Building a Sustainable Future to Enhance Your Mission

through Appreciative Inquiry

Association of College Honor Societies – February 13, 2016

Deborah Tippett, Ph.D.

Professor and Department Head

Chapter Advisor, Kappa Omicron Nu

Human Environmental Sciences, Meredith College

Appreciative Inquiry is a strength-based, capacity building approach to transforming human systems toward a shared image of their most positive potential by first discovering the very best in their shared experience. Barrett & Fry, 2008, p. 25.

A theory of collective action designed to evolve the vision and will of a group, organization, or a society as a whole. Cooperrider, Whitney & Stavros, 2008, p. 3.

The task of leadership is to create an alignment of strengths in ways that make a system’s weaknesses irrelevant. Peter Drucker

Appreciative Inquiry Exercise
1.  About you and your background:
·  What draws or attracts you to your discipline?
·  Tell a story about when you felt most alive, most inspired and most proud in your honor society.
•  What was it about that experience that made it a high point?
•  Who was involved?
•  What gave you a sense of purpose?
•  What strengths were used?
Share with partner and actively listen to your partner for patterns and insights.
2. Form Teams - Introduce your partner and share highlights. Listen for:
·  High point stories – what are the root causes for success?
·  Themes – what are the things to keep, our signature themes?
·  Images of the Future – what are the key visions, insights?
3. Images of the Future
•  What do you sense is next for you as you look forward into to the future?
•  What do you want for your honor society?
•  How will your members be more engaged?
You wake up…it is 2020
What do you see that is new, different, changed, better?
I will be most proud of my honor society because………

4 D Model of Appreciative Inquiry

•  Discovery – What gives us life?

•  Dream – What might be?

•  Design – What should be the ideal?

•  Destiny – How to empower, learn, and improvise?

Key Principles Appreciative Inquiry

•  Constructivist Principle

•  Principle of Simultaneity

•  Poetic Principle

•  Anticipatory Principle

•  Positive Principle

For Further Study:

Barrett, J. & Fry, R. (2008). Appreciative inquiry. Chagrin Falls, Ohio: Taos Publication.

Cooperrider, D. (March, 2012) Three circles of the strengths revolution, Leadership Excellence,

29 (3).

Cooperrider, D., Whitney, D., & Stavros, J. (2008). Appreciative inquiry handbook: For leaders

of change. Brunswick, Ohio: Crown Custom Publishing.

Whitney, D. & Trosten-Bloom, A. (2010). The power of appreciative inquiry: A practical guide

to positive change. San Francisco, CA: Berrett-Koehler Publishers, Inc.

http://appreciativeinquiry.case.edu/

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