What is Appreciative Inquiry?
As Americans, we learn to be problem solvers. Troubleshooters. We see trouble, we shoot it. We learn the “Problem Solving Method” in school.
The problem solving method involves first defining the problem, then coming up with some way of solving it. It makes sense, but it has one major shortcoming that leads to undesirable consequences.
The shortcoming of the problem solving method is the need to define the problem. You need a problem to use the method. So you need to look at everything as a possible problem. This is a negative view–that something is broken and needs to be fixed.
By defining a problem, you have to isolate the problem from everything else. It is a reductionist viewpoint that does not recognize that the problem is part of a larger system.
In short, the problem solving method leads to a negative view of a situation and a neglect for the system as a whole. Sometimes, the problem solving method causes strife in a community (or in your mind) as blame is passed around.
Take the example of a poor neighborhood. At a community meeting, the leaders have convened to solve the problem of a lack of good schools. Some want to define the problem economically and blame the lack of real estate taxes to pay for the schools. Others want to blame “the man” for keeping them powerless by denying them education. Others want to blame the parents for not participating in their kids’ education.
All in all, they are getting somewhere. But where they are getting is to a giant list of forces–internal and external–that are working against them. And they are no closer to solving the “problem”. They will leave the meeting feeling hopeless and victimized.
What would happen if they didn’t look for problems? What would happen if they didn’t isolate the problem from the rest of the system?
There is an alternative to the problem solving method. The alternative attempts to build and improve on a system or community by building a positive image and tapping pre-existing resources and strengths. It’s called Appreciative Inquiry. All of the steps start with D to make them easy to remember.
- Discover the strengths and resources.
- Dream what future you want to live.
- Design the plan of action.
- Deliver the dream to reality.
This method only differs from the problem solving method in the first two steps. I’ll go through each step and apply it to the neighborhood scenario.
1. Discover
In the discovery phase, you discover all of the strengths and resources of the community or system, thereby constructing a positive outlook.
Instead of defining the problem, the community leaders list all of the great things about the community, no matter how small. They list resources, past triumphs, anything positive. In this case, they discover that they have (among other things):
- great cooks (some mothers were renowned for their cuisine)
- lots of open spaces
- several good teachers
- a strong sense of community
- clean water
- adequate housing
- lots of willing labor
- support for better schools (the issue was brought up several times before)
- when Joshua got cancer, everyone came to help out
Note that at this point, the meeting participants are not thinking of how these things could be put to use. They are simply trying to elicit a positive and holistic view of their community. At the end of this step, they see the neighborhood as essentially capable and resourceful.
2. Dream
In the dream phase, you create a narrative of your ideal community. This dream works best if the dreamers are primed with the positive image built in the first step.
Our community leaders, after making their list, start enthusiastically dreaming out loud about how the community could reorient its resources to better foster education. They dream that some of the better cooks in the community, who already love sharing their cooking, prepare dishes for the teachers so they could spend more time on their classes. They also dream of a team of enthusiastic parents that went from house to house, talking about the importance of schools. Lastly, they envision students paying respect to their education by cleaning their own school and schoolgrounds.
These dreams are elicited to invoke the collective imagination of the community. The community has an intuitive understanding of what can work and what they mean by “better education”. The dreams, therefore, are not meant to be perfect plans of action. They are there to prime them for planning with imaginative minds ripe with possibility.
3. Design
Design is where you plan what actions to take to implement change. You don’t have to stick exactly to the dream, only remain informed by it.
The community decides to prioritize feeding the teachers and forming the team of parents. These two things can be done at the same time and will engender support for education. They will model the effort on the effort to support Joshua through his cancer treatment. The clean-up teams of students will wait. They will reconvene in a month to evaluate.
4. Deliver
Delivery is where you implement the plan.
I hope you have a good idea of the benefits of Appreciative Inquiry. A community that was full of victim mentality and hopelessness began to see themselves as extremely capable and designed their own destiny.
What can you apply Appreciative Inquiry to? Which method (Appreciative Inquiry or Problem Solving) is better for which situations?
You can apply Appreciative Inquiry to anything in your life. It is great that you don’t have to wait for some “problem” to arise before you improve your situation. There is nothing to solve, only room to improve.
Things I’ve applied Appreciative Inquiry to:
- my furniture layout
- daily schedule
- life goals
- trip planning
Let me just say that once you go Appreciative Inquiry, you won’t want to go back. It’s magical. There’s nothing like starting to see things as great and getting better.
Go! Use this in you own life. Do it! Tell me about your successes!
Want to read more?
- Appreciative Inquiry Commons. Dig deep to find great articles.
- Appreciative Inquiry on Wikipeida. Ok introduction.
- A Positive Revolution in Change. Pdf of a good case study. Great introduction to AI.
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