Approaching change in a positive way

Appreciative Inquiry consists of two English verbs: to appreciate and to inquire. 'To appreciate' means to value, and 'to inquire' means to gather information, so literally it means to gather information in an appreciative way. You can apply Appreciative Inquiry (AI - not to be confused with Artificial Intelligence!) to small teams, departments or even entire companies. The key here is that all the people in the group have something in common, for example, they work for the same company and everyone from manager to employee is involved. Then, as a group, you look at what you want to change or improve within your company and how to achieve it. Input from everyone in the group is crucial to making AI a success.

Change is a team effort

So, how does AI work in practice? The first step is to start talking. Often when we talk about change we talk about negative things, such as that the workload is too high. By bringing this up in a more positive way, you ensure that you inspire and positively influence your colleagues. By discussing your ideal picture of the future together, you will create a feeling together to start realizing it. During the discussion make sure the whole team is represented, depending on the size of the team invite everyone (otherwise stick to a few people representing the group). Start by finding out what the group perceives as "good," by asking questions like, "What energises you?", or "What gets you motivated?.

Get to work! 

After this, you will work as a group with the so called "5D circle", which consists of:

• Define: This is where you determine the question. If this question is to solve a problem, choose a positive topic. This is the topic you want to solve, for example,  "happy customers" or "lower the workload".
• Discovery: Here you continue with the positive topic chosen. Have participants interview each other (online) about their own experience with happy customers or lower workload. Afterwards, share each other's stories with the rest of the group.
• Dream: Now that you've collected all the experiences, it's time to start looking for the desired future. Now suppose the shared experiences were the rule rather than the exception, what would the organisation look like?
• Design: In this phase you try to bridge the gap between the discovery and dream phases. In the group, you'll collaborate on experiments and ideas that can get your team where you want to be eventually.
• Deliver: This is where the action takes place. Implement the plans conceived in the previous phase and see how they work out in practice. Here it is very important that you appreciate each other and keep thinking positively.

The Appreciative Inquiry principle is a process that may take some time, but in the end it greatly increases the involvement of your employees. Precisely because entire teams work together to achieve the best result, the changes will be widely supported. Positivity plays an important role, rather than focus on things that go wrong - focus on the things that can go right.

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