International Association of Facilitators
1999 Annual Meeting
Williamsburg, Virginia, USA

January 14, 1999

Pre-Conference Workshop

Thread #1 - Systems Thinking

Appreciative Inquiry: Prosperity Thinking, A New Social Practice for Facilitating Systemic Change

Carolyn MacLeod
Change by Design
Facilitating Transitions, Renewing Capabilities
3000 Yonge St., #105
Toronto, Ontario
Canada M4N 2K5
phone (416) 482-0361
fax (416) 482-3050
email carolynm@interlog.com

www.changebydesign.com

Workshop Summary

Appreciative Inquiry (AI), as a new process for social change, has much in common with other change methodologies. At the same time, its appreciative stance enriches and enlivens interventions in ways that make this approach distinct. This workshop will explore how AI adds significant value to the o.d. repertoire. As well, it will discover where and how the appreciative approach converges with other technologies such as Managing Transitions (William Bridges), ICA Technologies of Participation, and Future Search Conferences.
 

Objectives

This highly interactive workshop is designed as an "Appreciative Inquiry" (AI) during which participants will:

• • explore the theories and cases from which AI as a social practice continues to evolve
  • connect the AI approach with familiar approaches in organizational development, large group methodologies, change and transition models and other disciplines
  • appreciate the generative nature of the AI "stance" in effecting renewal of human capability at the level of the individual and the collective
  • practice using the tools and protocols of AI
  • experience the tangible benefits of focusing on the art and science of the possible
  • determine how to add Appreciative Inquiry to their practice and how to invite clients to choose this process

Workshop supports: participants receive worksheets, process models for dialogue, inquiry protocols and a reading and resource guide. Participants have opportunity to experiment with the process tools and protocols through individual, small group and large group work. Additional print materials may be available on request to the presenter.

Background and Context

Appreciative Inquiry is at once a theory, a philosophy and a methodology of a new social practice for positive change. David Cooperrider of Case Western Reserve University coined the term for the work he was doing in organizations in which he "shifted the metaphor" from deficit to possibility, from a problem focus to a "best of" focus. He established AI is a stance that invites possibility, and transforms the future while it affirms the best of what is now and has been. The effects have been remarkable.

Problem or Possibility: Scarcity or Abundance?

Cooperrider offered AI as an alternative to the traditional problem solving model. With its focus on the past, he suggests, problem solving does not result in new knowledge nor does it engage the human imagination in a way that enables organizations to move out of the past into the possibilities of the future.

In the Thin Book of Appreciative Inquiry, Sue Hammond charts the relationship between a traditional problem solving approach to change and Appreciative Inquiry:
 

Workshop Design

1. Theory and Practice: The roots of Appreciative Inquiry - as a technology for social change, as an Organizational Development practice, in social justice and other diffuse root systems. Stories from diverse settings - including the corporate world, governments, international and community alliances, education and philanthropy.
2. Why AI? Why now? Global forces, trends that take hold in the human organization - including democratization, questions of authority, inclusion, voice ... The five principles of Appreciative Inquiry (see summary below)
3. 
    
4. Appreciative Inquiry: The 4-D Model
5. • Discover - What gives life in an organization, makes things meaningful? What is done well - past, present and into the future? What's possible?

• • Dream - What is the world calling for from us? Provocative Propositions -"What if...?"

• • Design - What have our historical strengths prepared us to be? World focus to allow new purpose to emerge.

4. • Destiny - deliver, carry out. Affirming capability, competence.
5. Reflection:
6. • AI as a change technology
   • the tools - essential elements, crafting the appreciative questions and provocative propositions
   • paradigm shifts
   • the building blocks - resonance, convergence with other disciplines and practices
   • AI in the O.D. practice
   •  
7. The horizons - what are the possibilities -
8. • personally/professionally
   • for a community of practice
   • for the world
9. "What if...?" Provocative propositions for a community of practice.

The Five Principles of Appreciative Inquiry

The workshop is designed as an Appreciative Inquiry built around these five principles which are the underlying foundation of AI:

• • The constructionist principle. We create the future through our ideas and imagination. Language is the tool with which we create and make things meaningful, and reveal possibilities.

• • The principle of simultaneity. In asking a question, we are at the same time creating change. By our inquiry, we plant the seeds for co-creation, collaboration.

• • The poetic principle. Organizations are a lot less like machines and a lot more like a work of art, open to multiple interpretations. They can be a source of inspiration. We can choose to examine conflict, breakdown, learned helplessness or, we can inquire about joy, cooperation, innovation and what makes them possible.

• • The anticipatory principle. Organizations exist in the collective imagination of the members, in the horizon. Human beings move in the direction of inquiry, as plants move toward the light. To intervene at the level of the imagination is key.

• • The positive principle. The more positive the question asked, the more positive the storytelling and data; the more positive the storytelling, the larger the numbers of people willing to come together to co-create the future, to find common ground.

Workshop Leader

Carolyn MacLeod is an independent practitioner who focuses on whole systems interventions. She brings many years of experience as an adult educator, change management advisor and large group facilitator to her practice, Facilitating Transitions, Renewing Capabilities. She works collaboratively with client groups who participate in the design and development of the learning experience from the first contact through delivery and beyond. Clients include governments, not-for- profit organizations, education and business. Consultations focus on issues as diverse as team learning, leadership development, strategic alliance and coalition building, realignment and renewal, and culture change.

References:

Cooperrider and Whitney. Recorded at The Appreciative Inquiry Workshop, Taos, New Mexico, October 1996. Perpetual Motion Unlimited, Boulder, Colorado.

Hammond, Sue. The Thin Book of Appreciative Inquiry, Kodiak Consulting, Texas. ISBN 0-7880-0917-6