Appreciative Inquiry is an approach to change management that focuses on an organization's strengths rather than its problems. It involves four steps: discovery, where positive experiences are shared; dream, where a vision is created from these strengths; design, where a plan is made; and deliver, where the plan is implemented. For example, to address lack of motivation, Appreciative Inquiry would have employees share stories of when they felt most motivated, identify encouraging factors like appreciation, think of ways to convey more appreciation, and devise and implement a process like thank you emails or awards. The advantage is focusing on positives translates to more positive action.

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Coaching & What Is Appreciative Inquiry When any organization finds itself in a difficult
situation, the general tendency is to focus on the problems and try to find ways of
Mentoring
dealing with them. While this may often be a necessity, it is not the only way of
dealing with difficulties and in the 1980s, David Cooperrider of the Case Western
Coach Training Reserve University along with Suresh Srivastva proposed a new way out:
Leadership Appreciative Inquiry or AI
Training
Steps in Appreciative Inquiry
AI involves several different steps, also known as the four Ds: discovery, dream,
Soft Skills Training design and deliver.
Discovery has to do with a study of previous as well as current positive
Team Building experiences by getting the concerned staff to share their thoughts and
experiences about what they think is valuable and find to be working well. Make
HR and Business a note of things people say, and analyze this to get a clear picture of the factors
Programs that were responsible for success in the past.
Workshop Dream is the phase where you construct a mental picture of how the positive
Facilitation points you discovered can be converted into your strengths. This may require
brainstorming among the key members of the team to come up with creative
ideas.
Psychometrics
Design is the stage of actually creating a practical plan of action to implement
The Orange Academy your dream. This phase involves deciding and finalizing systems, devising
provides coaching & processes and clarifying the methodology you will use to implement your dream.
mentoring services;
and leadership training Deliver refers to the actual execution that follows when the plan is adopted as
& development designed. During this stage, it is important you do not get carried away in the
services. Our clients nitty-gritty of implementation and lose focus on the dream.
include several of the
best known companies For example, if you want to approach the issue of “lack of motivation among
across industry sectors, employees,” the AI method of tackling it would be to
where we work with
some of their senior- • Ask employees to share stories of when they felt most motivated
most executives. We • Identify the factors that they see as encouraging; say receiving timely
are headquartered in appreciation from their supervisors
Bangalore, but work • Think of ways to convey appreciation to employees; say a personal thank you
with clients all across email from the department head, or an award handed over during a formal event.
India and overseas. • Devise the process to send out the email or plan a system for issuing the
award, and allot the responsibility to a particular staff.
• Actually send out the email and hand over the award without fail, whatever the
exigencies of the situation at that time.
The biggest advantage of using Appreciate Inquiry is that it forces us to focus on
+91 7760503350 the positives of a situation and this change in our thought patterns automatically
Authored By Akash Chander,
translates into greater positivity in action.
Principal Coach
© The Orange Academy 2012
Email: learn@executivecoachingindia.com