Module Case 4 - MGT 423- APPRECIATIVE INQUIRY

04 appreciative inquiry: how do you do it?

introduction

So far we have talked about the nature of conversation-based change processes such as Appreciative Inquiry, and how they differ from other change interventions, particularly those based on a mechanistic understanding of organizations. For us, Appreciative Inquiry along with other processes such as World Café, Future Search and Open Space can be grouped within this emerging field. To help us understand the difference between these approaches better, we want to explain one particular approach, Appreciative Inquiry, in some depth.

This chapter aims to provide an introduction to the core Appreciative Inquiry method. We make the point throughout this book that Appreciative Inquiry is less a process and more of a way of being which guides the practitioner. However, we also recognize that the journey towards this state of being an Appreciative Inquiry practitioner involves doing Appreciative Inquiry processes. In this chapter we aim to describe the Appreciative Inquiry model under its familiar four D headings: Discovery, Dream, Design and Destiny. We will review each of the four elements in turn and offer action steps for each stage. Prior to this we will review the selection of topics and consider how the inquiry question can be phrased.

Preparing for change

Before embarking on any change programme we would advocate that the organization needs to answer for itself a series of questions. This is not an exhaustive list but these are the types of questions we ask when invited to talk with clients about a change plan.

44

C o p y r i g h t 2 0 1 6 . K o g a n P a g e .

A l l r i g h t s r e s e r v e d . M a y n o t b e r e p r o d u c e d i n a n y f o r m w i t h o u t p e r m i s s i o n f r o m t h e p u b l i s h e r , e x c e p t f a i r u s e s p e r m i t t e d u n d e r U . S . o r a p p l i c a b l e c o p y r i g h t l a w .

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Appreciative Inquiry: how do you do it? 45

(a) is Appreciative inquiry right for us?

Appreciative Inquiry invites a different way of thinking about change. It replaces the model of undertaking an organizational analysis, implementing a plan and then managing resistance, with a focus on identifying and growing what is already giving life to the organization. While more traditional methodologies call for stakeholder mapping, risk registers and benefits realization plans, Appreciative Inquiry focuses on the language, discourse and stories within the organization. Such a change in style and focus can feel unsettling for the organization by virtue of its unfamiliarity. It can also have an effect on the existing patterns of interaction and discourse, which is again unsettling for the organization. For these reasons an organization needs to consider carefully the benefits of this approach against the capacity of the organization to accept, tolerate or work with significant difference.

(b) What are we trying to do?

In many change plans there is a lack of clarity about what the board or top team wants to get out of the process of change. Change has come to be seen as a sign of good management, sometimes without adequate thought as to what the process of change will deliver. This has most frequently been seen in structural changes, and emanates from a belief that changing lines of accountability and areas of responsibility will lead to fundamentally different outcomes. Rarely is this the case. We would advocate that in any change process those commissioning the change are clear about what outcomes they are seeking. This can be expressed as a list of measurable outcomes in the benefits realization plan or can be more intangibly expressed as a vision for the new organization or new state.

(c) What new skills or knowledge do we need to do this?

Change in all forms often demands new skills. This may be new skills in project management, or new skills in spreadsheets to manage the risk register. Appreciative Inquiry is no different. For Appreciative Inquiry the skills required are more in understanding the process and in undertaking some of the technical components such as writing interview questions and undertaking the interviews in a way which stimulates new thinking rather than one which produces only well-rehearsed stories. We will explore these skills more in the next section.

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Understanding conversational approaches to change46

(d) Will we do this in-house or work with an external facilitator?

There is an assumption often made by clients that change always requires an external facilitator. We don’t hold that view. What we do say is that organizations need to have thought through the implications of managing a process in-house as well as of commissioning outside help. Both have their advantages and disadvantages.

We have summarized some of our thinking on the advantages and dis- advantages in Table 4.1.

table 4.1 In-house and external managed change

Method In-house External advice/ assistance

Advantages ●● Understand the organization.

●● Lower cost. ●● Are building in-house

skills for the future. ●● Can be there around ●● the clock. ●● Take a long-term view of

change. ●● Ensure change fits with

other organization needs. ●● Build relationships through

the process.

●● Understand the process and have done it several times before.

●● Can call upon more resources as needed during peaks and troughs of change.

●● Can link project team into wider network.

●● Bring an external perspective.

Disadvantages ●● Opportunity cost in using staff on change rather than on their core tasks.

●● Can lack a balanced perspective.

●● Takes more time as learn mistakes as going along and time is shared with other tasks.

●● More costly than in-house. ●● Can be short-term focused. ●● If problems occur after

have left can be difficult to resolve as skills have walked out the door.

●● Can miss internal tricks as don’t see the connections between plans outside scope of project.

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Appreciative Inquiry: how do you do it? 47

(e) how urgent is this?

The top team also need to give thought to how urgent is the change plan. Is the organization facing a crisis which needs to be addressed within weeks or months? Or is the change plan part of a continual process of changing and evolving as the organization adapts and responds to wider changes in its environments: from customers, competitors and regulators? The answer to this question will have a direct impact on the steps involved in the process. It will also impact on who and how many will be involved in the process and on the resources which the organization aims to commit.

( f ) how will we introduce Appreciative inquiry to our organization?

The commissioning team also need to give thought to how they will introduce the process. The context in which the process is introduced can have a significant effect on how people across the organization respond to it. The introduction of the process thus needs clear communication both around what Appreciative Inquiry is, and why the organization wants to begin a process or change initiative.

In particular, the name Appreciative Inquiry has led us in some projects with clients to re-title Appreciative Inquiry as ‘Remotivate’ or ‘Imagine’. This reflects our own wish to respond to the needs of the client and a desire to reflect local language, rather than stay pure in our use of the model.

Define

Before the change process can start, the organization needs to define the focus of the inquiry or the type of change required. We would argue first that Appreciative Inquiry as a strategy for change is well suited to emergent change, where the answer and possibly the future state is unclear. Second, it is more suited to longer-term change where there is time for whole-system involvement, rather than in a turn-round situation requiring emergency management and radical action. In such situations plans are often driven by the change agent, with limited consultation and with decision making on financial and operational issues controlled by the centre of the organization (Slater and Lovett, 1999).

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Understanding conversational approaches to change48

Defining the change is a key component of the process and could be seen as stage one of the assignment. The commissioning team may wish to focus on six criteria in drafting the definition for change:

1 Keep it open: the process needs to let the issues unfold as the inquiry proceeds, so high-level objectives at this stage are better than SMART goals set by the management team.

2 Be open minded: the team needs to retain an open mind about the actions which can follow.

3 Be outcome focused: the process needs to focus on an outcome, even though this may be vaguely defined, and thus allow room for development and refinement during the process.

4 Use positive phrasing: the outcome needs to be positively orientated, or at least be capable of being positive for all involved in the change process.

5 Involve from the start: involve stakeholders from across the system in defining the focus of the inquiry.

6 Be exciting: lastly we would advocate that the topic selection should excite stakeholders. It should be provocative and encourage people to want to talk about it. Sometimes this can be down to phrasing.

Clients tend to think in terms of problems and so present their issues in terms of problems. A key skill for an Appreciative Inquiry practitioner is to be able to ‘recast’ their initial labelling of the issue into one more appreci- atively phrased. For example, in one case the organization wanted to address sickness and absenteeism. These are both important issues for organizations, and in the case of this organization the problems were threatening the organization’s future, as long-term sickness in one team meant the whole team was off sick! Rather than focusing on ‘reducing work absence’, the focus of the inquiry was cast as ‘creating a work environment where what we do every day matters to our clients’. In this case the organization was working with disabled and disadvantaged people, but this focus on the clients’ needs had been lost in disputes between groups within the organization (Passmore, 2003).

Careful thought and reflection needs to go into the framing of the final topic and of the initial question. As Cooperrider, Whitney and Stavros (2005) note, ‘the seeds of change are implicit in the first question asked’.

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Appreciative Inquiry: how do you do it? 49

Discovery

The Discovery phase is about discovering the organization’s key strengths and appreciating the ‘best of what is’. This phase is about understanding what gives life to the organization and what has brought it this far or to this point in its history. The discovery phase is about exploring and uncovering the unique qualities of the organization: its leadership, history, reasons for existing or values, which have contributed to its life and success. During this phase the members of the organization have the opportunity to come to know the history of their organization as a history of positive possibilities rather than problematic past events, crises and forgotten or irrelevant events. In this way it is about connecting today to the history which is the lifeblood of the organization.

The phase revolves around the capturing of this information initially through conducting interviews, then mapping the elements that emerge from the interviews to identify common themes and stories and from here communicating these stories and their meta-themes back to the wider group.

The discovery phase can be planned over weeks or months. It can equally be undertaken in a single day if all of the key stakeholders can be brought together in a room. If all of the stakeholders are not present, or if the initiative is being undertaken in a large system, involving hundreds or thousands of people, decisions will need to be made over the timing of the interview process and the logistics of collating and communicating stories. We suggest a six-step process based on our experience, which typically involves working with a group in a single room for a single day. This is summarized in Table 4.2. It forms the first day of the four-day process that we use to explain our approach throughout this chapter.

Our six key elements are not the only way to do this but we have found this works for us with groups of a dozen to 200 people.

Agreeing the focus for the inquiry

The starting point, assuming pre-event communications have taken place about the day or series of days, is to welcome people to the event and com- municate some key elements. This scene-setting communication is likely to pick up and build upon the earlier communications. It is an opportunity to explain the background in more detail, particularly why change is felt to be needed and why Appreciative Inquiry is an appropriate way forward. We also find it useful to tell a few stories about interviews, which communicate

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Understanding conversational approaches to change50

table 4.2 AI Summit: discovery

Day Phase Activities

1 Discovery ●● Agreeing the focus for the inquiry – introduction to context, purpose of meeting and how to undertake interviews.

●● Planning the interview – small group activity to write the interview questions.

●● AI interviews – all participants engage in 1:1 interviews organized around the topic.

●● Collecting – small group collect key stories discovered during process which demonstrate organization when it is at its best.

●● Mapping – large group process to map the findings around themes which may include resources, capabilities, relationships, partnerships and positive hopes.

●● Enduring factors – large group process to identify factors that have sustained the organization over time from the larger map above.

to the group how to do an interview. Stories seem to work better than a full set of slides with dos and don’ts. In storytelling about interviewing the main themes to communicate are: preparing, selecting a good place to have the conversation, giving people time to talk so they feel listened to and respected, using active listening skills of nodding, verbal attentions and summarizing to check understanding, and feeding back the best bits you heard (Table 4.3).

table 4.3 Defining the topic: moving to the positive

Change agenda suggested by the Board

Positive focus to the topic

Addressing poor-quality customer service

Delighting customers each and every time

Tackling poor staff attendance and high turnover

Creating a happy and rewarding place to work

Building strategic advantage Being simply the best

Increasing profit margins Retaining existing customers and finding new customers

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Appreciative Inquiry: how do you do it? 51

planning the interview

The core element to planning the discovery phase is getting the questions focused on the agreed topic. The planning process may take place before the day, with a small group drawn from across the organization invited to undertake some preparation work. Doing it in this way reduces the risk of interviewers not knowing what to ask or stimulating problem–solution-focused conversations. It also ensures better designed questions. Groups sometimes pilot the interviews, reducing the final number of questions from their original pool of 12 to 6 or 8.

In designing the interview thought needs to be given to two parts: the overall structure and the questions within the structure. The structure of the interview needs to provide space at the beginning to get the person talking. For some people this is not a problem and they will happily start telling stories and sharing their views from the first question. Other people need time to warm up and develop a relationship with the person they are talking to. No two people are alike and the interviewer needs to make a judgement about when to move from relationship questions to process questions. Typically, three or five relationship questions are useful to have in an interview guide, but the interviewer does not need to use all of them. The relationship questions are likely to be about the person’s role in the organization and what they value about the organization or their role. As the interview moves into exploring the organizational process, the focus shifts to the organization as people experience it. The aim in this part is to draw out stories and ex- periences about the organization and the person at their best. As the person talks, the interview should aim to crystallize the stories. The aim is to get to the heart of the story, what factors made the difference or created the feeling. This process involves skills in questioning, and we discuss question form and style later.

When at a loss about the questions to ask there are a couple of very help- ful guides worth consulting. The most useful is Encyclopedia of Positive Questions (Whitney et al, 2001). The other useful guide in the area is the Appreciative Inquiry Handbook (Cooperrider, Whitney and Stavros, 2005). We have drafted some sample questions to give an example of what the in- terview guide might look like (Table 4.4).

Appreciative inquiry interviews

The aim for the interview phase is to ensure that all participants are engaged in one-to-one interviews. During the course of the session it’s helpful to get

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Understanding conversational approaches to change52

table 4.4 Sample interview questions

Topic introduction At Advocacy for Health we offer a wide range of services to people who find it difficult to speak up for themselves. Our experiences of working over the past 10 years have contributed to advocacy becoming an important part of health care. The topic we are looking at today is how we make the organization a great place to work as well as one that does great work for others.

Relationship questions What have you been looking forward to about the day?

Tell me what your role is at Advocacy for Health.

What is the best part of your role?

Process questions Describe a time when you have found working at Advocacy for Health exciting and uplifting.

When the organization is at its best, why do people come and work for Advocacy for Health?

Possible probe questions to be used alongside process questions as required

What was it that made a difference?

Tell me more about X.

What did it feel like?

Who else was involved?

What happened next?

everyone both to be interviewed and to interview someone. This means during a whole-system event allocating time, maybe 30 minutes for each interview, before people change partners. While it is possible to get people to interview each other, we believe that moving to a new pairing works best, and ensures the pairs stay focused on the task and start afresh with the relationship and process, rather than skipping bits having done them before in the first interview.

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Appreciative Inquiry: how do you do it? 53

collecting

Once the one-to-one interviews have been completed there is a mass of data and this stage aims to collect the key stories before starting to group them. Inevitably in all group discussions people go off task, or tell two or three stories which cover the same theme. An activity which draws out the main themes is helpful at this stage. This can be undertaken in small groups of 4–8 people, with the groups reviewing the stories told and identifying collectively which ones should go forward to a mapping stage.

The key skill involved at this stage is for the facilitators to set up an exercise which encourages the group to focus on the stories which will contribute towards the heart of the inquiry. The larger the group the longer the exercise will take.

Mapping

Once the small groups have reviewed at their tables the stories from 4–8 people, the task is to bring these together in some way to capture the wider themes in the room. One way of doing this is to start by trying to identify 6–12 high-level themes through a facilitated discussion and to map these on the wall using Post-It notes and a long roll of paper. Our experience is that people can tend to handle 6–12 themes; fewer than 6 means that items don’t get separated out sufficiently, more than 12 and people struggle to remember what the themes were.

What’s important is that the group identify these themes rather than the facilitators having a set of themes which they have prepared earlier. This process may mean that the themes emerge during the exercise. If groups experience difficulties in identifying themes, we might offer as a starting point some high-level themes like financial resources, staffing capacity, staff capabilities or skills, internal relationships, external partnerships, regulation and inspection, positive feelings, positive hopes and use of technology.

With the themes established the large group can move to the process of mapping the stories against the high-level themes.

enduring factors

The final part of the discovery phase is to identify the enduring themes. These are the factors that have sustained the organization over time. The activity can be done in a large group as an open discussion with the key themes emerging. Another method is to have an open discussion and at the

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Understanding conversational approaches to change54

close of this to allow people to vote for the enduring factors through putting ticks or stars next to the themes which they consider to have been most important. The voting process both brings energy into the room as people need to stand and walk round the room to the maps on the walls, and also gives a sense of democracy in action with clear outcomes emerging in real time.

As people leave for the day or at the close of the session there is a clear sense that everyone had a chance to have a say and that even those who are quiet and less openly engaging in a large forum equally influenced the outcome. The outcome of this phase is an extensive collection of stories of what gives life to the organization and the identification of common themes.

Dream

The Dream phase is about bringing out the dreams people have for their future within the organization and also their dreams about the organization’s future. The research evidence from positive psychology (Martin, 2006; Seligman, 2006) shows how talk affects behaviour and outcomes. The research evidence has shown that the more positive the language used by the individual, in terms of its personal, pervasive and persistent elements (Table 4.5), the more likely it is that successful outcomes are achieved. This external use of language reflects the inner dialogue that all humans have, and the positive or helpless view which they hold of themselves in the world. Affecting the way people talk can affect the way they feel. By encouraging people to talk about positive experiences and dreams, Appreciative Inquiry encourages people to feel more hopeful and optimistic about the future.

table 4.5 Personal, pervasive and persistent

Heading Definition Example

Personal Relates to the individual ‘I am so skilled’

Pervasive Relates to different situations

‘Whether it’s writing, presenting or just talking, it goes well’

Persistent Relates to past, present and future

‘I know that tomorrow’s presentation is going to be as successful as the one I did last week’

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Appreciative Inquiry: how do you do it? 55

The Appreciative Inquiry process seeks to make use of the human tendency for dialogue. It seeks to create a positive belief in the future through the discovery of past successes. As we do so, this recognizing of past success in turn facilitates a belief in our future potential. However, for organization change to be successful stakeholders need to have the ability and the confidence to expand their horizons beyond their day-to-day or month-to-month plans and strategies, and to dream – dreams which are not about who does what and when, but are about why they and the organization are there. It’s for this reason that we advocate using playful and creative processes during this phase, even more than at the discovery phase.

The dream phase is highly practical as it is grounded in the organization’s history, rather than being unbounded thinking. It is also generative as it seeks to explore potential. The dreaming phase involves building on what people have discovered about the organization at its best and projecting this into their wishes, hopes and aspirations for the organization’s future. The aim of the process is to amplify the positive core of the organization and to stimulate a more energized and inspirational future. Such a process can be expressed in numerous ways, from a rewriting of the organization’s mission to enacting the future of the organization in a play or devising a story about what the people in the organization will be doing when it achieves its dream.

As with the discovery phase, this can be managed over time and can involve large numbers of stakeholders from the organization and beyond. It can equally be undertaken in a single day and we have set out our process for managing it in this way.

We suggest a five-step process. This is summarized in Table 4.6.

table 4.6 AI Summit: dream

Day Phase Activities

2 Dream ●● From discovery to dream – 1:1 interviews reconnecting to outcome and discussing future.

●● Dream sharing – a small group activity to talk about future dreams.

●● Bringing dreams to life – a small group activity to discuss specific dreams for the organization.

●● Building a dream map – mapping the outputs from the small group activity through series of larger groups.

●● Enacting dreams – groups act out the dreams.

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Understanding conversational approaches to change56

from discovery to dream

One way to start the day is to reconnect people with the stories and excitement from Day 1. This can be achieved through one-to-one conversations. The conversations can be based on pre-designed schedules, or could simply invite people to ask questions around three themes: ‘What stories most resonated with them from the previous day about the organization at its best?’; ‘Reconnecting to outcome and discussing future’; and ‘What three wishes do they have for the future?’ This last question acts to generate accounts of dreams of the future. If the organization has performed well and been praised, such as through a regulator visit or high annual profits report, then an additional question specific to their circumstances, such as what led to this happening, might also be appropriate.

Dream sharing

Following the re-engagement at a one-to-one level, the next stage which we use is to encourage people to share these dreams with the wider group at their table. As they do so, we ask them to informally identify common dreams. This phase is helpful as the process helps individuals to shape and refine their own dreams as they listen to the dreams of others at their table.

Bringing dreams to life

These two processes so far have helped people to generate, refine and clarify their dreams. They also help people move their dreams towards a consensus position. The next stage is to invite the table groups to talk about the dreams with attention to specific details. These details might be around the culture of the organization, the ways people would behave towards each other, resources and technology available and the customers. These can be fed back to the larger group, if the numbers allow, or can be left within the small groups. We talk more in Chapter 12 about different ways of working in the dream phase.

Building a dream map

A map of the dreams can be the outcome from the small group feedback; alternatively, the map can be produced through several smaller groups joining

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Appreciative Inquiry: how do you do it? 57

together to build a common map of the dreams. The latter of these processes can help facilitators to ease the process of combining the dreams from multiple groups.

One mapping technique which we have used is to invite people to produce a montage of the organization dream using pictures, stories and words cut out from old magazines. These visual representations taken from the magazines can then be posted on the wall for the groups to wander round like an art exhibition. To help others understand the dream maps created by each group, an interpreter placed by each map can help those viewing it to get a better understanding of the contents and its meaning.

enacting dreams

This last activity can be fun and acts as a good close for the afternoon event. Groups are invited to take their own dream maps and to produce a short play. These can all be performed in an hour if the groups have used the art exhibition technique or can run over two hours as a major activity that leaves the group with a sense of energy to take into Day 3. One of the most entertaining we have seen was based around the walking scene in Reservoir Dogs! The outcome of this phase is a shared exciting vision or dream of how the future could be for the organization, based on what we know we can already do, when we are at our best.

Design

The Design phase is concerned with making decisions about the high-level actions which need to be taken to support the delivery of the dream. This involves moving to agree a common future dream and the actions to support this.

As with the previous phases, this can be done initially with task groups, and then with engagement with the wider system over time through mini-workshops or an online discussion group. Again our approach is based around the four-day systems-wide event. Our experience offers one way to bring to life the design phase, but it is only one way, and we encourage variety and diversity in applying the process. As we have said, Appreciative Inquiry is not a process but a way of engaging with others to bring about change. We suggest four steps which we have summarized in Table 4.7.

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Understanding conversational approaches to change58

table 4.7 AI Summit: design

Day Phase Activities

3 Design ●● From dream to design – small group discussions on the outcome from the dreams.

●● Organization design – large group discussion to identify what groupings in the organization are needed to bring the dream to life.

●● High-level plans – large group discussions drawing on interview results to identify key themes.

●● Provocative propositions – small group activity to write design statements about what is going to happen.

from dream to design

The first part of Day 3 can be used to again reconnect to the activities from the previous day. We prefer to keep these as small group activities with the goal of enabling people both to reconnect to the past day’s discussions and to start the process of turning the aspirations and blue-sky dreams into specific actions. They can use this early time to start to think about what needs to happen to enable the dream to become a reality for them and the organization. This is done by an open-table discussion without a requirement to feed back to the wider group, as the goal is more for the individual to reconnect to their process rather than an output to share with the whole group.

organization design

One of the common themes to emerge from most group discussions is questions about organization design: what does the organization need in terms of organization structure, style, collaborative working and communi- cation, to deliver the dream? We tend to work at answering these questions through a further round of one-to-one interviews, with the core question framed as: ‘What groupings in the organization are needed to bring the dream to life?’ Within this we encourage the one-to-one interviews both to add to the core question and to probe it further, so more detail can be added to the dream.

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Appreciative Inquiry: how do you do it? 59

high-level plans

The third step in the process is to draw the host of one-to-one interviews into the room and to cluster common themes to produce a high-level plan. This involves a facilitated discussion in a large group, drawing on the interview results. The facilitators then work to capture, cluster and map the outcomes from this full-room discussion. This can be captured as a parallel map next to the organizational dreams. So by now the group will have a collection of stories about what gives life to the organization, a shared dream of the future, and a shared idea of what needs to happen to help the organization move towards its dream future.

provocative propositions ( future statements)

The final process is to develop a series of statements about what is going to happen. These are usually written as if the situation already obtained, so for instance the expression of us at our best might be ‘we give excellent customer service in every interaction’, rather than ‘we aim to give excellent customer service’. These statements have become known as Provocative Propositions, which reflect the radical and visionary nature of the state- ments. The group should also be encouraged to make explicit links to the statements about what needed to happen which emerged and were mapped during the previous exercise. We would advocate undertaking the writing of these statements in small groups and each one being posted up next to the exercise statements to which they relate. The outcome of this phase is a series of statements that express how the organization will be, and some initial ideas about how that might impact on the current organiza- tional set-up.

Destiny

The Destiny phase is concerned with planning, and forming action groups to take forward the actions identified during the discovery, dream and design phases. This involves a celebration of both the learning identified so far and the start of a process to move forward. The development of detailed actions and the formation of groups are to help ensure the continuation of the process of real change begun in these four days.

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Understanding conversational approaches to change60

This can be done with task groups over a period of weeks or months. However, to illustrate the process we describe our experience of working in the destiny phase during the four-day systems-wide event. We suggest a four-step process, which we have summarized in Table 4.8.

table 4.8 AI Summit: destiny

Day Phase Activities

4 Destiny ●● From design to destiny – small group discussions on the outcomes from high-level design.

●● Action plan generation – small group activity to generate specific actions to deliver outcomes.

●● Inspired actions – large groups activity with individuals declaring intentions to act and appeals for cooperation team.

●● Task groups form – the declared outcomes and cooperation team become a task group with responsibility for task and plan their next steps.

●● Review – closing of session with celebration.

from design to destiny

The first exercise of the day we suggest is a small group discussion around the themes which emerged from Day 3. Our intention here is to help the group reconnect to the previous day and to start the process of planning. The discussions could be in groups of four around a question: ‘What design themes (Provocative Propositions) excited you most from yesterday?’

Action plan generation

We may continue this small group focus into the next activity, but with two smaller groups coming together into groups of eight. This aims to generate specific actions that will help move the organization towards its desired future. At this stage groups could be self-organizing around the major design themes, and asked to work on the question: ‘What specific actions or changes to processes will bring the ideas to life?’ As with most goal setting, the best contributions need to offer an organizational stretch, without creating an organizational strain.

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Appreciative Inquiry: how do you do it? 61

inspired actions

To change the feel and pace of the event we like to return to a large-group activity to report back the outcomes from each theme group. As the process moves from feedback from one themed group to another, we encourage individuals to declare their intentions to act to bring about the new processes and actions. These individuals then in turn appeal for assistance.

task groups

As this process moves forward, task groups for each of the specific actions are being formed. These new groups then meet for an initial discussion. This discussion should review the themes and Provocative Proposition alongside the actions and processes planned. The groups’ aim at this stage is to break the task down into a series of actions and form an initial plan about how the task will be actioned and by when.

review

As the event moves to its final session, the objective is to review the event and to achieve closure for everyone. We think the closure of the workshop needs to acknowledge the progress made and the efforts and energies com- mitted by those involved in the process. It also needs to act as a point of encouragement with a continued commitment to action using Appreciative Inquiry as a way of moving forward. Days away discussing the future can be fun, so it can be good to acknowledge this.

summary

In this chapter we have briefly described the 4D model of Appreciative Inquiry and offered a practical step-by-step approach which could be used as a design for an Appreciative Inquiry event over one or more days. We have offered this as a starting point, and would always argue that Appreciative Inquiry needs to be tailored to the needs and time available, so a one-day meeting or a three-month process would be equally appropriate in the right context and right situation.

We hope that this chapter has clearly highlighted the importance of conversational processes to Appreciative Inquiry as a practice. While each

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Understanding conversational approaches to change62

phase has a specified outcome, the process of engagement by all is as important as the final result. Within the Appreciative Inquiry approach it is recognized that change happens as people meet and talk together, not just after. So although the event concludes with the production of an action plan, that is not to say that nothing has happened until this point. The new relationships people have formed during their experience of the event, and the different conversations they have had, are of themselves an important change in their experience of the organization. The stories they have told that hadn’t been told before, the dreams they have created of the future, and the ideas they have developed of how things can be and what needs to be done have all acted to change their experience of the world and so have effectively changed the world. The energy generated by the event is supported by the action plans; it is a not a product of it.

In the next section we will be examining more closely the aspects of conversation that impact on the ability of an organization to identify its life-giving properties and to use these to grow towards a positive future.

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