Transforming Your Organization

Appreciative Inquiry

Ewing Change Consulting applies the principles of Appreciative Inquiry in all areas of our practice and while rarely using it in its purest form, it informs all we do.

Developed in 1987 by two professors, David Cooperrider and Suresh Srivastva, Appreciative Inquiry is a process that begins by inquiring into what is already working well in the organization (DISCOVERY), dreaming what could be in the future (DREAMING), planning and prioritizing what processes could work well (DESIGNING) and the execution of a process to get there (DELIVERY).

Appreciative Inquiry can be used to:

Consult with people
Learn from past experience
Involve a whole or part of an organisation or community in change
Build a vision for the future that everyone can share and help put into practice

Principles of Appreciative Inquiry:

1. Appreciative Inquiry includes knowledge sharing, story-telling, relationship-building and self-organizing.
2. What we appreciate (positive image) leads to positive action.
3. Our language matters – how we describe things not only impacts how we see them but also what they will become.
4. People, organizations and communities move in the direction of what we most frequently and systematically ask questions about.
5. The genius lies in creating the question.
6. If we look for problems, we will see problems. If we look for opportunities we will see opportunities.