Taking a Positive Approach to Change—Appreciative Inquiry: An Interview with Jane Magruder Watkins
by Kali Saposnick
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The expression "You find what you look for" often describes those naysayers with an unerring capacity to identify what's wrong with a situation. Negative energy usually bogs everyone down and impedes the search for a solution. But what happens when people champion the positive? In most cases, tremendous forward momentum and enthusiasm emerge.

A unique approach to organizational challenges called "Appreciative Inquiry (AI)" captures this energy. It focuses on the best in people—their greatest successes and peak experiences—in order to produce extraordinary results. "AI is a perspective on the world," says Jane Magruder Watkins, organizational consultant and author of the newly released The Essentials of Appreciative Inquiry: A Roadmap for Creating Positive Futures (Pegasus Communications, 2002). "Rather than being a specific technique, AI is a process that easily aligns with many methodologies. If you want to do strategic planning, team building, or any type of organization development, AI can help you do it with accelerated speed and effectiveness."

Identifying Peak Experiences
How does AI work? First, an organization chooses to adopt a positive perspective as the basis of change. Then key stakeholders select a topic of inquiry, create an interview guide of questions related to the topic, and conduct one-on-one interviews with members of the larger organization. In the interviews, participants are asked to tell stories about peak experiences they've had at work; for example, the most fun they've had in the organization, the best team they were ever on, or the most exciting strategic planning process they ever went through. These questions help align people with what they most value about themselves, their coworkers, and their organization. Even questions such as "What would you like to see in your organization?" are crafted to elicit not complaints but rather a positive vision of what people might create together.

"The goal of AI is to get at the holistic nature of our experiences, not just the facts of what happened," explains Jane. "Through these interviews, people get in touch with what gives life to the organization—and in a very short time. Whether you have 10 or 1,000 people participating, this process has the advantage of quickly allowing all voices to be heard. As you can imagine, a powerful energy is generated." Because these interviews focus on creating a dream for the future, they catalyze significant action toward improving performance and realizing that vision.

How people frame questions is critical to achieving the results they want. Watkins shares how David Cooperrider based the AI theory on his work as a graduate student at the Cleveland Clinic. He was initially brought in to uncover flaws in the clinic's operations. Observing how well the organization actually functioned, he reported his difficulty identifying the deficits to his advisor. His advisor suggested that he look instead for the assets—an approach that the clinic's board resisted, because they believed that improving performance meant fixing what was wrong. David convinced them to let him bring in two teams of students, one to look for deficits and the other to look for assets. Soon, the groups saw a vast difference in the results they were achieving. People in the asset-focused group felt good about their work and made significant improvements, while the deficit-focused group remained stuck in blaming and problem-fixing.

Focusing on the Whole
Why do people tend to focus on the negative in their organizations and daily lives? Jane points to the Newtonian paradigm that has shaped the Western world for hundreds of years. In this model, we are taught to analyze what's wrong and then fix it. Our tasks involve taking things apart and repairing the pieces. In this context, people who can give the best critique are considered the smartest.

Jane describes how organizations often call her in to fix a systemic problem that has been blamed on, say, the finance department. In the past she would engage the group in fixes that failed the minute she left because the system reverted to its old pattern of behavior. "In AI, we never single out one part of the organization and fix it," she explains. "Rather, we work with the troubled department in the context of the whole organization. So people in the finance department would interview stakeholders in other departments, asking questions such as 'Tell me the most exciting, successful time you had working with the finance department.' These kinds of questions focus the organization on what they like about the finance department, so that the department can use that information to design new work processes."

With more than 15 years of experience using AI in her work, Jane has discovered that the most effective way to bring it into an organization is to identify an internal group of leaders committed to learning the process. Whenever possible, she trains them to write the questionnaire, conduct the interviews, work with the information, and so forth. In particular, she works intensely to help them shift their own perspective, a prerequisite for helping others shift theirs. "AI is not a one-time event that ends when the consultant leaves," she explains. "It defines a new way of doing business. It changes the entire organization's outlook so that in the future, whenever something happens, people stop asking what went wrong but instead focus on what they did that went well and how to do more of it."

After participating in the AI process, almost without exception people tell Jane how AI has helped them not just in their jobs but in their personal lives. For example, parents shift the questions they ask their children. Instead of "How was your day at school?" they might ask, "What is the best thing that happened at school today?" One woman told of leaving her child at home with the warning that his au pair was going to list everything the child did wrong that day. At work, while teaching AI to a division, she realized the implication of the warning, called a break, and then phoned home. She told the au pair to list instead everything the child did right. When she got home, she found a list covering the entire refrigerator; the child had spent all day looking for things to add to the list.

"AI is a life process to help people get in touch with the things they value and give joy, that make life exciting and rewarding," says Jane. "Much research has been done demonstrating how much healthier you are if you live this way. Medical studies show that people with a positive attitude have higher survival rates and heal faster after surgery. Athletes who practice for races by holding images of a perfectly run race regularly best their own personal records. And people using AI in their organizations are amazed at how quickly the energy shifts toward solutions that align with the positive images created through the AI process."

Bringing the Positive to the World
Watkins also believes that AI has the capacity to change the world. Having used it in 50 countries, particularly Africa and Asia, she's seen it work within large corporations as well as in smaller contexts such as in couple's counseling. Currently, some AI practitioners are striving to have an impact on broad social issues. Global projects include the United Religions Initiative, which is creating multi-religious groups around the world working together for peace, particularly in areas where wars are fought over religious differences; Business As an Agent of World Benefit is focusing on the good that businesses do; and Images and Voices of Hope is helping the media understand the power of the images they put out.

"Fifteen years ago, AI was a hard sell because people were skeptical about it," says Jane. "Now so much is being written about the power of the positive that people come looking for it. If anything, they underestimate how powerful it can be. They think AI is a trick of the mind to make you falsely happy and don't realize the power that can be unleashed when you shift your perspective to focus on what is positive and life-giving about real things in your life."

Kali Saposnick is publications editor at Pegasus Communications.