Appreciative Inquiry and Organizational Transformation: Reports from the Field

Positive organizational change does not have to be planned or managed top down in a linear, urgent manner. Rather, it can be unleashed or discovered by helping people within organizations to identify their own best experiences in the past, and then use them to imagine, design, and bring into being the organization they most want and which works best. The method is called Appreciative Inquiry. The volume editors and their panel of experts examine how AI works in practice, and how its many (and often surprising) benefits can be realized in just about any organization. The result is a major explication and source book for HR and organizational development specialists and upper level management trying to lead effective change.

Detailed case reports from the field show how this unique approach is actually applied and what its consequences are. Readers will learn to identify the positive core of any system--the practices and principles that encourage the best in organizational capacity and performance. They will find not only specific outcomes but also some detailed reflections by practitioners on the use of Appreciative Inquiry. A volume summary lays out the themes and lesson that span the cases. Also presented are powerful and novel propositions on how to approach the crucial issues in organizational change. The result is a major explication and source book for HR and organizational development specialists.

RONALD FRY is Associate Professor of Organizational Behavior at Case Western Reserve University and Director of the Weatherhead School's Executive MBA Program. He has published widely and taught on team development, organizational change and development, executive leadership, and appreciative inquiry. He also directs the Global Excellence in Management Certificate Program, a USAID-funded program that uses AI to benchmark and develop capacity-building approaches to global social change in organizations.

DIANA WHITNEY is President of the Corporation for Positive Change, Taos, N.M., and co-Founder of the Taos Institute, Cleveland, OH. An internationally recognized speaker and consultant on appreciative inquiry, she focuses on ways to use AI to create large-scale social and organizational change.

JANE SEILING is a consultant, author, speaker and Founder of the Business Performance Group, Lima, OH. She is also an associate of the Taos Institute and specializes in helping organizations achieve more open and inclusive workplace communities. Among her various publications is an earlier book from Quorum: The Meaning and Role of Organizational Advocacy (2001).

FRANK BARRETT is Associate Professor of Management and Organizational Behavior at the Naval Postgraduate School, Monterey, CA. He has published on topics in organizational change and learning, appreciative inquiry, and coauthored with David Cooperrider an award winning paper: Generative Metaphor Intervention.