiry stimulates people’s imaginations and opens their dreams up to the whole.

• It creates an impetus for doing things better . . . for realizing dreams, be they big or small, personal or organizational. It puts attention on the visionaries, rather than the squeaky wheels – on the path ahead, rather than the problems of the past.

The 4-D Cycle and the “Six Freedoms”
#4 Freedom to Choose to Contribute

• “If each of us would ask, “How might I best use my time, energies and talents to serve the larger world?” we would transform this society and transform the planet. It is not for me or anyone else to tell people what to do. It is up to each of us to do those things that we know in our hearts we should do”. (Marianne Williamson, The Fabric of the Future)

• Work can serve to separate us from what matters most to us; or it can serve as the vehicle through which we enact and realize our deepest calling. Not so in participatory organizations, where the freedom to choose one’s work and learning opportunities is recognized as essential to creativity, cooperation, and well being.

• One thing that differentiates Appreciative Inquiry from a number of other organizational change methodologies is that – at its best – people have complete freedom to choose how, when, and to what extent they’ll engage in the process. They can and do join only when they become curious, stimulated, or inspired by a task, activity, or dream.

• The human gift of free will is exercised in the process of choosing to contribute. “Freedom to Choose to Contribute” brings out the best in people. It leads to learning, a sustained sense of power (the ability to innovate and influence) and an experience of fun at work.



The 4-D Cycle and the “Six Freedoms”
#5 Freedom to Act with Support

• “Leadership is about creating, day by day, a domain in which we and those around us continually deepen our understanding of reality and are able to participate in shaping the future. This, then, is the deeper territory of leadership – collectively ‘listening to what is wanting to emerge in the world, and then having the courage to do what is required.”

• To act with support is the quintessential act of positive interdependence. To act with support is to act within a web of relationships.

• In the first 3 D’s, people learn to Discover, Dream, and Design the organization around the things that give life to the system. In the last “D” – Delivery (or Destiny, as it is also known), people are called to act on behalf of the things that passionately inspire them . . . the things that they know will make a difference in their organization and in the world.

• In other words, whole-system support stimulates people to take on challenges, and draws them into acts of cooperation that bring forth their best.

• The capacity to act in the service of the organization is too often limited by the lack of support, perceived or actual. With Appreciative Inquiry, people sense support from one another, from the organization’s management and from the whole system.

The 4-D Cycle and the “Six Freedoms”
#6 Freedom to be Positive

• “Happiness involves skills for everyday living that few people consistently practice. Instead of taking pride in our accomplishments, we tend to be self-critical. Instead of holding positive visions of the future, we run worst case scenarios . . . . Rather than regularly expressing appreciation to those we love, we find fault with them. . . . Genuine pride in a job well done, maintaining hope even during hard times, spontaneously expressing gratitude to someone – these are some of the simple pleasures that can enrich and vitalize our everyday lives, which we just don’t enjoy often enough.”

The “Ripple” Effect

• Liberation of Personal Power

These and similar experiences tells us that liberated power breeds the ongoing liberation and expression of power. Power is like the proverbial genie in the bottle: once liberated, it won’t be re-contained. It continues to seek ways of expressing itself, within the organization and the world.

• Liberation of Others Power

Within organizations, people begin thinking and acting differently – begin asking questions, thinking for themselves, and engaging people around them in a more positive, more life-affirming way. In the process, they touch the “power” in the people around them.

• As power is liberated throughout the organization, people and cultures are transformed.

Our Dream

• Here is our dream: organizations where people seek out and practice opportunities to be their best, and to bring out the best in others.