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.    

It's Monday - make those meetings work better!

In a few hours, you will be starting your weekly round of 'good-finding', solution-focused, appreciative meetings; you will programme some quiet time for reflection and planning and look forward to recognising the contributions of others towards your success. Your meetings will run well, crisply chaired with collaborative outcomes (well, I hope so anyway). 

On the other hand, your week might pan out a little differently. In one sample of 65 CEOs reported by the Wall Street Journal and cited by the Drucker Exchange, executives spent roughly 18 hours of a 55-hour workweek in meetings, more than three hours on calls and five hours in business meals (!), on average, the Journal noted. “Working alone averaged just six hours weekly.”  

The Drucker Exchange website also reported that he found meetings to be big potential time-wasters. He also knew that they didn’t have to be that way. The key to successful meetings, in Drucker’s eyes, was to make sure that they became “work sessions rather than bull sessions.”

In The Effective Executive, Drucker put meetings into the following categories, and also offered some specific operating instructions for each:

1. “A meeting to prepare a statement, an announcement, or a press release. For this to be productive, one member has to prepare a draft beforehand.” So, no statements created by committee, at least not from scratch. 
2. “A meeting to make an announcement—for example, an organisational change. This meeting should be confined to the announcement and a discussion about it.” Limiting the scope to ensure the message is clear and can be properly conveyed outside of the meeting need not limit the necessary debate and consultation, rather it ensures they happen with the key message crystal clear.  
3. “A meeting in which one member reports. Nothing but the report should be discussed.” We know what happens when these single-issue meetings broaden out to include "just another issue", don't we? 
4. “A meeting in which several or all members report. Either there should be no discussion at all or the discussion should be limited to questions for clarification.” That's a tough one. yet, how often have these sessions burned hours of time unnecessarily, particularly if clarification becomes debate which turns into arguments of position-taking?  
5.  “A meeting to inform the convening executive. The executive should listen and ask questions.”
6.  “A meeting whose only function is to allow the participants to be in the executive’s presence. . . . .There is no way to make these meetings productive. They are the penalties of rank.”

From there, good executives “sum up and adjourn”—and then they follow up. Alfred Sloan of General Motors always wrote up a summary of the main points and the conclusions reached at a meeting and sent a copy to everyone who’d been present. Said Drucker: “It was through these memos—each a small masterpiece—that Sloan made himself into an outstandingly effective executive.”

Some of the items in the list might appear to be rather strict, dogmatic even - perhaps they were intended that way, to challenge current practice and generate a shift of behaviour. Whether dogmatic or simply properly challenging, Drucker's views are food for thought at a time when we so many colleagues have so much to do with so little resource - the most precious of which is time!

Have an achieving week.

Courage and authenticity in times of change

Peter Drucker once remarked that “my greatest strength as a consultant is to be ignorant and ask a few questions.” It was a self-deprecating quip. But it also contained a grain of truth. He also said, "“I can only ask questions. The answers have to be yours.” So it is now, whether as a facilitator, consultant, or adviser, it's the power of the questions we ask that can illuminate complex change and transformation efforts. 

Once we think about questions, we also need to consider what sort of questions, e.g. are they deficit-based, i.e. what's the problem here, or are they appreciative questions, i.e. what's the best of what we do here that we need to carry forward into the future? Whatever the focus, what we inquire into is fateful, i.e. we will find evidence and examples to answer our questions and illustrate the topic. This doesn't mean we shouldn't inquire into what makes our organisations or individual performance weak, it's more that too often we find our attention drawn all to readily to the worst of what is and not the best, e.g. what isn't working in a change effort rather than what is, what we can influence, shape and co-create. 


Balance, or re-balancing towards the appreciative and strengths-focused, provides leaders and followers with great opportunities to catch people doing things right, capture stories of positive experiences and allow for different conversations, particularly at times of uncertainty.  


It's not easy - no one says it is or has even been - but as managers and leaders we must demand of ourselves higher standards of contribution and involvement, no matter how difficult the circumstances. Not to the exclusion of all reason, but certainly necessitating courage, authenticity and energy. If it isn't us in formal leadership positions who do this, then those who follow will shift their attention to those who do and, in their absence, to those who role-model other, often inappropriate behaviours yet who nonetheless provide some form of rallying point. That way only lies deeper anxiety and uncertainty of success for our change efforts.


To read more about Peter Drucker, the Drucker Institute has just released the January/February 2012 issue of The Window, which features:

·         Great minds asking: How can management regain its legitimacy in society?

·         Peter Drucker prodding executives at a big investment bank to answer the question: “What should our business be?”

·         Thousands of university students in China learning about effectiveness, Drucker style

http://www.druckerinstitute.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/Jan-Feb-12.pdf