:—--" ,;Ľ-2 THE methods: adaptable Roles, Responsibilities,and Relationships The role of an organization's leadership is that of Positive Change Catalyst—to plant the AI seed and to let it grow in its own way, in its own time. Leaders are invited to participate equally as one of the many essential voices at the table. Given the opportunity to listen to and hear the creative ideas, hopes, and dreams of their colleagues and organization stakeholders, leaders recognize that their greatest job is to get out of the way. Once the positive revolution begins, what it needs most is affirmation and a clear pathway for experimentation and innovation. AI is a high-participation process that once begun continues in remarkable ways, with remarkable results. The consultants' role in AI is that of Agent of Inquiry} It includes four aspects: ■ to view organizations as living spiritual-social systems, mysteries of creation to be nurtured and affirmed, not as mechanistic or scientific operations with problems to be solved; • to work in the affirmative, continually seeking to discover what gives life to the organization and its members; ■ to be facilitators of possibilities, hope, and inspired action; * to continually seek ways to give the process away, to support organization members in making it their own. The primary role of Appreciative Inquiry participants is that of Student of Organization Life. AI engages all levels and stakeholders in a cooperative learning and co-creation process. To be a Student of Organization Life emphasizes curiosity and learning in the most pragmatic ways possible. The best of what has been and what is possible can be linked to inspired action. Future dreams are grounded in reality and hence believable. Stewardship of an organization-wide Appreciative Inquiry generally rests with a Core Team selected for diverse backgrounds, functional experience, and organizational responsibility. The Core Team oversees the process, monitoring its overall impact. Before During After Consultants ■ Introduce AI to the organization ■ Focus on the "business case" for AI • Train groups in AI ■ Support the Core Team ■ Facilitate the Summit * Assist the organization to integrate AI into daily practices APPRECIATIVE INQUIRY: A POSITIVE REVOLUTION IN CHANGE 253 Before During After Sponsors * Become knowledgeable in AI * Plant the AI seed ■ Champion AI in the organization • Participate—as an equal, essential voice * Ask, How might we take an AI approach to this? • Lead by affirmation Core Team • Become knowledgeable in AI * Select affirmative topics * Create interview protocol * Determine interview strategy * Communicate "best" stories * Use AI as a daily practice Interviewers ■ Become knowledgeable in AI * Conduct interviews * Summarize "best" stories • Use AI as a daily practice Summit Participants • Conduct interviews or be interviewed • Review interview report • Engage in discovery and dialogue • Dare to dream • Design the ideal organization * Sustain AI organizational processes and practices * Create new systems and structures using AI * Share success stories Table 2. AI Roles and Responsibilities Appreciative inquiry and Power in Organizations We could have called this section "Eulogy for Problem Solving." In our view the problem-solving paradigm, while once perhaps quite effective, is out of sync with the realities of today's virtual worlds.9 Problem-solving approaches to change are painfully slow (always asking people to look backward to yesterday's causes). They rarely result in new vision (a problem, implicitly, assumes an ideal, so we are not searching for new knowledge but are searching for how to close gaps). Finally, problem approaches generate defensiveness and separation among people (it is not my problem but yours). Our real concern is with power, control, and ways in which the problem-solving paradigm limits human potential. In particular, our concern is with more consciously linking the use of language to human potential and change. Words do create worlds—even in unintended ways. It was an unforgettable moment in a conference on AI for inner city change agents, mostly community mobilizers from the Saul Alinsky school of thought (Rules for Radicals). After two days a participant challenged: ^54 the methods: adaptable This is naive . . . have you ever worked in the depthsofthe inner city, like the Cabrini Green public housing projects? You're asking me to "appreciate" it... just yesterday the impoverished children were playing soccer, not with a ball—no money for that—but with a dead rat. Tell me about appreciative inquiry in the housing projects! A powerful question. It made us go deeper. First we argued that problem-diagnosis approaches, including Alinsky's confrontation methods, work, but at half Aľs speed. As we explored the cultural consequences of deficit language (e.g., he's "manic-depressive"; she's "antisocial"), we saw a disconcerting relationship between the societywide escalation of deficit-based change methods and the erosion of people power. From a constructionist perspective, words do not mirror the world out there; they coordinate our actions. Professional languages function like tools. When I gave my son a hammer, inevitably everything became a nail. What happens when the "scientific" human-deficit vocabularies become everyone's tool kit? In particular, scholars have documented that deficit-based change approaches reinforce hierarchy, erode community, and instill a sense of self-enfeeblement.10 Back at the inner city conference, after tracing human-deficit vocabularies to the mental health professions, the rise of bureaucracy, skeptical science, original sin, and the cynical media, the Alinsky-trained activist gasped: In the name of entertainment my people are fed negative views of human violence—surrounded by endless descriptions of their "problem lives." The result? People asleep in front of their TVs, unable to move. They have a voice in the housing project assessments. But it is a .. . visionless voice. They get to confirm the deficit analysis. . .. What hits me now is how radical the AI message is. Marx could have said it better: human deficit vocabularies are the opiates of the masses. People have voice but are not mobilized by it anymore. Visionless voice is worse than no voice. It is not problem-solving methodologies per se that are of concern, but that we have taken the tools a step further. Somewhere this shift happened: it is not that organizations haveproblems, but that they areproblems (see figure 2). Once accepted as fundamental truth, change management becomes infused with a deficit consciousness. For example, "Action-research is both an approach to problem solving, a model or paradigm, and a problem-solving process."11 APPRECIATIVE INQUIRY: A POSITIVE REVOLUTION IN CHANGE 255 Problem Solving Appreciative Inquiry "Felt Need" Identification of Problem Appreciating and Valuing the Best of "What Is" Analysis of Causes Envisioning "What Might Be" Action Planning (Treatment) Dialoguing "What Should Be" Baste Assumption: An Organization Is a Problem Basic Assumption: An Organization Is a Mystery to Be Solved to Be Embraced Figure 2. Problem Solving and Appreciative Inquiry Tough questions remain about the power and deficit discourse. Our hypothesis is that when AI is conducted as a whole-systems approach moving through the 4-D Cycle, the positive core becomes the explicit and common property of all. In every case there is movement toward greater equality and less hierarchy. Inevitably, post-bureaucratic organization designs that distribute power and liberate human energy emerge. Conditions for Success Appreciative Inquiry best serves when there is a high level of process integrity, where the means and the ends are the same. If an organization wants greater cooperation across functional lines, greater employee commitment and responsibility, and faster cycle time, the process must engage people in interviews across functional lines, involve employees in making decisions and determining the process, and do it faster than usual. Human change integrity also contributes to Aľs success. This is the capacity for system members to be, in Gandhi's words, "the change they want to see." AI impacts personal, relational, and organizational performance profoundly and simultaneously. As individuals are interviewed, they experience unfamiliar validation and support. Telling their stories and being witnessed by other people 256 the methods: adaptable is an exceptionally transforming experience. At the relational level, the interview taps a human longing to experience and recognize meaningful connections. Once discovered, the stories, the shared experience, and the connections become part of the individuals' and the organization's identities. With AI, the organization, its members, and stakeholders transform simultaneously in relation to one another. Perseverance in change is another success criterion. Change is life itself, not an event. At its best, AI leaves greater organizational capacity to change through inquiry, sharing stories, relationship-enhancing communication, and cooperative innovation. We do not leave organizations in a final state called effectiveness or excellence. We persist in being open to learning, discovering new possibilities for understanding and performance, and sharing our best with others to raise the collective standard of living within our organizations and on the planet. Creating narrative-rich communication ensures a fertile field for success. In contrast to memos, plans, and policies, Appreciative Inquiry works into the organization's communication through storytelling, testimonials, and large-group forums. AI taps into the organization's inner dialogue—the stories that members tell about themselves and their organization. In effect, sharing best practices, magic moments, and life-giving experiences is how organizing occurs. Through narrative-rich communication, best practices are disseminated and enhance enthusiasm and the sense of well-being. When appreciative stories "have wings" and fly around, the capacity for change and high performance expands. Inquiry and dialogue create rich anticipatory images. AI is based on the principle that our future images guide our present performance. Where the images are hopeful and expansive, organization performance and personal motivation are generally high. Where the images are depressed or deficient, morale tends to be low and turnover high. By fostering the discovery and sharing of success stories—past and imagined—AI invites affirmation and expansion. Theoretical Basis AI accelerates organization breakthroughs. Changes never thought possible are suddenly and democratically mobilized when people constructively adopt the power of the positive core and simply let go of negative accounts. But then the question is always voiced,'[What do we do with the real problems?" f APPRECIATIVE INQUIRY: A POSITIVE REVOLUTION IN CHANGE 257 Basic Appreciative Inquiry Principles To address this question in anything other than Pollyannaish terms we need to comment on the work that inspired AÍ. Five principles central to Aľs theory base are discussed below: The Constructionist Principle: Human knowledge and organizational destiny are interwoven. To be effective, we must understand organizations as living, human constructions. We are constantly involved in working to understand the world around us—doing strategic planning, environmental scans, audits, surveys, and so on. Constructionism replaces the individual with the relationship as the locus of knowledge by valuing the power of language to create our sense of reality. Inquiry is inseparable from action. Its purpose is to create "generative theory." Rather than explaining yesterday's world, it articulates tomorrow's possibilities. The Principle of Simultaneity: Inquiry and change are not separate moments but are simultaneous. Inquiry is intervention. The seeds of change—what people think and talk about, what people discover and learn, and what informs dialogue and inspires images of the future—are implicit in the first questions we ask. They set the stage for what we "find." What we "discover" (the data) becomes the stories out of which the future is conceived. Therefore, one of the most impactful actions a change agent takes is articulating questions. One great myth is that first we analyze, and then we decide on change. Not so, says the constructionist view. Even the most innocent question evokes change—even if reactions are simply changes in awareness, dialogue, feelings of boredom, or laughter. When we consider that inquiry and change are a simultaneous moment, it is no longer, Is my question leading to right or wrong answers? but rather, How does my question impact our lives together? Is it generating conversations about the good, the better, the possible? The Poetic Principle: Human organizations are like open books. An organization's story is constantly being coauthored. Pasts, presents, and futures are endless sources of learning, inspiration, and interpretation—like the endless interpretive possibilities in a good poem. The implication is that we can study any topic related to human experience. We can inquire into the nature of alienation or joy, enthusiasm or low morale, efficiency or excess, in any human organization. Constructionism reminds us that the "world out there" doesn't dictate our inquiries; rather, the topics are products of social processes (cultural habits, rhetoric, power relations). AI makes sure we are not just reproducing the same 258 the methods: adaptable worlds over and over again through simple and boring repetition of our questions (not one more morale survey). AI also says, with excitement, that there are great gains in linking the means and ends of inquiry. For example, in talks with great leaders in nongovernmental organizations (Save the Children, World Vision) we have begun to appreciate the profound joy that CEOs feel as "servant leaders." This positive orientation plays a profound role in creating healthy organizations. Does this mean that joy has something to do with good leadership? Why aren't we including this topic in our change efforts? What might happen if we did? The Anticipatory Principle: Our positive images of the future lead our positive actions—this is the increasingly energizing basis and presupposition of Appreciative Inquiry. The infinite human resource we have for generating constructive organizational change is our collective imagination and discourse about the future. The image of the future guides any organization's current behavior. Much like a movie projector to a screen, human systems are forever projecting expectations ahead of themselves. The talk in hallways, the metaphors and language, bring the future powerfully into the present as a mobilizing agent. Inquiring in ways that redefine anticipatory reality12—creating positive images together—may be the most important aspect of any inquiry. In studies of positive imagery from athletics, research into relationships between optimism and health, placebo studies in medicine, and studies of the Pygmalion dynamic in the classroom, the conclusions are converging on something Aristotle said long ago: "A vivid imagination compels the whole body to obey it." The Positive Principle: Our experience is that building and sustaining momentum for change requires large amounts of positive outlook and social bonding—things like hope, excitement, inspiration, caring, camaraderie, sense of urgent purpose, and sheer joy in creating something meaningful together. We find that the more positive the question we ask, the more long-lasting and successful the change effort. Sustaining the Results Results generated through Appreciative Inquiry are immediate, often surprisingly dramatic and broad in scope, touching personal as well as whole-system transformation and enhancing organization performance, productivity, and profitability. \ appreciative inquiry: a positive revolution in change 259 The key to sustaining high participation, enthusiasm and morale, inspired action, and organizational agility and innovation lies in an organization-wide commitment to becoming an Appreciative Inquiry Organization (AIO). Sus-tainability depends on consciously and strategically reconstructing the organization's core processes—human resources, management, planning, and measurement—in alignment with the AI principles and methodologies. As Aľs principles and methodologies become embedded in daily practices, the organizational capacity to sustain high levels of participation and enthusiasm increases. For example, at one AIO, all meetings begin with a brief inquiry into "magic moments"—times of extraordinary success among members. Other organizational enactments of AI include annual strategic planning summits, appreciative interviewing as an employee-orientation process, appreciative feedback, and affirmatively focused measurement systems. Conclusion To be sure, Appreciative Inquiry begins an adventure. We are infants in understanding appreciative processes of knowing and social construction. Yet we are increasingly clear that the world is ready to leap beyond deficit-based change methodologies and enter a life-centric domain. Organizations, says AI theory, are centers of human relatedness, first and foremost, and relationships thrive where there is an appreciative eye—when people see the best in one another, when they share their dreams and ultimate concerns in affirming ways, and when they are connected in full voice to create not just new worlds but better worlds. The velocity and largely informal spread of the appreciative learnings suggests a growing disenchantment with exhausted change theories, especially those wedded to human-deficit vocabularies, and a corresponding urge to work with people, groups, and organizations in more constructive, positive, life-affirming, even spiritual ways. AI, we hope it is being said, is more than a simple 4-D Cycle of discovery, dream, design, and destiny; what is being introduced is something deeper at the core. Perhaps our inquiry must become the positive revolution we want to see in the world. Albert Einstein's words clearly compel: "There are only two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle." 26o the methods: adaptable About the Authors David Cooperrider, Ph.D., is chairman of the SIGMA Program for Global Change and associate professor of organizational behavior at Case Western Reserve University's Weatherhead School of Management. He is past president of the National Academy of Management—the Division of Organization Development—and cofounder of the Taos Institute. He has taught at Stanford University, Katholieke University in Belgium, Benedictine University, Pepperdine University, and others. Dr. Cooperrider has served as researcher and consultant to a wide variety of organizations including GTE, Motorola, BP America, Touche Ross, Seattle Group Health Cooperative, Imagine Chicago, and United Way of America. He currently serves as the principal investigator of a multimillion dollar grant, working with 57 organizations in more than 100 countries in Africa, Asia, Europe, and North and South America. Most of the projects, dealing with global issues of human health, environment, peace, and economic development, are inspired by the Appreciative Inquiry methodologies for which David is best known. Diana Whitney, Ph.D., is an international consultant, writer, and speaker whose work focuses on high-participation, cooperative processes for social and organization change. She works with individuals, teams, and large-scale systems to facilitate strategic transformation. She is president of the Corporation for Positive Change, a consulting company founded with David Cooperrider to apply Appreciative Inquiry to the global business agenda. Specific areas of inquiry and consultation include strategic planning, vision and values, culture change, leadership development, organization design, the strength of diversity, and merger, alliance, and partnership building. Among her clients are GTE, Hunter Douglas, the United Religions Initiative, SmithKline Beecham, New York Power Authority, Sandia National Laboratories, Johnson & Johnson, Philadelphia Electric Company, Motorola/Teledesic, and the Vermont state government. 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