PRINCIPLES

Extract from "Appreciative Inquiry in the Praxis of Reconciliation" by William A. Nordenbrock, C.PP.S.

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The essential components of the AI approach to organizational change are identified as five key principles and five generic processes. Watkins and Mohr call this the DNA of Appreciative Inquiry.17

1) The Constructionist Principle

The idea that a social system creates or determines its own reality is known as social constructionism. AI takes this theoretical framework and simply places it in a positive context. The positive spin on social constructionism is central to AI. Many of its principles flow from the idea that people control their destiny by envisioning what they want and developing actions to move towards it.18

This is an important theoretical soil for the development of AI theory and practice. A social system or organization is not fixed by nature, but is the product of a shared knowing and communication. “Knowledge about an organization and the destiny of the organization are interwoven.”19 In particular, the “reality” of an organization is determined by those who participate in the shared life, which gets expressed in the stories that they tell of the history and current life of the organization. Appreciative Inquiry is rooted in this principle in that it purports that by changing the shared narratives of the organization, the reality of the organization shifts.20 The role of narratives is very important in the AI process. Appreciative Inquiry theory holds that by changing the narrative it is possible to co-construct a desired future. “The most important resource for generating constructive organizational change is cooperation between the imagination and the reasoning function of the mind (the capacity to unleash the imagination and the mind of the groups). AI is a way to reclaim the imaginative competence.”21

2) The Principle of Simultaneity

Here it is recognized that inquiry and change are not separate, but are simultaneous. Inquiry is intervention. The seeds of change--that is, the things people think and talk about, the things that people discover and learn, the things that inform dialogue and inspires images of the future are implicit in the very first question we ask. The questions that we ask set the stage for what we “find,” and what we “discover” (the data) becomes the linguistic material, the stories, out of which the future is conceived, conversed about, and constructed.22

Often people find it hard to lay aside the myth of the old paradigm which says that organizational change begins with analysis and is followed by implementing a decision about how to effect change. Instead, the theory put forth by AI states that all inquiry into a social system is fateful; that is, the inquiry itself has an effect on the organization.

This principle has two significant influences on AI theory and practice. The first is that, although AI processes get described in a sequential order, the steps in the process must be understood as being overlapping and individual actions can simultaneously be understood as being an expression of multiple steps. Secondly, if our questions are themselves fateful, then our questions take on added importance. In the old paradigm, questions are used to gather information which is then used to design the intervention. But if we recognize that the questions themselves are interventions, then the crafting of the questions to be asked takes on significant importance. Cooperrider and Whitley write:

If we accept the proposition that patterns of social-organizational action are not fixed by nature in any direct biological or physical way, that human systems are made and imagined in relational settings by human beings (socially constructed), then the attention turns to the source of our ideas, our discourses, our research--that is our questions. Alterations in linguistic practices--including the linguistic practice of crafting questions-- hold profound implications for changes in social practice.23

The importance of the questions asked will be seen in two distinct, yet related ways. The first is in solicitation of memory. The AI process is rooted in the collected memories of the organization. As will be described below, a first step in the process is to discover or remember the best of the past. It is through the questions that are asked, that the memories are solicited and directs the participants to identify the “best” of the past. The careful crafting of these questions is a key process success indicator because the memories that are solicited are the foundation for all the work to follow. Secondly, questions are important because they are used to stimulate the imagination. Imagination is needed and used to create a shared dream for the future. It is the stimulation of the imagination that energizes the participants and fuels the positive transformation of the organization. The organization is empowered and enlivened by the very process of asking carefully crafted and properly focused questions. With good questions, transformation is simultaneous with the asking of the question.

3) The Poetic Principle

A useful metaphor in understanding this principle is that human organizations are an open book. An organization’s story is constantly being co-authored. Moreover, pasts, presents, and futures are endless sources of learning, inspiration, or interpretation (as in the endless interpretive possibilities in a good work of poetry or a biblical text).24

An important implication of this principle is that because organizations are open books, we have complete flexibility in our choice of how and what we are going to study. We can study problems or we can study success stories. We can focus our inquiry on our disappointments or our hopes and dreams. How that freedom is used is key to the AI theory and practice.

The “co-authoring of the organization’s story” is another way of stating the social construction principle. However, the shift in language from “constructing” to “authoring” reflects the fluidity that will be seen in the process described below. “Constructing” would seem to indicate that there is a blue print or engineering plan that needs to be followed in a structured way. While “authoring” reflects the necessary creativity or continual improvisation which is necessary in the use of an AI process, as it is tailored to the particular context in which it is being employed.

4) The Anticipatory Principle

The most important resource that an organization has for the co-authoring of its future is its collective imagination, which is given expression in the conversations and discussions about the future that occur within the organization. In this way, it is said that “the basic theorems of the anticipatory view of organizational life is that it is the image of the future, which in fact guides what might be called the current behavior of any organism or organization.”25

Like a movie projected onto a screen, a human system continually projects ahead of themselves a horizon of expectation that brings the future powerfully into the present as a mobilizing agent. Organizations exist... because people who govern and maintain them share some sort of discourse or projections about what the organization is, how it will function, what it will achieve, and what it will likely become.26

It is important to understand that this principle is not suggesting a magical or mystical connection between what we believe and what will occur in the future. Rather, it purports that the narratives that are told about the imagined future of the organization help to define and determine the identity (and future) of the organization because the stories that are told influences the interactions of the participants today. It is the actions of today which creates the future reality. An example that illustrates this can be found in the religious congregation which tells and re-tells the narrative of their declining membership and their congregational dying, who then live that narrative into reality as they cease to invite new members or create new opportunities for mission.

5) The Positive Principle

Two experienced AI practioners write:

Building and sustaining momentum for change requires large amounts of positive affect and social bonding--things like hope, excitement, inspiration, caring, camaraderie, sense of urgent purpose, and the sheer joy of creating something meaningful together. What we have found is that the more positive the questions that we ask in our work the more long lasting and successful the change effort.27

At the core of the AI theory and approach is that a positive future is constructed on the positive core that is present today within the organization. For this reason, those elements, characteristics or events which are most positive about the organization become the sole focus of the process. This is a radical departure from the more common organizational dynamic approach of inquiring into the problem and designing a solution.

Cooperrider and Whitley write that the most important thing that their experience has taught them is that Human systems grow in the direction of what they persistently ask questions about and this propensity is strongest and most sustainable when the means and ends of the inquiry are positively correlated. The single most prolific thing a group can do if its aim is to liberate the human spirit and consciously construct a better future is to make the positive change core the common and explicit property of all.28

The unwavering focus on the positive is essential in the AI process. The rationale for that is presented in the next section and will be re-visited in the description of the AI process, which follows. 

Notes:

17 Watkins and Mohr, Appreciative Inquiry, 37.

18 David L. Cooperrider, Diana Whitley and Jacqueline M. Stavros. Appreciative Inquiry Handbook: The First in a Series of AI Workbooks for Leaders of Change. (Brunswick, OH: Crown Publishing, Inc., 2005), 13.

19 Watkins and Mohr, Appreciative Inquiry, 37. 12

20 This will be illustrated below in the section on the Anticipatory Principle. 

21 Cooperrider, Whitley and Stavros, AI Handbook, 8.

22 Cooperrider and Whitley, “Positive Revolution,” 15.

23 Ibid., 15.

24 Cooperrider, Whitley, and Stavros, AI Handbook, 9. 15

25 Cooperrider and Whitley, “Positive Revolution,” 16.
26 Cooperrider, Whitley and Stavros, AI Handbook, 9. More about the power of the “inner dialogue” of the organization to shape the future is found below.