Foreword
Since the first edition of The Power of Appreciative Inquiry in 2003, there has been a remarkable explosion of interest, innovation, and powerful business applications of the theory and practice of what many now simply call AI—that is, Appreciative Inquiry. Many of the major consulting firms, such as McKinsey and PWC, have brought AI concepts not only into their client engagements but also into their own leadership and organization development work.
In 2004, Kofi Annan, then secretary-general of the United Nations, designed a world summit using the AI summit method to bring together some five hundred CEOs for the largest meeting of its kind ever held at the UN. The purpose—“to unite the strengths of markets with the power of universal ideals”—called upon the best in business to ignite economic empowerment, eradicate extreme poverty, and advance eco-innovation in greener products, services, and sustainable operations. Significantly, a very large proportion of the companies—Hewlett Packard, BP, Nokia, Phillips, Green Mountain Coffee Roasters, and others—were not new to AI, as each had already infused AI’s strength-based, positive-change philosophy into many of their organization-development and change-management practices.
These results, as this new edition of The Power of Appreciative Inquiry demonstrate, are not atypical or singular victories. Nor are they flash-in-the-pan, unsustainable, change-program-of-the-month experiences. Perhaps the greatest additional asset of this book’s Second Edition, especially for those looking for an evidence base for the long-term viability of AI, is this volume’s documentation of AI’s impacts over a decade or more. How many books on organization development do you know of that document not just the early returns but also the long-term staying power, the longterm continuing improvements or results, and all the ways in which an approach (like AI) becomes part of an organization’s DNA?
If you are anything like me, you will love this Second Edition for its courage and for stepping up to the plate to engage the most complex question that everyone today seems to have: where are the real-life, not just the theoretical or dreamed-about, cases of successful corporate change that demonstrate precisely how change is sustained, maintained, and even elevated over time, not dissipated or discarded?
If you read nothing else in this book, you must read this volume’s featured case presentation. It’s the inspiring story of Hunter Douglas, the leading manufacturer and marketer of custom window coverings in North America, whose products are found in millions of homes and commercial buildings around the globe. It is a world-class case not just of AI but of long-term, sustained organization development: the authors narrate the story from its creative beginning in early 1996, then carry the analysis forward almost a decade and a half, tracing results right up to the publication deadline of this volume.
When Diana Whitney and Amanda Trosten-Bloom originally asked me to write the foreword to their exceptionally crafted book, I immediately said yes. I had worked with Diana and Amanda for years, on projects ranging from Verizon to the United Religions Initiative to Hunter Douglas, and I recognized over and over again their uncanny abilities to translate theory into practice. I knew how fully their lives and work were organized around their belief in human beings’ built-in bias toward goodness, and I felt confident that they would transmit the depth of what Appreciative Inquiry has to offer to individuals, organizations, and the world.
This is a very special and important book, written with soul and deep conviction. Indeed, the writing is both graceful and joyful—the kind of writing that is destined to contribute to countless persons and institutions in positive, life-giving ways. Diana and Amanda, I am convinced, must have had a twinkle in their eyes when they wrote it. Believe it or not, this is a book about organizational change—and yes, it makes you happy.
Have you ever read a corporate history of organizational change with a smile on your face the whole way through? Not likely. To be sure, this positive volume is not the “same old, same old” as it relates to theories of change. By the time you have been inspired by the powerful story of Hunter Douglas and have reached Chapter 12, “Why Appreciative Inquiry Works,” you realize that most of the ideas we have been sold in conventional change books are simply obsolete, finished, no longer needed. This book is that different. It is refreshing. Nowhere, for example, will you find references to common change management terms such as “resistance” or “gap analysis” or “burning platforms.” Instead, this book explores the transformational power of positivity—and the kind of change that happens when strength touches strength, and one person’s hope connects with another’s hope. And while this book is primarily a business book, it easily integrates remarkable new findings in the rapidly growing field of positive psychology and the domain of social constructionist thought—all while it makes you smile. That’s precisely the reason why I can easily imagine my colleagues’ eyes twinkling: Diana and Amanda knew, when they wrote this gift, that they were up to something a bit mischievous.
The thesis of the book, as well as the vivid corporate stories that demonstrate the thesis, is this:
Appreciative Inquiry transforms organizations into places that are free and alive, where people are eager and filled with positive power, and where the creativity of the whole never ceases to amaze, surprise, and innovate.
It enhances organizations’ enterprise-wide capacity for whole-system positive change—and takes the current interests in strengths management and positive psychology beyond the individual level to whole-system applications.
And, as mentioned, it shows how AI’s impacts can reverberate for decades, as in the case of Hunter Douglas, which has become a major manufacturer of architectural products as well as the world’s market leader in window coverings.
Shortly before he passed away, I met with Peter Drucker and had what I call my Peter Drucker moment. He was interested in hearing about Appreciative Inquiry, and then I asked him a question: “Peter, you have written more on management thought and change leadership than anyone in history. Is there one lesson you can share, something everyone should know?” “Yes,” he said, “and it is ageless in its essence: the task of leadership is to create an alignment of strengths in ways that make a system’s weaknesses irrelevant.” I immediately wrote it down. And I thought about the words over and over. What Drucker was saying is that leading change is literally all about strengths—it has nothing to do with weakness—and strengths do more than perform: they transform. But he did not share precisely how this could be done; nor did he offer a theory of a positive, rather than deficit-based, approach to human system change. Fortunately for every one of us, this volume does both. The book is so clearly practical and direct that it can and should be given to virtually every manager or leader of change. There are strength-based tools and methods on every page.
But the volume is equally enticing conceptually. It is filled with dozens of powerful hypotheses related to the stages, vocabularies, and expansive vistas of positive change. When we look back twenty years from now, I am certain that we will find doctoral dissertations traced to this book, exploring such topics as “conversations that matter,” “why wholeness brings out the best in human beings,” “the narrative basis of sustaining change,” and “the journey to liberation—from oppression to power.”
The theory of change Diana and Amanda describe has its parallels in the sciences, which introduce us to the concept of fusion energy. Fusion is the power source of the sun and the stars. It results when two positively charged elements are combined into one. Throughout this book, the authors describe the powerful, positive energy that is released in organizations when we fuse those things that give life to human systems. What happens in these unifying moments when joy touches joy, strength touches strength, health touches health, inspiration combines with inspiration—and how to make the combinations happen more rapidly and frequently—is what much of this book is about. According to Diana and Amanda, Appreciative Inquiry is so thrilling and full of wonderful possibilities that “having once experienced this liberation of power and the effect it has on the world, people are permanently transformed.”
My favorite story in the book perfectly illustrates this fusion energy. The story involves a machine operator who was inspired with his appreciative search for possibilities. While doing his appreciative interviews, he discovered a best practice in another business unit. A fabric press had been adapted to do double the work of the printers in his business unit. He began wondering if the printers in his own business unit might do the same thing. People at first scoffed at the idea: “Ridiculous. Impossible. We’ve tried it before, and it doesn’t work.” But the machine operator was elevated by his inquiry. He began to see his world not as a static repetition but as mobile energy capable of innumerable configurations. He felt intellectually alive, and with the persistence of a seasoned inventor, he put his whole heart into giving substance to what was, at first, a dimly lit sense of possibility. He requested Saturday overtime, and in less than a day he transformed a machine worth $110,000 into something worth double the investment. It could now do twice the work. He was filled with joy, with the thrill of the creative act, and with the experience of reshaping reality. But the organization’s leaders were equally thrilled. His one discovery saved the company $220,000 that had been projected for the purchase of two new presses.
What is the one topic that deserves priority attention in the expansive and rapidly growing literature on Appreciative Inquiry? In my view, it is the topic of human freedom and the exercise of power in organizational life. And it is right here that Diana and Amanda are at their best, breaking exciting new ground in Chapter 12, “Why Appreciative Inquiry Works.” Drawing on Paulo Freire’s pedagogy of the oppressed, the authors call all of us to a higher-level conception of positive change. Nothing Pollyannaish—Diana and Amanda reflect directly on issues of organizing that are too frequently avoided or neglected. And they invite a reconsideration of power. I really like the questions they raise, for example:
What is the value of a naturally and comfortably powerful human being? Who knows that she personally has the power to change the world? Who chooses to exercise that power for the good of the whole? Who encourages and grooms the people around her to similarly exercise their power? What is it about Appreciative Inquiry that liberates people’s power?
According to the authors, there are at least six conditions for the liberation of power, called the Six Freedoms: freedom to be known in relationship, freedom to be heard, freedom to dream in community, freedom to choose to contribute, freedom to act with support, and freedom to be positive. After lively discussion of each, the authors conclude: “The power of Appreciative Inquiry comes from the way in which it unleashes all of the Six Freedoms over the course of just one complete 4-D Cycle.”
What I like most about this articulation is its precious attention to things not often talked about in human systems change. For example, the authors write, “Surprisingly little has been written about the experience of being heard” in organizations. Then they describe how Appreciative Inquiry creates not just organizations in which everyone has full voice but organizations in which real listening, for a deep level of meaning making, is the norm.
Similarly, they point to the fact that almost every management text celebrates the role of visionary leaders. No argument here. But again they gracefully challenge: “But what of the dreams of the people?” Hunter Douglas Window Fashions Division loved this question. Their remarkable story shows what happens when you take questions like this seriously. People love Hunter Douglas. I know because I worked there, with Diana and Amanda. The sense of pride is palpable. In the words of a woman who works on the third shift: “I’m actually seeing my wildest dreams come true.”
The freedom that most intrigued me—that made me stop and think the most—was the freedom to be positive. We live in a world in which almost everything is under assault in the popular media and in a corporate world where critical, problematic, and deficit-based voices are often the loudest. Diana and Amanda offer all of us a rich vocabulary of change that helps us to shed the perceptual logic of that culture and create a center stage on which our organizations’ positive revolutionaries can perform.
Perhaps this is why I said at the outset that I could easily imagine Diana and Amanda with a twinkle in their eyes. Yes, they knew when they were writing this gift that they were up to something a bit mischievous. The tools in this book will entice you. After a little testing and practice, the tools—and especially the results—will surprise you. And before you know it, this practical guide will have you taking on more daring, more important, and more expansive change management assignments than you ever imagined or felt possible.
“Fantastic. Life changing. Powerful.” These are the exact words I think you will find emblematic of your experience, once you step into the opportunities offered by this wonderful volume.
David L. Cooperrider, Ph.D.
Fairmount Minerals Professor of Social Entrepreneurship
Weatherhead School of Management
Case Western Reserve University
Cleveland, Ohio
July 2009