Description

Recap

Introduction

The basic premise of Appreciative Inquiry could be applied to how an individual views a glass of water. If it is viewed as half empty, the person would probably be oriented towards problem solving and deficit thinking---how do we fill the glass to the brim or how do we catch the culprit drinking our water. If the glass is viewed as half full, the person would probably be positively oriented towards "what works" and on enjoying the small and/or individual successes of each day.

The discovery phase involves a data collection and narrative exploration. It begins the process of revealing the positive, the successful, and the prideful experiences of the individual. Through carefully developed interview questions based in the affirmative topic selection, the focus is to explore and enliven the stories. Generally the more reflective, the more effective the outcome.

The dream phase of appreciative inquiry begins the process of what could be. Whether we call it dreaming, envisioning, or imagining, the focus is to think about possibilities beyond the realm of present day thinking. It is a brief window of opportunity. You will have built a cache of stories of successful ways of being in Discovery. If these stories are grounded into your psyche, they will become the foundation for building your future. In short, the frame of reference will begin to positively shift through the stories that have been told.

Lesson Three Objective

To build confidence using Appreciative Inquiry this lesson provides direct experience with the ‘ways to the state of feeling strong’ for the purposes of resiliency in job finding. We will:

Discover core strengths and valued past in the “positive core”

Dream and envision the shared future we want to create.

Benefits to AI Interview

Appreciative Interviews ~Inquiry that makes the difference…..

Stories stick like glue

Make information easier to remember as “Whole brain”

Builds identities and fosters relationships

Medium for conveying values, visions

Moves the internal dialogue of the system

Human Hope

Building relationships

Creating opportunities for people to be heard

Generating opportunities for people to dream

Allowing people to choose how they will contribute

Giving people the support to act

Encouraging and enabling people to be positive and affirming

The Art of Positive Questioning

Typically, appreciative interviews involve an interlinked series of three different types of question:

Initial questions which ask about past or current experience

Follow-on questions which look for further information in and around the subject

Future questions which look for future solutions based on past experience

We can ask questions in two ways:

What is wrong with my job interviews?

What problems can I fix?

What are the needs of my job interviewer?

What is broken?
What’s the biggest problem here?

Why do you blow it so often?

Why do we still have those problems?

Or

What’s the smallest change that could make the biggest impact?

What possibilities exist that we have not thought about yet?

What solutions would have us both win?

What are the strengths of my job interviews?

Share a time when you felt your job interview was at its best?

What do you value most about your job readiness?

What is the essence of you that makes you unique and strong?

Discovery

Appreciating “What gives life?” (Discovering the best of what is and has been)

“We inhabit a world that is always subjective and shaped by our interactions with it. Our world is impossible to pin down, constantly changing and infinitely more interesting than we ever imagined.” Margaret Wheatley, Leadership and the New Science

People share stories of times in their history when relationships, processes, methods, and other characteristics were most effective.

By focusing on existing successes and desired conditions, rather than deficits collected from the past, people are more likely to accept change directed at accomplishing the ideal while continuing their work in the present.

When people change their inner and explicit dialogues to focus primarily on affirmation and support, they change their stories for the better

As people become increasingly aware of their positive core appreciation escalates, hope grows, as does the individual.

The Discovery phase is a diligent and extensive search to understand the ‘best of what is’ and ‘what has been.’ Appreciative Inquiry questions are written as affirmative probes into one’s positive core, in the topic area selected. They are written to generate stories, to enrich the images and inner dialogue within the person, and to bring the positive core more fully into focus.

Task or Assignments

By the end of this section for Discovery you will be identifying your Positive Core List for Badge 1 of 4

Later will follow:

Dream Images of Future Visions

Design Provocative Possibility Propositions for Ideal Designs

Destiny Step by Step Actions/Projects for Continuous Learning

The Template for the Appreciative Inquiry Interview

In the photo there are stairs outdoor that are dryed up muddy man made rustic looking framed by green natural growth either side heading up and off into who knows where. Despite weathered old stairs they are quite beautiful in fact more so than if they were brand new as now the stairs are one with the environment.

Recall the more we focus on strengths, assets and aspirations, the more likely we are to give life to them! As an initial exploration, each person will complete the following four Foundational Question Areas:

Best Experience

Values

Core factors that give “life” to you

Future Possibilities

Initial questions

The main rule for asking initial questions is to recount a real story from the past or present, something of which you have firsthand experience. Initial questions set up the whole interview dialogue, and so should be as directly related to our topic of the ‘ways to the state of being strong’ as possible.

Example:

What has been your best experience in your job hunting?

Tell me about a time you exhibited being strong.

As well as asking these initial questions, the first part of the AI interview can be used to set up the dialogue in positive ways by removing any misconceptions that might affect the answers you get. For example, before asking the question above you could talk about job hunting in a very broad way, making it clear that it is not just your current job hunting that people are currently in that you want to know about.

Best Experience

Question Examples related to a ‘Peak experience or high point?’

Tell me the experience or high point in your professional life …a time when you felt most alive, most engaged, and really pound of yourself and your work.

Looking back at the past year, think about a time when you felt most excited, effective and engaged. Describe that time, how you felt and what made the situation possible.

Life partner or close friend best or peak experience example questions; What first attracted you to the other person? What qualities, behavior, potential etc.? What are two or three of the most inspiring, rewarding or satisfying experiences of your time together? What factors helped make it so? How has this relationship helped, benefited or contributed to you the most? Individually and personally? What two or three difficult circumstances, disappointments, and roadblocks have you successfully addressed or overcome together? What factors helped to do so?

I’d like to ask you a few questions about your experiences of learning when you were in school. This could be learning you’ve done at school, or in your family, or from reading or television. What has been your best experience of learning when you were a child? What made it so good? Who was involved? What did you learn?

Follow-up questions

There is a photo of a young man looking through a magnifying glass with a very enlarged eye. The accompanying quote says, “when we deliberately seek out and notice those qualities that we hold in high estimation, our act of noticing and valuing actually amplifies these qualities and increases their value.”

Without having a face to face interview the onus is on you to be self inquiring. There will not be a person to prompt you to speak further as face to face these deeper insightful further questioning based on your responses will not arise spontaneously from the interview at the time. You might wish to spend some time thinking about how to follow up the first stage of the interview with some further questions to yourself.

The main purpose of these questions is to find out:

As much information as possible about the positive experience.

What was good about it?

What were the factors that made it possible?

These last two are extremely important. They involve encouraging yourself to move from your specific case and to generalize transferable skills about your positive past experience or success.

Follow up question examples: Why do you think you enjoyed that interview so much at that time? What was it about that particular project that made it enjoyable? What made it possible for you to go back to that place? What was it that gave you the courage to stay strong? How come you didn’t give up trying?

Values

Question Examples of ‘Things valued most about yourself?’:

Without being humble, what do you most value about yourself, and the way you do your work? What unique skills and gifts do you bring to a team, your work, your school?

Without being humble, what do you value most about yourself for example, as a human being, or as friend, a parent, a citizen and so on?

What do you think is the core value of you? What is it that, if it did not exist, would make you totally different than you currently are?

Life partner or close friend ‘Values’ example; What currently do you truly appreciate about the other person? What gives life to your relationship? Without ________ this positive life giving force the relationship would cease to exist.

It is often said that people like to work for a cause greater than themselves. When you think about your future, what is your cause? To put it another way, when you leave this earth, what positive legacy do you personally want to be remembered for having contributed? In what ways would you like to leave this life a better place than you found it?

Follow Up questions

Continue to encourage a vivid complete description of events for yourself. Tell a very descriptive and detailed story. I encourage expansion of the story’s richness by asking questions of yourself as if you are out of body and interviewing you, you are interviewing you. Questions such as “tell me a little more about the part when ……”

There is a green chalk board behind a young women five lightbulbs drawn progressively bigger from left to right over her head.

Here are some possible questions to use to probe further:

Tell me more.

How were you feeling?

What was important to you?

How did that affect you?

What was your contribution?

What was the organization doing that helped you do this?

What do you think was really making it work?

How has what happened changed you?

Core Factors that Give ‘Life’ to You?

You appreciate ‘what is’ by discovering and valuing those factors that give life to you. Here are question examples:

What do you value most about yourself, your neighbours, your school, the community organizations of which you are a part?

What in your view is making a positive difference to your quality of life? What contribution are you/have you made/making that you are especially proud of?

What are the core factors that give life to you, when you are at your best?

I really come alive when…

The most important thing for me around here is…

We always _______ whenever ________

Future questions

These questions are all about the future, in particular about how these positive factors could be repeated in the future to create more positive conditions for you. More than this, start to imagine the best possible future but in a way that is grounded in your past experience.

Example: If you could recreate the experiences you described in School, what would it be like, how might we do it, who would be involved?

This line of questioning naturally leads to concrete ideas about the future. Some of these may simply be impossible, but many have genuine potential and the interview can be developed into a mini -brainstorm about how the idea could be carried out. For example, the book “Appreciative Inquiry” (David Cooperrider & Diana Whitney) reports the following conversation between one of the authors and the president of a consulting partnership working with a Fortune 500 client. The client has contacted the consultancy for help with a problem of sexual harassment in the workplace.

DAVID: We have an important question. What is it you want to learn about and achieve?

RITA: We want to dramatically cut the incidence of sexual harassment. We want to solve this huge problem, or at least make a significant dent in it.

DAVID: Is that all?

RITA: You mean what do I really want? (Long pause … then she blurts out) What we really want is to develop the new-century organization— a model of high-quality cross-gender relationships in the workplace!

DAVID: What if we invited people in pairs to nominate themselves to share their stories of creating and sustaining high-quality cross-gender workplace relationships.

This opened the way for a pioneering project which was copied by other companies, one which won the 1997 Catalyst award for the best place in the country for women to work.

There is a picture of the cartoon sunflower symbolic of the message reminder of what you focus on grows given the Heliotropic Principle.

Envisioning the future:

Just as important as asking the initial and follow up questions of yourself, and listening to your stories lessons and existing exhibited skill set evidenced in these past successes, will be the next stage, consolidating these positive experiences into a vision of an ideal future. The practice of asking ‘Future Questions’ leads us naturally towards the next stage Dreaming. We are not there yet though these wishes questions are preparing us.

The purpose of this stage is to get down to what people really want. As in the cross-gender relations example above, it can sometimes take a little time and questioning to find out what people would really like, either because they feel that it is unrealistic or because they don’t feel able to state their real wishes.

This stage can include, for example, agreeing on “three wishes” you would like to make about the future, or brainstorming about the future that you would like to see.

It is important in preparing for this stage to give your self-permission to make genuine statements about the future you would like, regardless of how realistic you think these statements are. Also be prepared for the discussion to wander away from the original topic. Unless you are in danger of becoming sidetracked on an issue that is a long way off topic or stuck on a particular issue (particularly a negative one) this doesn’t matter. The important thing is that these views and statements be grounded in the stories of best experiences from the past.

You envision what might be. When the best of what is has been identified and is valued, the mind begins to search beyond, to dream new possibilities. Imagining involves "passionate thinking", allowing yourself to be inspired by what you see. It means creating a positive image of a desired future.

Future Possibilities

Question examples that seek possibilities for the future:

What are three wishes to heighten vitality and health?

If you had a magic wand, and could have any three wishes granted to heighten your health and vitality what would they be?

If you had 3 wishes for the future …

Life partner or close friend Wishes example questions; What three wishes would you make to enhance the quality and vitality of your relationship?

Close your eyes and sit silently for a minute or two. Imagine you have been away from your community where you have lived or worked in for some time. You have been away on a long life’s journey and are returning only after being away quite a while, perhaps 5 or 10 years. Imagine all the things you were hoping for, dreaming of, have come true. What would it look like? Share your dream with us on the Discussion Board.

Summary

In summary of Discovery the intent is to energize as you share your experiences and history, as well as your values and wishes for the future. Within this learning process, the frame of reference of the individual begins to shift from problem solving and/or deficit thinking to possibility evolving and successfully working.

Dreams

Envisioning Results ‘What might be?’ (What is the world calling for)

“Deep into that darkness peering, long I stood there, wondering, fearing, doubting, dreaming dreams no mortal ever dared to dream before.” Edgar Allen Poe

There is a painting of rainbow colours patchy background with an overlaying quote in yellow, “If you can dream it, you can do it.” Walt Disney. It is at this stage that people use past achievements, personal dreams, a mission, a calling, or a vision to develop a clear, compelling visual image of a desired future state.

As long as a society’s image is positive and flourishing, the flower of the culture is in full bloom. Once the image begins to decay and lose its vitality the culture does not long survive.

When it comes to health and performance, there may be no single factor more important than positive images of the future, consistently communicated through vital internal dialogue.

The Dream phase is an energizing exploration of ‘what might be’: a time for people to explore their hopes and dreams for their work, their working relationships, their organization, and the world at large. It is a time for groups of people to engage in thinking big, thinking out of the box, and thinking out of the boundaries of what has been successful and meaningful in the past.

Task or Assignments

In Discovery you identified your Positive Core List

In Dream you will create images of Future Visions Badge 2

Lesson four you will:

Design Provocative Possibility Propositions for Ideal Designs

Sustain Step by Step Actions/Projects for Continuous Learning in Destiny

The dreaming process involves reviewing the summary from the interviews. The focus is to build common ground within the success stories and questions based on dreams, hopes, and visions of the future of the organization from the original self-reflective interviews.

Consider your individual visions of the ideal and describe what would be happening 5-25 years into the future. Base it on themes of the future that have surfaced from the interview process in Discovery. Typically, the dream or strategic focus becomes articulated as a vision with a powerful purpose and/or a compelling statement of strategic intent. (Cooperrider & Whitney)

I encourage you to step out of the box. Prepare an expressive enactment of your dream of, hope for, or vision of your future possibility. This enactment can be Parodies or Poetry, TV or Radio commercials, Jingles or Songs, One Act Plays recorded, Play by Play descriptions or Instant replays, etc. The expressions of these dreams are encouraged to be presented to the others on your discussion board. (As a side note, this process tends to open the door of playfulness which leads to creative expressions.)

Summary

Consider the possibilities. The outcome from this visioning process the dream moves towards the next step of being manifested into reality in Design.

Conclusion

The results of Discovery include:

The formation of new relationships and alliances, that bridge across traditional barriers.

A rich description or mapping of the persons’ positive core.

Sharing and learning from stories of best practices, golden innovations and exemplary actions.

Greatly enhanced knowledge and wisdom.

The intent of the Dream phase is to:

Identify and spread generative, hopeful images of the future.

The individual’s most creative positive potentials,

Bold and compelling visions,

Strategic opportunities for the future,

An elevated sense of purpose.

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Task

A) Discovery Identifying your Positive Core List

Has 3 Parts:

1. your story
2. another’s story
3. combined learning mapped core list

Part 1] Identifying your positive core …

Backward Questions; Remember a high-point personal experience

Part 2] Identifying others’ positive core …

Practice with and learn from others. Invite others to share their stories from your class, in your family, community, people around you to remember high-point personal experiences.

Notice how stories build bridges and are generative - they change you, and the story teller so you both can reach new understandings. In your next conversation, consider if there’s another way you can say something. Reflect on how you might focus on a more positive way to move the conversation to a place of deeper understanding.

Tools you can use:

• Google has a tool called“Story Builder.”Without having to register, you can create a “dialogue” of sorts, add music, and end up with a link to a video-like presentation that you can share.
• I Fake Siri lets you create a fake or record transcribe a conversation or a reiteration paraphrased of someone else’s story in text with the iPhone voice feature Siri. You can then link to, or embed, your creation.
• QikPad lets you write collaboratively with anyone you want, and you can then link to, or embed, whatever you come up with….

Part 3] Identifying combined elements of each other’s positive cores …

Inward Questions Make meaning from high-point experiences… Extract Positive Cores/Elements From the Interviews [yours, Tracy’s, another’s]

What are the positive cores/elements from the interviews that constitute a peak experience? Share your response on the discussion board.

B) Dream Images of Future Visions

Dream involves activity around images of future/ vision statements … future possibility statements

Forward Questions–Solicit hopes, dreams and inspirations Image the future as best as possible …With all the positive cores/elements, what would be the best image of success that we see for…..?

What will we have? What will we do? Who will we be?

Idea… Participants take a sheet of paper and marker and draw an ‘advertisement’ for a part of the “Dream” that they would personally like to work on, using words, symbols, and/or pictures. Turn by turn on the discussion board they ‘sell’ their advertisements any way they’d like.. as on TV.. with a ‘sales pitch,’ song, filmed and posted mini-skit, whatever—in order to recruit others to their ‘dream.’ They post their ads on discussion board and, where appropriate, cluster it with any previous ad that shares their objective. After all ads have been presented, the participants, with mentor assistance as appropriate, students can independently cluster the ads into several ‘Task Forces” to develop an action plan to realize their shared objectives under the ‘Design’ step together if they wish.

Tool:

News Jack, all you have to do is paste the url address of any website and you’re immediately given the tools to easily transform its homepage into looking however you want it to look. Without having to register, you can make the New York Times highlight photos and articles of your great basketball-playing ability; have CNN focus on covering what was happening in 1776, or The Huffington Post reporting on the first Thanksgiving dinner. You can easily grab images off the web or your computer to insert, as well as text. You can then click “publish” and you’re given the url address to your creation so it can be shared with the world.

Szoterdoesn’t require registration, you can upload or grab images off the web (just insert its url address), and the final product looks just like an image would look like using the Picture Word Inductive Model (learn more about the PWIM atThe Best Online Tools For Using Photos). Bubblris a super-easy tool to use for adding “speech bubbles” to online photos.

Create a slideshow withBookr.

PixiClipis a neat drawing tool that lets you make a drawing and record either audio-only or a video to go along with it. It also lets you upload an image from the web and “mark it up.” The audio-plus-drawing capability could really come in handy.

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Learning Objectives

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Continue to Lesson 4: Application of Appreciative Inquiry »