Underneath Appreciative Inquiry:
The Power of Positive Conversation
Deborah Arcoleo
Thesis Project in Partial Fulfillment of the Masters Degree Program in
Organization Design and Effectiveness
The Fielding InstituteSanta Barbara, CA
April, 2001
Acknowledgements
I have had the distinct pleasure and privilege for the past 20 months to pursue my intellectual and professional interests in this program and to reignite my passion for academic learning, which had been lying dormant for close to 20 years. This privilege has been a gift given to me by my family: my husband Frank, my daughter Melissa, my son Paul and my daughter Emily.
Frank, thank you for the time and space to do my work, for endless hours watching the kids, for going to bed alone most nights while I was buried in reading, writing, and on-line forums, for providing me with the financial support to make this possible, and not least for your encouragement, love and great conversations about my interest in Appreciative Inquiry. I love you so very much.
Melissa, although you were born to another, I declare you my daughter and a great friend. Thank you for your support and for believing in me so strongly that I couldn’t help but believe in myself. Thanks for your help cooking dinner, bathing kids and keeping my home fires burning. You are my role model for an assertive, passionate and fulfilled woman. I am so proud of you and I love you very much.
Paul and Emily, thank you for inspiring me every day to be the best person I can be. Thank you for your patience and understanding for the many hours that you had to give up being with your mom that I might do my schoolwork. I love you both more than you will ever know.
Many thanks are also due to my teachers and co-learners at Fielding, who challenged my thinking, pushed me to defend my ideas and gave me many hours of fun and laughter on-line; to Jane Magruder Watkins and Liz Workman, my trainers and coaches in AI methods and practice; to Diana Whitney and Amanda Trosten-Bloom who generously shared their unpublished article with me; and to all of the members of the AI Listserv who brighten every day and provide me with countless ideas and inspirations.
Deborah Arcoleo
East Hanover, New Jersey
April 20, 2001
© Deborah Arcoleo 2001
This thesis was prepared using Microsoft Word 97 SR-1 for the PC on Windows 98.
Copies are available on request from the author: 1 Hillside Drive, East Hanover, New Jersey 07936 USA or at at a cost of $30.00 for hardcopy or $15.00 for a diskette.
Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION: What Goes on In an Appreciative Inquiry Interview?.1
BRIEF OVERVIEW OF APPRECIATIVE INQUIRY....3
EXPLORATION OF THE DYNAMICS OF AN AI INTERVIEW..5
The Power of the Positive...... 7
The Power of Story...... 8
The Power of Connection...... 11
The Power of Creating Reality.....13
REVIEW OF THE LITERATURE...... 15
Quantitative Research Studies on AI.....16
Qualitative and Case Studies of AI.....18
The Impact of AI on Individuals.....20
RESEARCH METHODS...... 22
Philosophical and Phenomenological Assumptions...22
Data collection...... 25
Data analysis...... 28
SUMMARY AND IMPLICATIONS FOR FURTHER STUDY...31
BIBLIOGRAPHY...... 33
APPENDICES...... 36
A – Letter to Organizational Contact
B – Letter to Potential Interviewees
C – Participant Informed Consent Form
D – Interview Guide
E – Opening Statement
Fielding Institute ODE Masters Thesis
Deborah Arcoleo (April 2001)
Introduction: What Goes on In an Appreciative Inquiry Interview?
“Conversation is the medium through which collective action emerges. It is how we make and share the meanings that form the foundation of community life.”
- Juanita Brown
“ . . . it is through language that we create the world, because it’s nothing until we describe it. And when we describe it, we create distinctions that govern our actions. To put it another way, we do not describe the world we see, but we see the world we describe.”
- Joseph Jaworski
Appreciative Inquiry (AI) is emerging in organization development literature and practice as a powerful approach to transformation in human systems: families, teams, organizations, communities and societies. AI is a mindset, a philosophy and an approach to conducting an inquiry of almost any sort in an organizational system. Spawned from doctoral work at Case Western Reserve University in Ohio in the1980s, AI is gaining momentum and favor among organization development practitioners worldwide. While the body of quantitative, empirical research on the impacts of AI is sparse, there is ample qualitative, narrative and case study research documenting the positive and transformative impacts of AI processes both on individual participants and the systems of which they are a part.
The core activity in an AI process is the AI interview. Some or all members of the organizational system are provided background and theory on AI and receive training on the specifics of conducting AI interviews. In general, the interviews are between individuals who do not know one another well, typically those from other levels in the organization structure and/or other functions or departments. The data collected in the interviews forms the basis for collective dreaming and redesign of the organization’s structure, systems and processes.
Many if not most, participants report that AI interviews are energizing and exciting. These interviews have the capability to create connection, relationship and common ground where none (or little) existed before hand. When aggregated across an organization, these impacts strengthen the social and interpersonal fabric of the system, building trust, hope for the future, energizing optimism, and a determination to take action to make images real. Building on this energy and new sense of connectedness, the system can collectively dream of new possibilities for the organization’s future.
But what exactly goes on in an AI interview to unleash this positive energy? What happens between the two participants?
This thesis will explore possible answers to these questions and the nature of the impact that participating in an AI interview has on individual organizational members. The organizational outcomes of AI processes have been reported in the literature largely through case studies and anecdotal descriptions (Cooperrider & Whitney, 2000; Odell, 2000; Whitney & Cooperrider, 2000), although some more formal research studies have been conducted (Bushe, 1995b; Head, 2000; Jones, 1998). What is missing, however, is an in-depth analysis of exactly what lies underneath AI’s apparent power, especially at the individual level.
Using a phenomenological approach, this study will attempt to shed light on the meaning that an AI experience has for a participant and how that meaning changes (or not) over time. The specific questions this study will address are: (1) What meanings have participants made from the AI experience?; (2) What shift, if any, occurred for the individual?; (3) How has the participation (and the meaning) shaped or reshaped their attitudes and daily interactions in the organization?; (4) In what ways, if any, has this changed with the elapsed time since the AI experience took place?; (5) Has AI been used in participant’s lives since the experience and if so, how?; and (6) Has the experience of AI positively influenced others?
Brief Overview of Appreciative Inquiry
Appreciative Inquiry (AI) is emerging in the organization development literature and practice as a powerful and lasting approach to transformation in human systems: families, organizations, communities and societies. Appreciative Inquiry is a mindset, a philosophy and an approach to conducting an inquiry of almost any sort on an organizational system. The body of quantitative, empirical research on the impacts of AI is sparse, however there is ample qualitative and case study research documenting the positive and transformative impact of AI processes both on individual participants and the systems of which they are a part.
In its earliest form AI was presented as a better alternative to action-research for effecting organizational change and generating theories about organizational life. Action research contains an underlying assumption that an organization is a problem to be solved. “Good” action research means solving real problems using the standardized rules of problem solving: diagnosis, information gathering, feedback and action planning. This problem-solving paradigm is grounded in a reductionist, mechanistic view – that something is broken and it can be dissected, analyzed, fixed and reconstructed.
The foundation of AI is in post-modernism, socio-rationalism and social constructionism (Burr, 1995; Gergen, 1994; Gergen, 1999), which propagate a view of reality as socially constructed, chaotic and continually evolving (Thatchenkery, 1996). The socio-rational paradigm maintains that human beings create reality through their theories, beliefs, mental images and conversations. This paradigm dispels the notion that there can ever be a neutral observer in social science research; the researcher helps shape the reality he/she finds by the process of inquiring into the human system under study.
David Cooperrider, largely credited with the development of AI, cites compelling examples from other fields such as the placebo effect, the Pygmalion effect, sports psychology and mind/body healing, of the impact of thought and images on reality (Cooperrider, 1990). He argues that not only do we see what we expect to see, but we also create what we expect to see by the mere act of looking for it. And, thus, the kinds of questions we ask in an inquiry will determine what we find. AI, with its social constructionistic underpinnings, sees organizations as mysteries to be embraced rather than problems to be solved. An appreciative inquiry asks about the best of what already is, the “life-giving forces” within the human system to be identified and amplified. AI can be applied to any line of inquiry within an organizational system from the simple “What was most productive about this morning’s staff meeting?” to the more complex “What are the aspects of our company that generate passion and excitement?”
As it has evolved, there are a number of ways in which to conduct an appreciative inquiry, but the processes all tend to follow a common path of four phases: Discovery (conducting appreciative interviews and identifying the themes and life-giving forces), Dream (developing provocative propositions for the future), Design (integrating wishes for the future with plans for needed changes to structure, systems and processes) and Destiny (making it happen and making it sustainable over time). In the past decade, leading practitioners of AI processes have experimented with using a form of large-group intervention, the Appreciative Inquiry Summit, for the Dream and Design phases of the process, or on some occasions for all phases of the process (Whitney & Cooperrider, 2000). A form of Future Search (Weisbord, 1985; Weisbord & Janoff, 1995; Weisbord, 1992), the AI Summit is a methodology for whole-system positive change, gathering together as many organizational members as possible for a multi-day meeting. Thus, more and more, AI processes are beginning to look more like other whole-system, participative, large-group interventions. For an overview of large-group interventions, see (Bunker & Alban, 1997; French & Bell, 1995; Jacobs, 1997; McCormick, 1999).
Exploration of the Dynamics of an AI Interview
The word “interview” conjures a specific image and meaning for most of us in contemporary Western society. Depending on your background, experience and profession, the word “interview” may evoke an image of a job interview, an interview of a witness by a police officer, the gathering of a patient’s medical history and symptoms by a physician, a data gathering interview of a client by a consultant, a sales call, etc. What these images have in common is that they represent a conversation between two individuals, one in which two people meet for the purpose of generating questions, answers, and thus information and understanding – an inquiry, basically. Watkins and Mohr define inquiry as “the process of seeking to understand through asking questions (Watkins & Mohr, 2001, 14).” If you take this general concept of an interview, then it’s easy to see that countless interviews or inquiries (I use the terms interchangeably) are being conducted every day in all varieties of organizations and other human systems. Yet few participants in these inquiries would likely describe these experiences as fascinating, enlightening or energizing as participants in an AI interview have described their experience (Watkins & Mohr, 2001). Whitney and Trosten-Bloom, in examining their project work with Hunter Douglas Window Fashions, maintain that an Appreciative Inquiry process creates an environment in the organization that liberates personal and professional power by creating six freedoms: (1) freedom to be known in relationship; (2) freedom to be heard; (3) freedom to dream in community; (4) freedom to choose to participate; (5) freedom to act with support; and (6) freedom to be positive (Whitney & Trosten-Bloom, 2001). Their case study of this client provides compelling examples for their views. In focusing on the experience of the AI interview, the core activity in an AI process, I believe there are four unique aspects to AI interviews that explain their power and which contribute to the organizational climate which these authors describe.
So what makes AI interviews unique?
Part of the answer certainly lies in the intentional positive focus of an AI interview. Another aspect of the uniqueness of AI interviews is their reliance on story telling in responding to the questions. Inherent in telling stories, specifically stories about oneself and one’s experiences, is revealing oneself to the other, allowing oneself to be seen, and thus making oneself vulnerable. This self-disclosure and the vulnerability that it creates, form the basis of trust between the two individuals and the beginning of an interpersonal bond and relationship. Thus, the AI interview has inherent relationship-building, trust-building, connective capacity. Finally, the mere acts of remembering and retelling impact the present reality. In the process of inquiry, the speaking and listening that each participant brings to the process shape (and reshape) the present views of what is and what is possible. The language we use creates our experience of the world, creates reality.
These factors are what people are responding to when they describe the positive experience of AI.
The Power of the Positive
Most typical interviews or inquiries seek to uncover problems, issues and what is ”wrong.” In the examples I cited earlier – a hiring manager conducting a job interview, a police officer interrogating a witness, a physician gathering a patient’s medical history, a consultant gathering data about a problem from a client – the interviewer is actively looking for what is wrong, what is missing, what is inconsistent. For the interviewee, the experience can be intimidating, draining, anxiety provoking and depressing.
An AI interview, in contrast, focuses on what is working, what is going well, and what conditions are or were present that enable things to work well. All AI interviews share a common set of questions aimed at uncovering stories of times when things were at their best: the individual, the team, the organization, the topic under inquiry. Additionally, all AI interviews explore wishes for the future – individual and collective dreaming of what is possible, grounded in the best of what already is or has been. The experience can be energizing, inspiring, fun, and hope-generating.
A fundamental premise of AI is the power of positive image. Organizations, like plants, are heliotropic – as plants grow in the direction of light, so do organizations move in the direction of what gives them life and energy. “Much like a movie projection on a screen, human systems are forever projecting ahead of themselves a horizon of expectation that brings the future powerfully into the present as a causal agent (Cooperrider, 1990, 97).” Remembering and recounting peak times and best experiences, and relating those stories in great detail brings the positive experiences of the past powerfully forth into the present for both the teller and the listener.
The power of positive image has been explored in the psychological literature. An entire issue of American Psychologist was recently devoted to an exploration of positive psychology – what enables happiness, the effect of optimism and hope on health, and how talent and creativity come to fruition, among other topics (Seligman, 2000). Several of Cooperrider’s papers on Appreciative Inquiry cite examples of research in diverse fields on the power of positive anticipation to impact and shape the present – the placebo effect, the Pygmalion effect, mind/body healing, positive visualizations in sports psychology, etc. (Cooperrider, 1990; Cooperrider & Srivastva, 1987). Seligman and Frankl have written eloquently about the power of positive attitude and optimism in coping with the realities and sometime tragedies of human life (Frankl, 1992; Seligman, 1991). The positive power of AI derives from the nature of the questions asked and the actual experience of remembering and reliving one’s peak experiences and best moments.
The Power of Story
Interviews or inquiries fundamentally take place for the purpose of gathering data. The means is through asking questions and relating answers. In viewing a transcript from a usual interview, the conversational dynamic resembles an interrogation – one party is doing the asking and the other party is doing the answering. The balance of power is usually squarely with the interviewer as the interviewee patiently and passively waits for the next question to respond to.
What sets AI apart from other inquiries is the focus on telling stories, reflecting and imagining as well as the more dialogical nature of the conversation itself. In some designs, everyone in the AI process serves as both an interviewer and an interviewee through paired interviews. Thus, the balance of power is leveled. In AI interviews, one is asked to remember positive, peak experiences from one’s life and relate them in detail to one’s partner. In so doing, the past positive experience is recreated in the present and this alters one’s view of the present. The personal pleasure of the experience is brought back to consciousness. The meaning of the experience is brought present once again, or perhaps a new meaning is created in the remembering. In short, the questions in the interview provide an opportunity to re-experience and re-presence peak moments in one’s personal and professional lives, which is affirming to oneself as well as to one’s view of the organization. As one AI practitioner put it in reflecting on lessons learned, “Storytelling is a powerful pathway to creating images and building relationships between people (Watkins & Mohr, 2001, 130).”