The 5 Myths of Appreciative Inquiry

Bernard J Mohr

In 2005 Appreciative Inquiry (AI) turned 25 years old. Since then AI has evolved into a comprehensive process and philosophy for Strategy/Vision Development and Deployment, Organization Design , Leadership Development, Evaluation, Post Merger Integration, Process/Value Chain Redesign, Diversity, Customer Satisfaction, Cost Reduction, etc. As with any radically different approach to management, multiple myths abound. What follows is an exploration and debunking of the five most widely spread misunderstandings about Appreciative Inquiry.

Myth #1 – AI only works in successful organizations, it doesn’t work where there are real problems
Reality: AI works best where there is high complexity, short time frames and a clear need for innovation

Consider the following situation drawn from IPI files: Up against the wall – a case of stuck strategy: For several years the members of the Kazakhstan/Russia Strategy Unit had worked long hours, presenting various strategic investment scenarios to senior management – with terrible results. Other priorities always seemed to eclipse their proposals. Frustration and disappointment with business performance were high. Feeling “up against the wall with few options”, the unit leader requested something that would be (in his words) “a breath of fresh air” – a new strategy process that was “transformative, compelling, inclusive, informative, and engaging” – and one which would lead to actual implementation of the business strategy. An AI-based strategy development process to meet those criteria was designed and implemented. In less than 12 months the company acted – taking a 50% stake in Russia’s largest energy producer, creating the third largest oil and gas company in Russia. With over 110,000 employees and production of 1.2 million barrels of oil per day, the new company is nearly double the size of the original entity!

This is just one example among hundreds which have been worked on by IPI consultants (and our colleagues in other firms) that demonstrate again and again “when the focus of an Appreciative Inquiry is at the intersection of a strategic business issue, a positive topic and a compelling requirement for innovation”, remarkable results, while never guaranteed, are highly possible.

Myth #2: AI is good for the soft stuff (e.g. culture) but not for the hard stuff (e.g. market share, profitability etc)
Reality: It depends what you focus on. If you work on the soft stuff you get soft results. If you work on the hard stuff you get hard results. The choice is yours!

Appreciative Inquiry is frequently used for “soft” challenges such as Culture Change, Team Development, and even “hot” issues like “work/life balance”. Although people are passionate about these things, there is a paradox which supercedes these passions. Namely, “when we engage people in rethinking the core essentials of the business, (i.e. the way work gets done, what work should be done – internally versus externally, the overall business strategy for the company, our forms of organization and distribution of roles and responsibilities, the costs of service or production etc) then we get not only soft results but also measurable hard results!

Take for example the case of ABC Express – a 3 billion dollar a year company with 350 facilities serving the US, Canada and Puerto Rico and Mexico. The explicit goals of their change work? Optimal margin ! The focus of their AI based change strategy? To create: 1) organizational structures driven by key guiding principles, 2) an organization with challenging yet manageable span of control, and 3) business processes built for engagement.

A Snapshot of the “hard results? = Over $10 million in savings, coming from:
* Average throughput improved 47% to 64%
* Average transit speed reduced 2.3 days to 2.1 days
* Average production efficiency increased 59% to 64%
* Percent freight dispatched by 0500 increased 16% to 27%

Myth#3: AI is not sustainable
Reality: When leaders focus on applying AI to real organizational issues as they emerge – over time, and when they involve people in innovating central aspects of the business (such as mission, strategy and production processes) the organization integrates the AI philosophy into the way it conducts all of its core processes on a daily basis

Consider the case of a 700 person South American food manufacturer, which in the mid 1990’s, was on the brink of complete financial disaster. In 1997 the company began to use AI as the overarching approach for its turnaround. Each year the focus of the AI activities evolved based on shifting business demands. During the first year the company used an AI Summit process to convene all the employees, client representatives, suppliers and other partners in creating a new mission and cultural vision. In the following year the summit focused on the development of corporate principles and values. Future years focus included detailed Strategic Planning and Organization Design. Results include:

* 600% increase in profitability over the years
* 75% decrease in absenteeism
* Complete re-structure of power relations within the company,
* New product development has changed the essence of the company in the market place
* They have been listed as among the top 10 companies to work for in Brazil

Appreciative Inquiry, when applied to pressing business issues as they arise over time, is not only sustainable – it becomes a way of life for individuals and a way of responding successfully to emerging business realities.

Myth #4: An AI Summit will solve all our problems
Reality = While “one-off” Summits achieve significant positive results, our experience suggests sustainable change and lasting results happen as the organization learns to fully integrate the summit process (and/or other AI methods) for emerging issues over time.

An Appreciative Inquiry Summit is a 3-5 day face to face meeting of between 50 to 5000 (or more!) people, designed to address a strategic business issue which has been framed as a positive inquiry and which has a compelling requirement for innovation.

As the organization experiments with the AI Summit approach, it achieves deeper and greater progress with each iteration. By the time the organization has undertaken its third or fourth summit, many benefits emerge: 1) Managers have learned to lead summit planning and post summit implementation phases in new and increasingly effective ways, 2) individual summit participants have become comfortable with the process and they have learned a great deal about the organization’s “bigger picture” -allowing them to conceive and implement ever more meaningful and results oriented innovations in the operations of the company, and 3) internal support staff have become increasingly competent with planning and managing summit sessions with less and less assistance from the external experts

Bottom line? AI Summits produce inspiring results. AND the use of the summit process to address shifting businesses issues, (combined with other AI methods) over time — will create not only a whole new way of doing business but a level of qualitative and quantitative achievements that will sustain the surprise and delight of all stakeholders on an ongoing basis.

Myth #5: Some organizations are not ready for AI
Reality = Nonsense! Every organization, every team, every human system is where it is – AND every organization is full of growth capacity. Used creatively, AI can help any organization, team or division move to the next level of performance.

While it’s logical that many organizations are not ready to make large investments of money and resources in processes of innovation that are unfamiliar or may run counter to their traditional ways of operating – I have never yet experienced an individual, group or company that doesn’t have something they are proud of and want to share. I have never yet run into a situation in which everyone was against innovation of any kind or experienced a total rejection by senior management of the wisdom of their employees.

The challenges for all of us who extend invitations to try this radical new approach, include:

1. humility – evangelizing is seldom popular
2. adaptation – every situation calls for an understanding of its uniqueness and the opportunities inherent in that situation
3. living into the glass is half full assumption about our invitees i.e. – each client has wisdom, worth and willingness to grow – our job is to co-create the conversation, the questions and the relationship that allows those possibilities to emerge. Bottom line – it’s not about us and our needs, expectations or requirements, it’s about the client – where ever they are at!

Sumber: http://www.innovationpartners.com/newsletter/5myths.htm