World Appreciative Inquiry Conference 2012

World Appreciative Inquiry Conference 2012, Ghent.


I attended the Conference and a pre-conference AI/Strengths Master Class with David Cooperrider in the two days preceding the conference. There are several webcasts from the Conference really worth viewing.



The first is the Conference Opening Keynote speech from Prof. Cooperrider which sets the scene for the three days that followed and also picks up a number of themes from his earlier masterclass, with almost 200 participants. In particular the need to find ways of 'scaling' strengths-based approaches to transformation in our cities, organisations and communities and the development of the appreciative models to be ever more generative in nature, i.e. far more than mere positive thinking and talking.


http://www.2012waic.com/webcast-opening-keynote/


The second webcast involves two fascinating examples of how 'business can be an agent of world benefit', another theme from within the Conference. One example involves an entrepreneur using digital design manufacture to reduce waste, speed production and scale the knowledge of the processes across the globe. The second example involves a more 'straightforward', if that's the right word, use of Appreciative Inquiry in an already highly successful service company in Belgium. The AI intervention was facilitated by David Cooperrider and the presentation demonstrates the power of using AI in organisations that seemingly had little need of improvement. The lesson was, transformation can take place when we are most capable, as well as when we are least able or poor in our performance.


http://www.2012waic.com/plenary-session-1/


The final webcast, by Dr. Diana Whitney takes us on a global journey of Appreciative Leadership at the Nexus of Appreciative Inquiry, Positive Psychology and the Strengths Movement. Dr Whitney is one of the thought-leaders in the AI world and again draws on the latest research and case studies to demonstrate how leadership has been influenced and shaped through the three pillars of this world-view, i.e. positive psychology, AI and strengths.

http://www.2012waic.com/webcast-plenary-session-3-dr-diana-whitney/


Taken together these webcasts offer some of the most uptodate thinking and practise in a field that is continuing to challenge the deficit, problem-centred 'improvement' paradigms in our organisations, services and cities. All of this offers ways for our hard-pressed organisations, particularly in the public sector, but not only those, to address the need for transformation from their generative and positive cores.    

4-D The Cincinnati way

Shannon Polly writes in a new piece of the Positive Psychology News Daily about a large-scale Appreciative Inquiry 4-D process in Cincinnati - the Core Change project. Aside from being the usual interesting piece one finds in the PPND,  the article offers some insights into how 4-Ds is developing in one project.


The first noticeable aspect is the use of 4-Ds in a different layout to ones we might be familiar with, i.e.:

1. Discovering the best of what is and has been
2. Dreaming about the future
3. Designing the Future
4. Deploying that design

In the recent history of AI, the 4-D model (which is not the only framework, there are the 5-Ds and 4 and 5-I's - no one said it wasn't a flexible way to view the world!) has mostly ended with Destiny as the final 'D'. In even earlier versions of the approach, the final 'D' was Deliver, 'though this gradually fell into disuse due its implication of finality and an end to something, when in reality the destiny of an organisation or a community is always developing, re-learning and in some form of transition, whatever the changes that come about as a result of an AI activity. 

I found it interesting that a new term has entered the AI lexicon. Deploy can seem almost military, in its sense of deploying 'forces' (not that that's necessarily a bad thing), or in deploying resources - much closer to the organisational/community context perhaps.A little later in the piece the fourth 'D' is broadened into 'Deployment - Design into Action', which is really starting to draw me in as a new term with potential for use with several of our client organisations.

Another phrase that struck me was "Problems don’t get solved by talking about them as problems.” Peter Block, a consultant and author who spoke at the Summit, used this phrase, which reminds us that AI never denies problems exist or that they need to be solved. What it offers us though, even demands of us, is the need to balance those problems with the counter-weight of finding the good in systems, of stories about things working well, in seeing energy and inspiration in our worlds and the strengths in individuals. These attributes set problems in their true perspective - what we inquire into is fateful. What do we want to talk about more of and do more of?

A really helpful notion was that "Design needs an opposable mindset, the ability to hold different kinds of ideas simultaneously." When we work with AI we need to guard against the rush to "edit prematurely". If we do we miss the richness of everyone's contributions from the Dream phase of an Inquiry.Retaining the whole of our work carries more energy, ideas, passion and commitment longer into an AI process. Sure, at some point we need to do practical things like action plan, prioritise, find resources and so on - only do so with more of people's contributions in play and therefore, their engagement. And, as we learn from research that engagement, in work and community activities, provides satisfaction, happiness and greater productivity. 

Finally, this phrase caught my eye, "As the idea took shape (of having a website to express the diversity and connect the 52 neighbourhoods of Cincinnati), an even bigger one took its place: to have a subsequent appreciative inquiry summit to design the world’s first strengths-based city." Wow, now that's what I call a provocative proposition! 

Shannon Polly finishes her article saying, "It’s impossible to know what will come out of the Core Change Summit. When you magnify strengths there are endless possibilities." This is a project we should keep abreast of and make a contribution to within the world of appreciative and strengths-focused change.

  

http://positivepsychologynews.com/news/shannon-polly/2012031221407