Appreciative Inquiry assumes that every living system has untapped, rich, and inspiring stories of the positive. It holds that these stories, these experiences, when systematically explored and shared.
- release positive energy and innovative insight into how a system functions
- produce the kind of energy and insight that is vastly superior to the kind of energy and insight achieved through the negation, criticism, and spiraling diagnosis associated with problem-and deficit-based approaches to change.
Appreciative Inquiry is a:
- practical philosophy of being in the world at a day-to-day level
- highly adaptable process for engaging people to build the kinds of organizations and world that they want to live in.
AI involves:
- systematic discovery of what gives a system "life" when it is most effective and capable in economic, ecological, and human terms
- weaving that new knowledge into the fabric of the organization's formal and informal infrastructure.
Appreciative Inquiry is the art and practice of asking questions that:
- strengthen a system's capacity in positive ways
- enable the system to re-conceptualize its purpose, principles, and design
- enhance the system's most generative forces.
Communication patterns, roles, processes, systems, strategies, and structures shift during a formal A1 process of organization development as people learn more about what contributes to times of energy and excellence.
