Appreciative Inquiry: Change at the Speed of Imagination

Appreciative Inquiry--a book in The Practicing Organization Development Series--is for leaders and organizational consultants who are ready to abandon the familiar tyranny of complex change programs. Recognizing that human systems are constructions of the human imagination and therefore capable of change at the speed of imagination, the Appreciative Inquiry (AI) process frees organizations from the restrictive orthodoxy of "deficit based change" and allows them the freedom to mobilize strategic change and focus on the visible and tacit strengths of an organization. AI is capable of engaging whole systems at amazing scales--easily engaging hundreds or sometimes thousands of people, often in a matter of weeks or days, to leverage the positive core of the organization.

Tap into the rich and inspiring "high point" accounts of personal or collective capacity and link this "positive core" to any change agenda. Once you have have determined what is really working, transformations never thought possible are rapidly and democratically mobilized.

"This is a book about the future of organization development. It is a practical guide to appreciative inquiry for organization leaders and organization development professionals and it is a comprehensive explanation at the speed of imagination." --Peter Sorensen, professor and director of the Ph.D. program in organization development and master of science program in management and organization behavior, Benedictine University

JANE MAGRUDER WATKINS is a past chair of the board of the NTL Institute for Applied Behavioral Science and a founding member of Appreciative Inquiry Consulting. In her thirty-five years in the field of organization development she has worked with a wide range of private, public, and government organizations, including Avon, GTE, Detroit Edison, SmithKline Beecham, ScottishPower, and more than 200 international organizations in nearly 50 countries.

BERNARD J. MOHR is president of The Synapse Group, Inc., and co-founder of Appreciative Inquiry Consulting as well as co-creator of Whole System Design (WSD), an approach integrating changes to culture, work processes and systems. His clients have included AT&T, British Airways, BP, Coca Cola USA, Exxon, L. L. Bean, the Internal Revenue Service and the Episcopal Church.