Appreciative Inquiry: A Positive Approach to Building Cooperative Capacity

Foreword

Within these pages is a simple yet revolutionary philosophy of organizational learning and change: discover everything that "gives life" to the cooperative capacity of a human system and then let go.

What gets co-constructed thereafter will be anything but linear. Like jazz improvisation or a creative jam session, it will literally be impossible to predict the emerging new opportunities, options, and shared possibilities. But one thing is almost certain: whatever gets created will be good. It will be valued and valuable to the human system for one overarching reason: the quality of the "relational space" from which the new constructions of the future are nurtured makes a difference that makes the difference. Relationships, propose the authors of this wonderful introduction to Appreciative Inquiry, come alive where there is an appreciative question, when there is a deliberate search for the good and the best in one another; and in human systems the process of studying a phenomenon actually changes that phenomenon, in effect creating a new reality during the process of inquiry. That s what this book is all about. It is all about power of "AI" as a way of creating a relational space for the cooperative construction of reality.

Based on almost twenty years of field research in organizations like the United States Navy, Roadway Express, and Nokia as well as years of scholarly commitment to social constructionist approaches to human science inquiry, the authors of this book finally put into print a pragmatic, inspiring, and simple account of an approach to strength-based change that has elevated the capacities of thousands of businesses, change leaders, and teams to realize their enormous potentials. It s the kind of focus book that people will want to hand out at the front end of a major organization-wide change initiative. And it is a perfect companion piece for workshops, foundation courses on AI, and leadership programs.