This chapter aims to provide an introduction to the core Appreciative Inquiry method. We make the point throughout this book that Appreciative Inquiry is less a process and more of a way of being which guides the practitioner. However, we also recognize that the journey towards this state of being an Appreciative Inquiry practitioner involves doing Appreciative Inquiry processes. In this chapter we aim to describe the Appreciative Inquiry model under its familiar four D headings: Discovery, Dream, Design and Destiny. We will review each of the four elements in turn and offer action steps for each stage. Prior to this we will review the selection of topics and consider how the inquiry question can be phrased.

04 appreciative
inquiry: how do
you do it?

introduction

So far we have talked about the nature of conversation-based change processes
such as Appreciative Inquiry, and how they differ from other change
interventions, particularly those based on a mechanistic understanding of
organizations. For us, Appreciative Inquiry along with other processes
such as World Café, Future Search and Open Space can be grouped within
this emerging field. To help us understand the difference between these
approaches better, we want to explain one particular approach, Appreciative
Inquiry, in some depth.

This chapter aims to provide an introduction to the core Appreciative
Inquiry method. We make the point throughout this book that Appreciative
Inquiry is less a process and more of a way of being which guides the
practitioner. However, we also recognize that the journey towards this state
of being an Appreciative Inquiry practitioner involves doing Appreciative
Inquiry processes. In this chapter we aim to describe the Appreciative Inquiry
model under its familiar four D headings: Discovery, Dream, Design and
Destiny. We will review each of the four elements in turn and offer action
steps for each stage. Prior to this we will review the selection of topics and
consider how the inquiry question can be phrased.

Preparing for change

Before embarking on any change programme we would advocate that the
organization needs to answer for itself a series of questions. This is not an
exhaustive list but these are the types of questions we ask when invited to
talk with clients about a change plan.

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Appreciative Inquiry: how do you do it? 45

(a) is Appreciative inquiry right for us?

Appreciative Inquiry invites a different way of thinking about change. It
replaces the model of undertaking an organizational analysis, implementing
a plan and then managing resistance, with a focus on identifying and growing
what is already giving life to the organization. While more traditional
methodologies call for stakeholder mapping, risk registers and benefits
realization plans, Appreciative Inquiry focuses on the language, discourse
and stories within the organization. Such a change in style and focus can feel
unsettling for the organization by virtue of its unfamiliarity. It can also have
an effect on the existing patterns of interaction and discourse, which is again
unsettling for the organization. For these reasons an organization needs to
consider carefully the benefits of this approach against the capacity of the
organization to accept, tolerate or work with significant difference.

(b) What are we trying to do?

In many change plans there is a lack of clarity about what the board or top
team wants to get out of the process of change. Change has come to be seen
as a sign of good management, sometimes without adequate thought as to
what the process of change will deliver. This has most frequently been seen
in structural changes, and emanates from a belief that changing lines of
accountability and areas of responsibility will lead to fundamentally different
outcomes. Rarely is this the case. We would advocate that in any change
process those commissioning the change are clear about what outcomes
they are seeking. This can be expressed as a list of measurable outcomes in
the benefits realization plan or can be more intangibly expressed as a vision
for the new organization or new state.

(c) What new skills or knowledge do we need to do this?

Change in all forms often demands new skills. This may be new skills in
project management, or new skills in spreadsheets to manage the risk register.
Appreciative Inquiry is no different. For Appreciative Inquiry the skills
required are more in understanding the process and in undertaking some of
the technical components such as writing interview questions and undertaking
the interviews in a way which stimulates new thinking rather than one
which produces only well-rehearsed stories. We will explore these skills
more in the next section.

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Understanding conversational approaches to change46

(d) Will we do this in-house or work with an external
facilitator?

There is an assumption often made by clients that change always requires
an external facilitator. We don’t hold that view. What we do say is that
organizations need to have thought through the implications of managing
a process in-house as well as of commissioning outside help. Both have their
advantages and disadvantages.

We have summarized some of our thinking on the advantages and dis-
advantages in Table 4.1.

table 4.1 In-house and external managed change

Method In-house External advice/
assistance

Advantages ●● Understand the
organization.

●● Lower cost.
●● Are building in-house

skills for the future.
●● Can be there around
●● the clock.
●● Take a long-term view of

change.
●● Ensure change fits with

other organization needs.
●● Build relationships through

the process.

●● Understand the process
and have done it several
times before.

●● Can call upon more
resources as needed
during peaks and troughs
of change.

●● Can link project team into
wider network.

●● Bring an external
perspective.

Disadvantages ●● Opportunity cost in using
staff on change rather
than on their core tasks.

●● Can lack a balanced
perspective.

●● Takes more time as learn
mistakes as going along
and time is shared with
other tasks.

●● More costly than in-house.
●● Can be short-term focused.
●● If problems occur after

have left can be difficult to
resolve as skills have
walked out the door.

●● Can miss internal tricks as
don’t see the connections
between plans outside
scope of project.

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Appreciative Inquiry: how do you do it? 47

(e) how urgent is this?

The top team also need to give thought to how urgent is the change plan. Is
the organization facing a crisis which needs to be addressed within weeks or
months? Or is the change plan part of a continual process of changing and
evolving as the organization adapts and responds to wider changes in its
environments: from customers, competitors and regulators? The answer to
this question will have a direct impact on the steps involved in the process.
It will also impact on who and how many will be involved in the process and
on the resources which the organization aims to commit.

( f ) how will we introduce Appreciative inquiry to our
organization?

The commissioning team also need to give thought to how they will introduce
the process. The context in which the process is introduced can have a
significant effect on how people across the organization respond to it. The
introduction of the process thus needs clear communication both around
what Appreciative Inquiry is, and why the organization wants to begin a
process or change initiative.

In particular, the name Appreciative Inquiry has led us in some projects
with clients to re-title Appreciative Inquiry as ‘Remotivate’ or ‘Imagine’.
This reflects our own wish to respond to the needs of the client and a desire
to reflect local language, rather than stay pure in our use of the model.

Define

Before the change process can start, the organization needs to define the
focus of the inquiry or the type of change required. We would argue first
that Appreciative Inquiry as a strategy for change is well suited to emergent
change, where the answer and possibly the future state is unclear. Second, it
is more suited to longer-term change where there is time for whole-system
involvement, rather than in a turn-round situation requiring emergency
management and radical action. In such situations plans are often driven by
the change agent, with limited consultation and with decision making on
financial and operational issues controlled by the centre of the organization
(Slater and Lovett, 1999).

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Understanding conversational approaches to change48

Defining the change is a key component of the process and could be seen
as stage one of the assignment. The commissioning team may wish to focus
on six criteria in drafting the definition for change:

1 Keep it open: the process needs to let the issues unfold as the inquiry
proceeds, so high-level objectives at this stage are better than SMART
goals set by the management team.

2 Be open minded: the team needs to retain an open mind about the actions
which can follow.

3 Be outcome focused: the process needs to focus on an outcome, even
though this may be vaguely defined, and thus allow room for development
and refinement during the process.

4 Use positive phrasing: the outcome needs to be positively orientated,
or at least be capable of being positive for all involved in the change
process.

5 Involve from the start: involve stakeholders from across the system in
defining the focus of the inquiry.

6 Be exciting: lastly we would advocate that the topic selection should
excite stakeholders. It should be provocative and encourage people to
want to talk about it. Sometimes this can be down to phrasing.

Clients tend to think in terms of problems and so present their issues in
terms of problems. A key skill for an Appreciative Inquiry practitioner is to
be able to ‘recast’ their initial labelling of the issue into one more appreci-
atively phrased. For example, in one case the organization wanted to address
sickness and absenteeism. These are both important issues for organizations,
and in the case of this organization the problems were threatening the
organization’s future, as long-term sickness in one team meant the whole
team was off sick! Rather than focusing on ‘reducing work absence’, the
focus of the inquiry was cast as ‘creating a work environment where what
we do every day matters to our clients’. In this case the organization was
working with disabled and disadvantaged people, but this focus on the clients’
needs had been lost in disputes between groups within the organization
(Passmore, 2003).

Careful thought and reflection needs to go into the framing of the
final topic and of the initial question. As Cooperrider, Whitney and
Stavros (2005) note, ‘the seeds of change are implicit in the first question
asked’.

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Appreciative Inquiry: how do you do it? 49

Discovery

The Discovery phase is about discovering the organization’s key strengths
and appreciating the ‘best of what is’. This phase is about understanding
what gives life to the organization and what has brought it this far or to this
point in its history. The discovery phase is about exploring and uncovering
the unique qualities of the organization: its leadership, history, reasons for
existing or values, which have contributed to its life and success. During this
phase the members of the organization have the opportunity to come to
know the history of their organization as a history of positive possibilities
rather than problematic past events, crises and forgotten or irrelevant events.
In this way it is about connecting today to the history which is the lifeblood
of the organization.

The phase revolves around the capturing of this information initially
through conducting interviews, then mapping the elements that emerge
from the interviews to identify common themes and stories and from here
communicating these stories and their meta-themes back to the wider group.

The discovery phase can be planned over weeks or months. It can equally
be undertaken in a single day if all of the key stakeholders can be brought
together in a room. If all of the stakeholders are not present, or if the initiative
is being undertaken in a large system, involving hundreds or thousands of
people, decisions will need to be made over the timing of the interview
process and the logistics of collating and communicating stories. We suggest
a six-step process based on our experience, which typically involves working
with a group in a single room for a single day. This is summarized in Table 4.2.
It forms the first day of the four-day process that we use to explain our
approach throughout this chapter.

Our six key elements are not the only way to do this but we have found
this works for us with groups of a dozen to 200 people.

Agreeing the focus for the inquiry

The starting point, assuming pre-event communications have taken place
about the day or series of days, is to welcome people to the event and com-
municate some key elements. This scene-setting communication is likely to
pick up and build upon the earlier communications. It is an opportunity to
explain the background in more detail, particularly why change is felt to be
needed and why Appreciative Inquiry is an appropriate way forward. We
also find it useful to tell a few stories about interviews, which communicate

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Understanding conversational approaches to change50

table 4.2 AI Summit: discovery

Day Phase Activities

1 Discovery ●● Agreeing the focus for the inquiry – introduction to
context, purpose of meeting and how to undertake
interviews.

●● Planning the interview – small group activity to
write the interview questions.

●● AI interviews – all participants engage in 1:1
interviews organized around the topic.

●● Collecting – small group collect key stories
discovered during process which demonstrate
organization when it is at its best.

●● Mapping – large group process to map the findings
around themes which may include resources,
capabilities, relationships, partnerships and
positive hopes.

●● Enduring factors – large group process to identify
factors that have sustained the organization over
time from the larger map above.

to the group how to do an interview. Stories seem to work better than a full
set of slides with dos and don’ts. In storytelling about interviewing the main
themes to communicate are: preparing, selecting a good place to have the
conversation, giving people time to talk so they feel listened to and respected,
using active listening skills of nodding, verbal attentions and summarizing
to check understanding, and feeding back the best bits you heard (Table 4.3).

table 4.3 Defining the topic: moving to the positive

Change agenda suggested by
the Board

Positive focus to the topic

Addressing poor-quality customer
service

Delighting customers each and every
time

Tackling poor staff attendance and
high turnover

Creating a happy and rewarding place
to work

Building strategic advantage Being simply the best

Increasing profit margins Retaining existing customers and
finding new customers

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Appreciative Inquiry: how do you do it? 51

planning the interview

The core element to planning the discovery phase is getting the questions
focused on the agreed topic. The planning process may take place before
the day, with a small group drawn from across the organization invited to
undertake some preparation work. Doing it in this way reduces the risk of
interviewers not knowing what to ask or stimulating problem–solution-focused
conversations. It also ensures better designed questions. Groups sometimes
pilot the interviews, reducing the final number of questions from their original
pool of 12 to 6 or 8.

In designing the interview thought needs to be given to two parts: the
overall structure and the questions within the structure. The structure of the
interview needs to provide space at the beginning to get the person talking.
For some people this is not a problem and they will happily start telling
stories and sharing their views from the first question. Other people need
time to warm up and develop a relationship with the person they are talking
to. No two people are alike and the interviewer needs to make a judgement
about when to move from relationship questions to process questions.
Typically, three or five relationship questions are useful to have in an interview
guide, but the interviewer does not need to use all of them. The relationship
questions are likely to be about the person’s role in the organization and
what they value about the organization or their role. As the interview moves
into exploring the organizational process, the focus shifts to the organization
as people experience it. The aim in this part is to draw out stories and ex-
periences about the organization and the person at their best. As the person
talks, the interview should aim to crystallize the stories. The aim is to get to
the heart of the story, what factors made the difference or created the feeling.
This process involves skills in questioning, and we discuss question form
and style later.

When at a loss about the questions to ask there are a couple of very help-
ful guides worth consulting. The most useful is Encyclopedia of Positive
Questions (Whitney et al, 2001). The other useful guide in the area is the
Appreciative Inquiry Handbook (Cooperrider, Whitney and Stavros, 2005).
We have drafted some sample questions to give an example of what the in-
terview guide might look like (Table 4.4).

Appreciative inquiry interviews

The aim for the interview phase is to ensure that all participants are engaged
in one-to-one interviews. During the course of the session it’s helpful to get

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Understanding conversational approaches to change52

table 4.4 Sample interview questions

Topic introduction At Advocacy for Health we offer a wide range
of services to people who find it difficult to
speak up for themselves. Our experiences
of working over the past 10 years have
contributed to advocacy becoming an
important part of health care. The topic we
are looking at today is how we make the
organization a great place to work as well as
one that does great work for others.

Relationship questions What have you been looking forward to about
the day?

Tell me what your role is at Advocacy for
Health.

What is the best part of your role?

Process questions Describe a time when you have found
working at Advocacy for Health exciting and
uplifting.

When the organization is at its best, why do
people come and work for Advocacy for
Health?

Possible probe questions
to be used alongside
process questions as
required

What was it that made a difference?

Tell me more about X.

What did it feel like?

Who else was involved?

What happened next?

everyone both to be interviewed and to interview someone. This means
during a whole-system event allocating time, maybe 30 minutes for each
interview, before people change partners. While it is possible to get people to
interview each other, we believe that moving to a new pairing works best,
and ensures the pairs stay focused on the task and start afresh with the
relationship and process, rather than skipping bits having done them before
in the first interview.

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Appreciative Inquiry: how do you do it? 53

collecting

Once the one-to-one interviews have been completed there is a mass of data
and this stage aims to collect the key stories before starting to group them.
Inevitably in all group discussions people go off task, or tell two or three
stories which cover the same theme. An activity which draws out the main
themes is helpful at this stage. This can be undertaken in small groups of 4–8
people, with the groups reviewing the stories told and identifying collectively
which ones should go forward to a mapping stage.

The key skill involved at this stage is for the facilitators to set up an exercise
which encourages the group to focus on the stories which will contribute
towards the heart of the inquiry. The larger the group the longer the exercise
will take.

Mapping

Once the small groups have reviewed at their tables the stories from 4–8
people, the task is to bring these together in some way to capture the wider
themes in the room. One way of doing this is to start by trying to identify
6–12 high-level themes through a facilitated discussion and to map these on
the wall using Post-It notes and a long roll of paper. Our experience is that
people can tend to handle 6–12 themes; fewer than 6 means that items don’t
get separated out sufficiently, more than 12 and people struggle to remember
what the themes were.

What’s important is that the group identify these themes rather than the
facilitators having a set of themes which they have prepared earlier. This
process may mean that the themes emerge during the exercise. If groups
experience difficulties in identifying themes, we might offer as a starting
point some high-level themes like financial resources, staffing capacity, staff
capabilities or skills, internal relationships, external partnerships, regulation
and inspection, positive feelings, positive hopes and use of technology.

With the themes established the large group can move to the process of
mapping the stories against the high-level themes.

enduring factors

The final part of the discovery phase is to identify the enduring themes.
These are the factors that have sustained the organization over time. The
activity can be done in a large group as an open discussion with the key
themes emerging. Another method is to have an open discussion and at the

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Understanding conversational approaches to change54

close of this to allow people to vote for the enduring factors through putting
ticks or stars next to the themes which they consider to have been most
important. The voting process both brings energy into the room as people
need to stand and walk round the room to the maps on the walls, and also
gives a sense of democracy in action with clear outcomes emerging in real time.

As people leave for the day or at the close of the session there is a clear
sense that everyone had a chance to have a say and that even those who are
quiet and less openly engaging in a large forum equally influenced the
outcome. The outcome of this phase is an extensive collection of stories of
what gives life to the organization and the identification of common themes.

Dream

The Dream phase is about bringing out the dreams people have for their
future within the organization and also their dreams about the organization’s
future. The research evidence from positive psychology (Martin, 2006;
Seligman, 2006) shows how talk affects behaviour and outcomes. The research
evidence has shown that the more positive the language used by the individual,
in terms of its personal, pervasive and persistent elements (Table 4.5), the
more likely it is that successful outcomes are achieved. This external use of
language reflects the inner dialogue that all humans have, and the positive
or helpless view which they hold of themselves in the world. Affecting the
way people talk can affect the way they feel. By encouraging people to talk
about positive experiences and dreams, Appreciative Inquiry encourages
people to feel more hopeful and optimistic about the future.

table 4.5 Personal, pervasive and persistent

Heading Definition Example

Personal Relates to the individual ‘I am so skilled’

Pervasive Relates to different
situations

‘Whether it’s writing,
presenting or just talking,
it goes well’

Persistent Relates to past, present
and future

‘I know that tomorrow’s
presentation is going to
be as successful as the
one I did last week’

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Appreciative Inquiry: how do you do it? 55

The Appreciative Inquiry process seeks to make use of the human tendency
for dialogue. It seeks to create a positive belief in the future through the
discovery of past successes. As we do so, this recognizing of past success in
turn facilitates a belief in our future potential. However, for organization
change to be successful stakeholders need to have the ability and the confidence
to expand their horizons beyond their day-to-day or month-to-month plans
and strategies, and to dream – dreams which are not about who does what
and when, but are about why they and the organization are there. It’s for
this reason that we advocate using playful and creative processes during this
phase, even more than at the discovery phase.

The dream phase is highly practical as it is grounded in the organization’s
history, rather than being unbounded thinking. It is also generative as it
seeks to explore potential. The dreaming phase involves building on what
people have discovered about the organization at its best and projecting this
into their wishes, hopes and aspirations for the organization’s future. The
aim of the process is to amplify the positive core of the organization and to
stimulate a more energized and inspirational future. Such a process can be
expressed in numerous ways, from a rewriting of the organization’s mission
to enacting the future of the organization in a play or devising a story about
what the people in the organization will be doing when it achieves its dream.

As with the discovery phase, this can be managed over time and can
involve large numbers of stakeholders from the organization and beyond.
It can equally be undertaken in a single day and we have set out our process
for managing it in this way.

We suggest a five-step process. This is summarized in Table 4.6.

table 4.6 AI Summit: dream

Day Phase Activities

2 Dream ●● From discovery to dream – 1:1 interviews reconnecting to
outcome and discussing future.

●● Dream sharing – a small group activity to talk about future
dreams.

●● Bringing dreams to life – a small group activity to discuss
specific dreams for the organization.

●● Building a dream map – mapping the outputs from the
small group activity through series of larger groups.

●● Enacting dreams – groups act out the dreams.

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Understanding conversational approaches to change56

from discovery to dream

One way to start the day is to reconnect people with the stories and excitement
from Day 1. This can be achieved through one-to-one conversations. The
conversations can be based on pre-designed schedules, or could simply
invite people to ask questions around three themes: ‘What stories most
resonated with them from the previous day about the organization at its
best?’; ‘Reconnecting to outcome and discussing future’; and ‘What three
wishes do they have for the future?’ This last question acts to generate
accounts of dreams of the future. If the organization has performed well and
been praised, such as through a regulator visit or high annual profits report,
then an additional question specific to their circumstances, such as what led
to this happening, might also be appropriate.

Dream sharing

Following the re-engagement at a one-to-one level, the next stage which
we use is to encourage people to share these dreams with the wider
group at their table. As they do so, we ask them to informally identify
common dreams. This phase is helpful as the process helps individuals to
shape and refine their own dreams as they listen to the dreams of others at
their table.

Bringing dreams to life

These two processes so far have helped people to generate, refine and clarify
their dreams. They also help people move their dreams towards a consensus
position. The …