About Appreciative Inquiry: http://www.innovationpartners.com/AboutAppreciativeInquiry.aspx

http://www.innovationpartners.com/AboutAppreciativeInquiry.aspx

Organizations around the world are engaging in a new conversation aimed at unleashing the best in people, in business, and the world. Leaders are breaking the mold of conventional business wisdom and choosing innovative approaches to building extraordinary organizations. Many are adopting Appreciative Inquiry – a strength-based, holistic approach to change.

Appreciative Inquiry, or AI, is based on the deceptively simple premise: that organizations grow in the direction of what they repeatedly ask questions about and focus their attention on. Therefore, becoming a strong organization, one that moves in a positive direction, requires that people focus their collective energies on their positive core – the sum of their unique strengths, best practices and greatest aspirations.

“Real change begins with people talking about what they care about.”
Margaret J Wheatley

AI is both a philosophy and methodology, the consistent inquiry of what gives “life” to, innovates, and sustains organizations from a generative and strengths-based perspective. It is a cooperative search for the best in people, their processes, structures, and the technology systems that support their organization and the world around them.

If you want a different “what,” you need a different “how”. An AI approach, in contrast to traditional problem-solving and deficit-based approaches, involves the identification of strengths and internal best practices (collectively, the organization’s positive core). The goal is to not only identify the positive core, but to leverage it in creating the most desired future. This enables envisioning what could be, designing and co-constructing what should be, and innovating and sustaining what will be—based on the best of what already exists today. This paradigm shift enables individuals and organizations to discover and live out those core strengths and values that are most enriching while moving into their desired future. More importantly, this shift compels people toward action, turning visions into measurable, sustainable results.

“Be the change you wish to see in the world.”
Gandhi