The term Appreciative Inquiry was created in 1986 by David L Cooperrider in his doctoral thesis: 'Appreciative Inquiry: Toward a Methodology for Utilising and Enhancing Organizational Innovation.' He developed the methodology with a team of colleagues including Suresh Srivastva and Diana Whitney, and, having gained his doctorate at Case Western University, is now associate professor of organizational behavior at the university's Weatherhead School of Management.
Cefinitions of Appreciative Inquiry
Appreciative Inquiry is the cooperative search for the best in people, their organizations, and the world around them. It involves systematic discovery of what gives a system "life" when it is most effective and capable in economic, ecological, and human terms. AI involves the art and practice of asking questions that strengthen a system's capacity to heighten positive potential. It mobilizes inquiry through crafting an "unconditional positive question" often involving hundreds and sometimes thousands of people. In AI, intervention gives way to imagination and innovation; instead of negative, criticism, and spiraling diagnosis there is discovery, dream, and design. AI assumes that every living system has untapped, rich, and inspiring accounts of the positive. Link this "positive change core" directly to any change agenda, and changes never thought possible are suddenly and democratically mobilized.
David L. Cooperrider and Diana Whitney
Taken from Appreciative Inquiry, part of the Collaborating for Change series
Edited by Peggy Holman and Tom Devane
Published by Berrett-Koehler Communications
Appreciative Inquiry is built around a unique and proven approach to accelerate positive organisational change by focusing on core strengths of the organisation --Case Western Reserve University Weatherhead School of Management www.weatherhead.cwru.edu/alumni/aiei.shtml
Appreciative Inquiry is a theory and practice for approaching change from a holistic framework. Based on the belief that human systems are made and imagined by those who live and work within them, AI leads systems to move toward the generative and creative images that reside in their most positive core - their values, visions, achievements and best practices. --Jane Magruder Watkins and Bernard J Mohr, in their book Appreciative Inquiry
|
Stage |
Activity |
|
Definition What is the focus of our inquiry? |
Defining the focus of the Inquiry Members of the core team (consisting of members of key stakeholder groups) define the focus of the inquiry |
|
Discovery What gives life? |
Interviewing of all by all People hold one-to-one conversations to identify life-giving forces |
|
Dream What might be ? |
Creating shared images from the interview narratives, ñ the common themes expressed as provocative propositions People identify the themes that appear in the stories |
|
Design What should be? |
Creation of blueprints for change: the social and technical systems needed to realise the dream People create shared images of their preferred future |
|
Destiny How can we realise the dream? |
Working together to implement the design People find innovative ways to bring the preferred future to life |
|