By Tania Almeida*
David Cooperrider and Diana Whitney are pioneers in the idea of diagnosing the health of companies and organizations in general. The professor and researcher of organizational behavior and the consultant dedicated to organizational change processes, especially in the presence of new partnerships, offer us – and their clients – with countless teachings that guide favorable transformations in the business environment, gathered in the duo’s book. Appreciative Inquiry: A positive approach to change management.
The strategic value of business health
Contrary to what, until then, was understood as the primary task of business consultants – diagnosing pathologies and prescribing solutions – originating redesigns and reengineering in corporate environments, the authors arrive wanting to know the strengths of enterprises or coexistence contexts – communities, institutions.
Allied to the strengths, David and Diana lead to the identification of the organization's abilities and its members, honoring their competences and showing that their convergence in systemic action and towards the desired goals generate efficiency.
One of the duo's most significant works took place in June 2004, at the UN headquarters, on the occasion of the Global Compact Leaders Summit, when Kofi Annan was secretary general of the institution. The meeting brought together leaders from relevant organizations – business, labor and civil society – and had as its theme a Global Compact that brought together recommendations and imperative actions for; (i) the sustainability of multilateral cooperation, (ii) the relationship between business and society, aimed at development, and (iii) the significant innovations and goals focused on human rights, decent working conditions, environmental preservation and anti-corruption.
What is Appreciative Inquiry?
It is a consulting nature/intervention aimed at groups of coexistence - from communities to organizations - that aim at processes of change and includes all those interested in a promising and desired future by that group. This process includes the investigation and strengthening of past successes, insofar as they serve to ratify existing and necessary potentialities for the future that one wants to achieve.
It rescues the best practices and the achievements achieved, taking them as motivation and inspiration for the goals that one wants to achieve in the future. It strengthens competencies and denounces their synergies towards the goals identified by the group.
Methodology
The methodology is based on questions that rescue strengths through frank dialogue. It demonstrates that our options for the best of us are day-to-day and that the experience of offering the best of our skills can be conscious.
In practice, Appreciative Inquiry switches from analyzing a problem to analyzing what it calls a problem. positive nucleus of a certain group: its strengths and best practices, innovations and competencies, social capital and added knowledge, strategic values and advantages, alliances and partnerships, among other aspects.
Changes, structural reforms or plans have as a background the positive core of the organization linked to agendas, change priorities and new strategies. This context involves people from all segments of the organization, challenging them to redefine deficient issues in affirmative topics – what one wants to change/achieve.
It works with a cycle of 4 investigative phases:
- Discovery: engaging everyone in identifying strengths, competencies and best practices.
- Dream: demanding from everyone a vision of the future that aims for results that if you want to achieve and will be, equally, demanded by society.
- Planning: involving part of the group and aiming to achieve the identified dream, articulating the positive points highlighted in the discovery phase.
- Destination: positively strengthening the system so that it implements the planning and sustains the desired changes, making the future concrete.
The role of leaders
Present throughout the process, they should promote and/or catalyze the positive change they want to see.dye. Participate, like the others, in the questions, with an active voice and also offering questions, in addition to their perception. They act, especially, with attentive and inclusive listening to all contributions received.
Aided by consultants and the team that is applying this methodology, they actively integrate the planning phase – which has a team designated for this purpose (central team) –, its dissemination and implementation.
The role of other members of the organization
The consultants mentioned above act as an interface between the leadership and the central team (dedicated to planning), and also work in training groups from different segments of the organization, helping them to incorporate appreciative questioning into daily practice.
The core team is at the forefront of the planning and strategizing phase, also using appreciative questioning in everyday life.
The other members of the organization are interviewed and trained, share best practices and outline the ideal organization. Create systems and structures based on planning done and in appreciative inquiry, which also becomes a daily practice for them.
Principles for successful Appreciative Inquiry
After years of working with this methodology applied to dozens of organizations and communities from different cultures, the authors report organizational and social changes in the contexts in which they worked, as well as identify what motivates people to do their best and to cooperate among themselves. for the sake of a common goal.
The highlights, in fact, speak of what all human beings need, participating in any context:
- Be recognized for good performance in their roles and known as belonging to a group.
- Have a voice and perceive their contributions welcomed.
- Dream together and have in the other a partnership also interested in a common goal.
- Be invited to contribute and choose to participate in a project that envisions growth and sustainability.
- Have the legitimacy and support to act proactively.
- Be integrated into a project that aims at positive changes and depends on them to be carried out.
How does this theme articulate with Conflict Mediation?
In all!
Appreciative Inquiry looks to the future, redefines eventual inadequacies, visits the past especially to identify positive and successful competencies and achievements, invites those involved to perceive the convergence of their interests and goals, creating scenarios that use the best of each individual, for the well-being of each and everyone in the surroundings.
As mediators or facilitators of everyday dialogues, in situations of crisis or potential conflict, this is knowledge that is worth incorporating into our business activities and our lives.
Regardless of the Mediation applicability scenario, questions that legitimize and enhance strengths, combined with the planning of actions that articulatem the best of each involved and respectm their differences, is a proposal that is extremely consonant with the purposes of Mediation.
Appreciative Inquiry: A positive approach to change management, by David Cooperrider and Diana Whitney
Qualitymark Publisher, 2006 – 1st Edition
96 pages
In our next commented reading meeting, we will visit the work The Power of Positive No: How to Say No and Still Get to Yes, by William Ury. Sounds like a super challenge, doesn't it?
* Tania Almeida – Master in Conflict Mediation and Dialogue Facilitator between individuals and/or legal entities. For 40 years, she has been designing and coordinating dialogue processes aimed at mapping, crisis prevention, change management and conflict resolution. She is the creator and founder of the MEDIARE System, a set of three entities dedicated to dialogue – research, service provision, teaching and social projects.
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