Appreciative Inquiry Principle and Models

Introduction to Appreciative Inquiry
“How can we improve the lack of participation?”

“How can we deal with a lack of motivation?”

“Or, rather, why aren’t people getting on board?”

These are issues that any management or environment faces. Maintaining the team’s morale necessitates a great deal of organisational preparation.

The key concept is to show gratitude for the team and their efforts. Appreciative Inquiry Principles and Models are the result of combining appreciation with positive psychology.

One of our greatest talents as humans is our ability to imagine. We can envisage the best-case scenario as well as the worst-case scenario.

Appreciative Inquiry, as a life-centric change process, focuses on the best in us, not the worst; on our strengths, not our shortcomings; on possibility thinking, not problem thinking.

Appreciative Inquiry is a way of looking at the world that encourages us to value ourselves and the things around us. We are made aware that the way we use language, ask questions, and tell tales has an impact on our individual and collective fates. Appreciative Inquiry approaches human systems and the organisations we create as mysteries to be enjoyed rather than problems to be solved.

“At its heart, AI is about the search for the best in people, their organizations, and the strengths-filled, opportunity-rich world around them. AI is not so much a shift in the methods and models of organizational change, but AI is a fundamental shift in the overall perspective taken throughout the entire change process to ‘see’ the wholeness of the human system and to “inquire” into that system’s strengths, possibilities, and successes. ”

– Excerpt from: Stavros, Jacqueline, Godwin, Lindsey, & Cooperrider, David. (2015). Appreciative Inquiry: Organization Development and the Strengths Revolution. In Practicing Organization Development: A guide to leading change and transformation (4th Edition), William Rothwell, Roland Sullivan, and Jacqueline Stavros (Eds). Wiley

Let’s start with the word ‘appreciate’ to set the tone. The word appreciate refers to a way of understanding that is commonly associated with the concept of aesthetic appreciation in the arts. It is a manner of being and maintaining a positive posture along the course of life’s journey. To appreciate also implies to be appreciative or thanks for. Not coincidentally, to appreciate also means to gain in value.

When you combine the three—appreciation as a way of knowing, being, and increasing value—you get Appreciative Inquiry, which is both a life-centric style of study and a constructive mode of practice.