I saw this post over at Slacker Manager about the Hawaiian culture and how its values apply to business. It reminded me of one of my favorite OD interventions, appreciative inquiry (AI for short). There are plenty of resources regarding AI here, but the basic point is to approach the organization from the perspective of wonder and appreciation - exploring what gives the organization life – instead of considering the organization a problem to solved (this is an engineering perspective, which presumes that there are “problems” that must be resolved, a very negative way to look at life). I’ll post more in the future, but it is one of the more powerful interventions I’ve run across. It has virtually no downside (unlike many “engineering” interventions where the “solution” is often worse than the “problem”) and always transforms the conversations that occur in an organization – the first step to any lasting change.
Yeah, I love AI too! I’ve got a book by Watkins and Mohr on my bookshelf called (appropriately) Appreciative Inquiry: Change at the Speed of Imagination. It’s well bookmarked.
I went to a 3-day seminar a few years ago, along with a bunch of folks from Freightliner (IIRC). I was there because Freightliner was one of our vendors. It was a pretty powerful seminar and seemed like good things were going to come of it. Never did find out whether stuff changed at Freightliner, though.
I have a tough time finding leverage points to get AI going in my workplace, though, when I’m the only one who knows about it. Any tips?
I’ve added some thoughts about applying AI above in the post “Applying Appreciative Inquiry”