Description

Introduction

There is a photograph in only greys with no color of an institutional looking cement wall with dusty gravel ground, a fence, and an old dirty mattress. On the wall, there is an athletic boy who appears to be dark skinned and running shoes, gym shorts, and a tank top drawn pole vaulting himself over the fence towards the mattress.

The focus of Lesson Four is Application of Appreciative Inquiry. Your journey has been threefold thus far and here and now commences with the Design phase of developing provocative propositions. First, from the interviews in the discovery phase and the future images from the dream phase, revisit your examples of the best, the ideal, and the desired. Secondly, reflect and dialogue on what circumstances made the best, the ideal, the desired possible. Reflect on your recorded best circumstances in detail. Thirdly, consider the stories you envisioned what might be. Now your internal dialogue is truly ready and aware of your inherently positive core. Recall when individuals capture positive imagery internally and make it visible, it starts to drive and change in an individualistic, self-directed way. I suggest doing a key word search of ‘internal’ as a quick recap.

For Design, you write a provocative proposition as an affirmative statement that describes the idealized future as if it has already happened. You construct a vision that involves engaging in dialogue with yourself and or others, discussing and sharing discoveries and possibilities. Through internal or external dialogue, individual vision becomes a designed blueprint for a shared future vision.

In Destiny you sustain your ideals by creating the future through innovation and action. Because ideals are grounded in your realities, your proven past experiences of success, there is confidence to make things happen and hence destiny.

Lesson Four Objective

To build confidence using Appreciative Inquiry lesson four provides direct experience with the ‘ways to the state of feeling strong’ for the purposes of resiliency in job finding. Participants have already discovered their core strengths and valued past their “positive core” and dreamt and envisioned the future they want to create. Participants completing lesson four will:

Design a blueprint of the ideal destiny from their discovered positive core aligned with their envisioned dreams for the future.

Deploy a set of actions; value creation initiatives, and follow-up learning processes to actively move in the direction of your shared aspirations and commitments.

From Dream to Design

Design

Co-constructing “What should be--the ideal?” (Expressing the Preferred Future)

“Each man should frame his life so that at some future hour, fact and his dreaming meet.” Victor Hugo

We live in a designed world, a world created by human thought, words and interactions. Language is the human design tool; dialogue is the process. The Design phase involves making choices about “what should be”. It is a conscious re-invention or co-creation of the strategies, structures, culture, processes and systems needed to achieve the individual’s highest ideals.

Once a vivid dream of an individual’s potential is shared out loud, they are far more likely to conjure a design that makes that dream a reality.

There is diagram revisiting a reference to the Positive Core titled Focus Again on the Positive Core. It has the sun shaped center to illustrate when people focus on the indicated center of the sun the words, ‘positive core’ you bring it to light. There is a magnifying glass adding extra emphasis to focus on the positive core.

In each Appreciative Inquiry the question of what are we designing is essential and must be answered in reference to your discovered Strategic Focus. For example: if the strategic focus of the process was culture transformation, then the design phase called for the design of a vision and principles for the new culture. If the strategic focus was community development then the design phase result in a set of propositions that described the ideal community. During Design an individual’s positive core of strengths, and your hopes and dreams for the future are aligned, integrated and embedded into a set of design propositions or principles for you. The design propositions or principles for you in turn become the blueprint for your destiny.

As positive images are shared about how to design the best way to achieve your vision, behaviors change and performance improvement is evident. It is during this phase that people identify key facts needed to support the realization of their generated dreams.

Task or Assignments

In Discovery you identified your Positive Core List

In Dream you created images of Future Visions

Now we will:

Design Provocative Possibility Propositions for Ideal Designs Badge 3

Later in Destiny we will create:

Step by Step Actions/Projects for Continuous Learning and sustaining

Provocative Propositions Exercise

The design phase begins to build the bridge from the best of ‘what is’ (present) within the person towards a speculative or intuitive ‘what might be’ (future). Provocative propositions are developed as bold statements of the individual’s future as if it has already happened. Using the themes and dreams that have evolved from the prior two phases, the design phase seeks to create the social architecture to materialize the desired, ideal. Questions such as what I would be like if my future were designed in every way to maximize my ways to the state of being strong.

To ensure comprehensiveness, the design of the social architecture might include such components as leadership strategy you exhibit or seek, cultural environment you are in, societal purposes you are aligned with, shared values around you, management and business practices you are a part of, ethics and social responsibility being exhibited, competencies demonstrated, stakeholder relations, structures and systems, desired results in financial or diversity or inclusivity or other areas.

To be compelling, be:

Positive – Overwhelmingly affirmative

Desirable – You want more of it

Provocative Propositions

Motivational – Will take you where you want to go

Imagine now, having discussed our topic for some time, that this healthy version of a strong you is now alive and well.

Describe in the present tense, what is actually going on?

Checking Your Provocative Propositions

Speaking about it in the present tense, as if it is happening, helps us to move in this direction.

Just imagine, when this element of the dream comes true, is it:

Provocative? Does it stretch, challenge, or interrupt the status quo?

Grounded? Are there examples from your stories that illustrate the ideal as a real possibility?

Desired? If it could be fully actualized, would you really want it? Does it truly lead to your dream job?

Stated in Affirmative and Bold terms as if it is now? Is it a Strong and positive statement?

Finding the most empowering questions:

Examples:

What possibilities exist that we have not thought about yet?

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

What solutions would have benefits for you?

What makes your questions inspiring, energizing, and mobilizing?

Future Possibility Statements:

It is a statement describing your ideal.

It bridges the best of what is today with your own speculation or intuition of what might be in the future. It is provocative to the extent to which:

It stretches the realm of the status quo.

It challenges common assumptions or routines.

It helps suggest real possibilities that represent desired outcomes for you.

Destiny

"If one is unafraid of change, insatiable in intellectual curiosity, interested in big things, and happy in small ways, one can remain alive long past the usual date of disintegration." ~Edith Wharton

Destiny; Inspired Action and Improvisation

People create the worlds they live in. The Destiny phase initiates a series of inspired actions that support ongoing learning and innovation or ‘what will be.’ Since the entire 4-D Process provides an open forum for participants to contribute and step forward, change occurs in all phases of an Appreciative Inquiry process. The Destiny phase, however, focuses specifically on personal commitments and paths forward. The result of destiny is generally the launch of inspired action.

Destiny; how to empower, learn, adjust, improvise… Sustaining

Sensible strategies are put into practice and room is created for the systems and structures needed to allow ideas to continuously flow and develop.

Generative conversations create a new belief system with novel and innovative ways to collaborate, to infuse technology, and improve practices.

How each goes out and enacts what is important to him or her brings about a flourishing destiny.

Task or Assignments

In Discovery you identified your Positive Core List

In Dream you created images of Future Visions

In Design you created Provocative Possibility Propositions for Ideal Designs

Now we will:

Do Step by Step Actions/Projects for Continuous Learning for sustaining our Destiny Badge 4

It’s All About You: A Way of Being

Destiny: Creating a Positive Change Network

What do you do best already--from an appreciative perspective?

What would you like to do more of….(work or home)?

One AI project (small or big) you would like to experiment with and do?

Beliefs you have about yourself will help you succeed?

As you imagine and think about ‘high leverage’ ways that appreciative inquiry can add value and strength to you, what are the high potential things you could do?

What are the actions you could take at the smaller unit level; things you could do?

The final phase of appreciative inquiry is destiny. Appreciative inquiry generates a repatterning of our relationships with our self, others, and how we perceive the world. Our ways of knowing the world changes from the socially and culturally contrived to the personally and professionally chosen. We know that we create the life in which we live. To encourage this process, the appreciative inquiry process can be integrated through using an appreciative questionnaire. Typically, the following questions can support the individual process.

What about the appreciative inquiry process most enlivened you?

What excites you most about introducing appreciative inquiry to your life?

What appreciative inquiry competencies have you discovered within yourself?

What’s your favorite story about appreciative inquiry?

What visions do you have for taking this process to a new level within your self?

At an individual level, the destiny phase suggests that if the appreciative inquiry process of positive transformation is supported through empowering ways to connect, cooperate and co-create, the results will continue to surface in new, innovate, and bold ways.

Conclusion

"You can't depend on your eyes when your imagination is out of focus." Mark Twain

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Task

A) Design

Design involves Provocative Possibility Proposition /the ideal designed -- Just imagine, when this element of the dream come true, is it…

• Provocative? Does it stretch, challenge, or interrupt the status quo?
• Grounded? Are there examples from your stories that illustrate the ideal as a real possibility?
• Desired? If it could be fully actualized, would you really want it? Does it truly lead to your dream?
• Stated in Affirmative and Bold terms as if it is now? Is it a Strong and positive statement?

Tools you can use to invite others to support your design and state in what way:

I Wish You Tolets you easily draw and create your own Ecards, which you can post, embed, and/or send to someone like your professor as a creative sustainability invite assignment submission and no registration is required.

Cardkarmais a neat eCard site for many occasions. Without registering, you can search Flickr for any photo and turn it into an eCard you can send and post and it can be a step in your action plan as a way of making a request.

Phreetingslets you search for an image (it appears to use Flickr, but I can’t be sure), drag and drop it on a virtual card, and then write something below it (it looks like you can write a lot there). You’re then given the url to copy and paste.

B) Destiny

Destiny involves activities around Inspired Action and Improvisation…Actions/Projects/ Continuous Learning

Transition Questions–Retrospective reflections from the imagined future state. Consider the first steps and transitions from current reality to the imagined futures

Personal Action Plan

• What are your key takeaways from this lesson?
• What can you do to ensure you remember them?
• How can you incorporate your learning into your work life/job hunting?
• What specifically will you do differently with those you work/interview with?
• What would you like to incorporate into your life outside of work/ job hunting?
• Which other Positive Psychology lessons would you like to take?
• I will know that I have succeeded when…

Step by step creating a Positive Change Network -- As you imagine and think about “high leverage” ways that appreciative inquiry can add value and strength to you….what are the high potential things you could do? What are the actions you could take?

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