Appreciative Inquiry

Positive Change

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 Introduction
A vivid imagination compels the whole body – Aristotle
Imagination is more important than knowledge – Einstein

Appreciative Inquiry is an approach to change that focuses on strengths, successes and

positives rather than problems and negatives. It can be followed by individuals, teams
and/or organisations. Strategies that make this approach unique include the actions
of esteeming, prizing, valuing, honouring, affirming and evolving (as opposed to fault
finding).

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 Objectives of Appreciative Inquiry
This activity provides a basis for developing the following key skills:
• Critical thinking in relation to Appreciative Inquiry
• Use of technology
• Personal change management

On completion of this module you should be able to:

• Critically reflect on Appreciative Inquiry as it relates to you and learning agenda
• Understand more about your strengths and how these support your change
management aims
• Share your reflective activities with your support partners using a webfolio

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 Completion Criteria
To complete the activity Appreciative Inquiry successfully we expect you to have:
• Engaged with the material provided on Appreciative Inquiry including the additional
reading
• Contributed to the discussion on Appreciative Inquiry
• Reflected on the impact of applying Appreciative Inquiry within your own life
• Created a web folio for your PebblePad reflections

Additional reading and resources can be found on the Appreciative Inquiry Commons
Website - http://appreciativeinquiry.case.edu/
An example of the application of AI in a School context can be seen in this document -
http://appreciativeinquiry.case.edu/practice/bibAiStoriesDetail.cfm?coid=2299

Now proceed with Appreciative Inquiry

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 Appreciative Inquiry
Think about your approach to identifying and dealing with change now and compare it with the view of
Dr. David Cooperidge, one of the co-creators of the Appreciative Inquiry approach to change. In
this short clip he introduces his view of positive change.

Youtube video URL - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cPXlS2qgt3w&feature=related embed code

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Now look back at examples of change within your life and ask yourself did you focus on what was
wrong, what needed fixing or did you look for what was right and what worked well? Be as honest
as you can. Write down your responses, these will feature in later activities.

Now go to What is Appreciative Inquiry.

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 What is Appreciative Inquiry (AI)?
Start by watching this short video which introduces AI

YouTube URL - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v4y7uvpQA_0&feature=related

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We will look at how to apply the approach in a little while so first let’s look at this model.
From the video you will have gathered that it is primarily used as a tool for
organisational change however it can be applied to individuals as well. It carries
strong messages about change models that focus on the positive core of the thing
under review. It also complements the Boyatzis approach which emphasises focusing
the greater part of your energies on your strengths.

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 What is AI contd?
Choosing to identify the positives immediately forces you to stop thinking about what
doesn’t work and look for times and situations where things did work. This is
important for that part of the process in which questions are framed and successes
are shared.

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 Advocacy
A western educational & business tradition that stresses:
- critical thinking - critiquing
- adversarial thinking - confrontation
- testing one viewpoint against the other to find the strongest

We focus almost exclusively on advocacy

- presenting our views and arguing strongly for them
- debating forcefully to influence others

Most managers are trained to be advocates

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 Inquiry
A complementary skill to advocacy that:
– seeks to uncover information about why a particular view is held
– asks questions about underlying assumptions, beliefs, reasoning
– explores:
- why do you believe this ?
- what logic leads to this conclusion ?
- what facts and data do you have ?
- what examples or past experience exists ?
Supported by attitude of wanting to understand, explore, learn, expand
Not a technique to cross examine people or find fault

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What is Appreciative Inquiry?
Ap-pre’ci-ate, v., recognize and value the
contributions or attributes of things and
people around us .

In-quire’ (kwir), v., explore and discover,

in the spirit of seeking to better
understand, and being open to new
possibilities.

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 How it works
First, understand the positive core of a living system (yourself, your school). What
makes it most effective and vital, in personal, professional and learning terms?
We move in the direction of our deepest and most frequently asked questions.
Positive guiding images of the future trigger action in the present.
Images are found in our dialogue with both ourselves and each other.
Ratio of positive to negative statements is a success factor for change.
Individuals & groups can then weave the best of what is into formal and informal
practices.
This new approach to change, based on the power of the positive question, has
emerged from revolutions in many fields

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 Our image of the

Evidence future drives our

ACTION!

When organizations or groups capture positive imagery internally and make it visible, it
starts to drive change in an individualistic, self-directed way. It creates a focus

Pygmalion Effect Internal Conversations

Change a teacher’s image of a Studies of pre and post operative
student, and their behavior changes patients. Difference in recovery
toward the student, improving between positive and negative
student performance imagery.
Sports
Vivid visualization of one’s
performance guides physical
performance. Speed of learning
when only correct images are
reviewed.

Placebo Effect
Sociology Help someone construct an
The study of problems creates an image of how something might
increase in number & severity of happen, and it drives behavior
problems. But opposite also occurs. which creates a change
in that direction

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 Problem Solving vs AI
Problem Solving
• What to fix
• Underlying grammar =
problem, symptoms, causes,
solutions, action plan,
intervention
• Breaks things into pieces &
specialties, guaranteeing
fragmented responses
• Slow! Takes a lot of positive
emotion to make real change.
• Assumes organizations are
constellations of problems to
be overcome
Appreciative Inquiry
• What to grow
• New grammar of the true,
good, better, possible
• “Problem focus” implies that
there is an ideal. AI breaks
open the box of what the
ideal is first.
• Expands vision of preferred
future. Creates new energy
fast.
• Assumes organizations are
sources of infinite capacity
and imagination
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The 4D Appreciative Inquiry Model

Decide what the

topic should be

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 Questions to help you start AI
• Think about a career or personal highpoint associated with either leading change or
introducing innovation; how did that feel, what made it a success, what were your
strengths…
• What do you value about yourself, your work, your life
• If you had three wishes for yourself what would they be?
• Imagine a time five years hence when your dream had come true, what would this
look like?

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The Dream School

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 Further Reading on Appreciative
Inquiry
The following article by Cooperridge and Whitney offers a good introduction to
Appreciative Inquiry - http://appreciativeinquiry.case.edu/uploads/whatisai.pdf
A short, useful and cheap introductory text on AI is “Appreciative Inquiry A revolution in
Change” by David L. Cooperridge and Diana Whitney. Readable and available from
Amazon (about £8). Pages 7-10 give a brief introduction to the approach and pages
11-18 give a helpful of how to apply AI.

Look at the website for Appreciative Inquiry Commons -

http://appreciativeinquiry.case.edu/

This is an extensive set of information and resources for Appreciative Inquiry. I suggest
that you make sure that look at the following elements:
Practice & Management / Organizational Sectors / Education
Practice & Management / AI Tools / Models and PowerPoint slides (There are many
useful things here; a useful fact sheet titled Appreciative Inquiry – An Overview by
Kendy Rossi provides a good summary.)

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 Appreciative Inquiry Exercise
Identify a career or personal highpoint associated with either leading change or
introducing innovation:
1. Share the most memorable parts of the initiative including challenges, innovations and
changes with your support network
2. Reflect on what were the ’root causes of success..’
3. What were your three best qualities or experienced strengths

Envisioning the future:

You wake up and it is 2015. What do you see about you that is new, different, changed,
better….

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 Reflective Activity
Appreciative Inquiry helps to focus the core process of PLC module on your strengths and this is
reflected in the assessment, which requires you to reflect on how you use this model (or similar)
as part of your process of self-assessment and personal curriculum design.
The relevant part of the assessment asks you to produce a:
Reflection on the process of personalised curriculum development that you have engaged in,
including coverage of the following areas
a. The process of self-assessment and self-auditing leading to the identification of your particular
development needs. This should include consideration of the profiling you have undertaken
against professional body competencies as well as personal audits of areas such as personality
and preference; b. Your use of the Intentional Change Model or similar to identify your
development needs and plan your future actions Begin now to think about this question. How do
you see the Intentional Change Model helping you identify an appropriate learning agenda and
learning opportunities? How might you use the Models to help support your learning in the
future? How can you manage the personal change that you may face through committing to a
personal learning agenda?
Thinking back over the AI exercise, Unit 2 and your work with the Intentional Change model, describe
yourself as a person: what are your strengths, what will you be challenged by? What changes do
you need to make now to bridge the gap between your dream and the current situation? How can
you ensure you remain committed to choices you make?
Write or record a reflection on this in your ePortfolio, addressing if you can the assessment questions.
When you have done this, create a new web folio to store your reflections and share them with
your support network.

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 Looking Ahead
You should now have completed the tasks for this Activity including the Reflective
Activity.

Before you finish, review the initial reflection you wrote at the beginning of the activity on
your approach to identifying and dealing with change. Would you still deal with
change in the same way?

You have now completed Activity 8. Move onto Activity 9 when you are ready.

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