You Can Develop Your Organization Through the Power of Great Relationships: Align Principle, Process, Purpose, People and Partnership for Productivity
Anna had been making tile for 20 years, and knew every facet of the factory floor. She knew why so much tile was unusable, why the same job needed to be done over, and why the last few years had seen a major deterioration in the quality of the tile. She also knew how to fix those problems, but no one had ever asked her. The company owners flew into town every couple of months, and spoke only to their middle managers. They never saw the factory floor from any closer than the catwalk, and they seemed to have no idea how much of their investment was going into the trash on a daily basis. The managers focused on looking good to the top brass, but not to the women and men who did the job every day.
Managers in dysfunctional companies don't want to tell the leaders any bad news. So when Anna went to her manager her wisdom fell on deaf ears. An Organization limits productivity when it becomes "a house divided against itself". Ideas can't be controlled, and the best ideas are not always from the top. Lack of open conversation destroys companies. The opposite is also true. Open Conversation Saves Companies, and Increases Profit.
Get Every Voice into the room and discover the Core Values that motivate the entire workforce to outstanding productivity.
Get Everyone Involved in Planning with Appreciative Inquiry, Open Space, and other Dialogue-rich Technologies
Appreciative Inquiry and Strategic Planning
There is an old one-liner, "If you want to make God laugh, tell her your plans." Yet organizations must develop strategic plans, those ambitious goals for growing the business or not-for-profit. The plans come from top management's analysis of data on consumer demand, market share, finances, operations, competitors, the economy, new regulations etc. The "product" of all this work is supposed to be an objective, detailed multi-year business plan with measurable targets. Henry Mintzberg of McGill University is a primary developer of strategic planning. In The Rise and Fall of Strategic Planning (Free Press, 1994) he gave multiple reasons why traditional strategic planning simply doesn't work. It isn't just that the world is so unpredictable. The idea that there can be a "detached, completely objective" planner is also a myth, for the planners have rich inner worlds that thankfully keep them from behaving like Star Trek's Mr. Spock. Mintzberg wrote that planning usually doesn't address the reality of good management. Effective managers actually strategize using right brain skills such as vision, intuition and synthesis of multiple sources of data, whereas most plans are confined to left-brain skills such as formal analysis of hard data. The plan with its deliberate strategy gathers dust while people in the organization continue to manage intuitively. In real life, business strategy emerges from the personal daily decisions that eventually create a pattern. Small choices accumulate into a "plan" that is understood only in retrospect. Although formal data analysis is important, reason alone can never be enough to run an effective business. Too much formality in the process explains why eyes glaze over at the very mention of the annual strategic plan. The process can destroy commitment, narrow a company's vision, discourage innovation and foster a political atmosphere. Mintzberg suggests overhauling the process by which strategies are created. Planners should emphasize informal learning and personal vision, and combine the best of both formal and informal processes. Other planners have criticized traditional planning because the process itself may undermine the intended goals. If a goal is to foster increased inclusion, participation and partnership, the process of a small group of senior leaders doing all the planning actually sends the opposite message. Efforts to become more sensitive to the subjective, lived experience of customers can be undermined by an emphasis on facts. Efforts to discover best practices and implement them are thwarted by a focus on what doesn't work. We get more of what we focus on the most. There is a way to make strategic planning useful. The formal analytic and informal visionary processes can be merged under the new strengths-based, partnership-building model ofAppreciative Inquiry (AI) is a philosophy of organization development that sees the process itself as being as important as the product. Strategic planning using AI means holding in-depth conversations about meaning, value, and best practices with all stakeholder groups at every level of the business. AI offers a way to hear subjective data, the stories about the lived experience of being part of the organization. This process integrates the human tradition of building community through story telling with the modern theory that we create our meaning and worldview through conversation. When those stories are analyzed respectfully, what emerges is a truly shared vision built from mutual understanding, enhanced relationships, and powerful personal commitments.
Theoretical Background of Appreciative Inquiry Appreciative Inquiry (AI) is a philosophy and methodology of organization development that has a strong research background. It was developed by David Cooperrider, Ph.D. and Suresh Srivastva, Ph.D. at Case Western Reserve University and has been continuously improved through research and practice over the last 24 years. The theoretical soil of AI is research on the sociology of knowledge (Social Construction); research inspired by quantum physics (chaos, complexity and self-organizing systems); and research on the power of image and positive identity to transform. AI represents a shift in world view from deficit-based analysis and planning ("What's wrong, who is to blame; why have we failed; how can we treat the illness?") to a strengths based model of action research ("What works around here? What might be? What should be? Let's innovate what will be.") AI is a balanced approach that effects change by building first on continuity with the best of what is and has been. The best practices that are identified are held in the minds of individual stakeholders. They are the peak experiences at the workplace, or at other places. Descriptions of these threads of identity, purpose, pride, and wisdom are the raw data that is analyzed for the themes that made those peak experiences possible. From this analysis visions are created, descriptions of how things could be. What would happen if the themes discovered in the analysis were not random events, but were made consciously part of organizational life? Then a transition period creates thoughtful strategies for getting from here to there. The five core processes of an AI approach are: 1. choosing the positive as a focus of inquiry, 2. inquiring into stories of life-giving forces within the organization, 3. locating themes that appear in those stories, 4. creating shared images of a preferred future, 5. innovating ways to create that future.
We love this simple and elegant technology for its flexibility, healing and transformative qualities.
Rapid engagement of group energy and ideas
When many people must address complex and/or conflicted issues in a short period of time, with high levels of innovation, ownership, and synergy.
Perfect for emergencies where a design has to come out yesterday.
Effectively address grief and anger issues before more structured planning
Involve everyone who shows up to voluntary sessions.
Group size from 6 to infinity.
Can be done with whoever shows up, at any level. Everyone participates equally.
Little planning time required. Used in hundreds of major corporations and communities with excellent results.
It always works, as long as you haven’t pre-determined the outcome!
Attendees design and conduct their own workshops within the topic area, so Open Space Technology is perfect for community groups, associations, and businesses with multiple units where a session involving maximum freedom is desirable.
All the topics out in one day, a complete design in 2 1/2-3. Design a door or a company.
Common themes emerge naturally in the workshops and can be addressed.
Requires maximum facilitator maturity and presence.
As creator Harrison Owen says, “Open Space gets folks moving. If that’s not what you want, don’t do it!”
For more read
Easy to Read books by Harrison Owenhttp://www.openspaceworld.com
You Can't Get there Without People. People are highly motivated contributors when their Core Values, their most cherished principles are in play. We use processes that help people articulate their positive core values, and then to build systems based on those core values. These processes encourage inclusivity, diversity, the discovery of strengths and building on the best of whatever already exists.
Our key methodologies are a Focus on the Positive Strengths of all concerned in order to align Purpose, Principle and Process. Here are some of our key assumptions:
In every society, organization or person, something is working. Everyone has value and can contribute.
The collective creation of a desired future is most powerful when it is based on the best of what already exists. Continuity is as important as change.
Looking for what works well and doing more of it is more motivating and effective than looking for what does not work and doing less of it.
Systems (individual and group) can become more than they are. You can guide your own evolution.
People and systems move toward what they choose to focus on. Focusing on shared goals yields greater benefit than trying to fix problems.
The words we use to describe reality influence that reality.
Align Principles and Process to create Great Purpose and Products.
Multi Campus Community College Develops Appreciative Culture
Partnership for Student Focus at Harrisburg Area Community College
Harrisburg Area Community College (HACC) is a multi campus college in South Central Pennsylvania with four local campuses in Harrisburg, Lebanon, Lancaster and Gettysburg. The use of Appreciative Inquiry at HACC began in the Gettysburg Campus, spread to the Cabinet level administration of the college, and led to the appreciative philosophy being adopted college-wide. The focus has emphasized creating student-focused learning partnerships.
In May 2002 the staff of HACC Gettysburg Campus were facing a building expansion that doubled the current size. This campus has grown in 13 years from a small center located in the basement of the Adams County School District Offices to a comprehensive campus with 1200 students enrolled Fall 2003. Just as a move was looming, Dean Jennifer Weaver called AI consultant Susan Star Paddock in to help ensure that the small campus feeling of community would be maintained with expanded facilities and faculty, and to maintain its steady growth. To ensure that, Gettysburg Campus needed to know what it was doing to cause its rapid success in the first place, so that it could be replicated.A committee decided on a session to help the school discover the Root Cause of Success of Gettysburg Campus, In April 2002, about 30 students, staff and faculty met together for 4 hours of discovery and dreaming. Analyzing the data from appreciative interviews, the group reached broad agreement thatthe single most compelling reason for the campus’s rapid growth is its student focus. The group unanimously saw that a positive future depended on whether they could maintain that student focus. They felt they needed to create their own campus identity, continue their sense of an innovative, encouraging and friendly community with a positive and hardworking staff and faculty.
This discovery session ended with some dreaming about what these four factors would look like if they were lived out on campus every day. The energy was high after this meeting, but when fall semester began with its new stresses, Dean Weaver felt the atmosphere of appreciation on campus needed another boost. She held several follow-up meetings with different groups to generate a list of “100 things that are excellent at our campus.” Each time groups focused on appreciation, morale and productivity increased.
In March 2003, Susan helped 43 staff, faculty and students participate in a one-day follow up to the first meeting. Focusing on the four identified themes of student focus, campus identity, sense of community and positive outlook, this group went more deeply into discovery and dreaming about these elements of success and leveraged that knowledge into appreciative designing. The group then began what will be a continuing process of design to make sure that all of the Campus institutional structures support the vision of a student centered appreciative campus.
With all this positive activity, the three other HACC campuses took note, and HACC administration wanted to learn more. HACC's President, Dr. Edna Baehre, thought there might be value in expanding the Gettysburg experience college-wide, beginning with her top 12 administrators. Dr. Baehre invited Susan to conduct a one-day President's Cabinet Retreat with a focus on strengthening the cooperative and collegial atmosphere at the institution in the face of rapid growth and change. This proved to be a powerful day of discovery, dream and beginning design. The day began with appreciative interviews about their own cabinet experiences and partnerships within the cabinet.
The cabinet moved from these interviews into sharing stories and a discussion of the key theme of partnership. The cabinet had a creative period dreaming of what a totally cooperative campus would look like, with one group presenting a skit of their next cabinet retreat held in Bermuda!
The cabinet began to bring organizational practices in line with their vision of a student focused and cooperative campus by applying their dreams to the existing institutional priorities developed during a previous strategic planning session. We used OPEN SPACE Technologytoexaminewhere great partnerships could make a difference in the strategic plan institutional priorities, and how that might impact current procedures. Propositions were created and fit into a model of the socio-technical architecture of the college. Many avenues of natural cooperation emerged.
There was a lively discussion of The Seven Principles of Appreciative Organizing. The chaordic principle produced the greatest interest. The cabinet looked at whether they were limiting creativity by an emphasis on control rather than order.
Finally cabinet members voluntarily made simple commitments, requests and offers to enhance partnerships with the entire system, such as with faculty, students, the legislature, the school systems, etc. Significantly, the cabinet discovered that a successful antidote to a competitive culture is in their own willingness to express appreciation to one another. This was enhanced as the group made their commitments. “I felt closeness as a team for the first time” said one participant; while another felt that “The offers and commitments will keep this day alive.” Others recommended that the method be incorporated “college-wide”.
On 8/21/03 the Faculty In-service of Gettysburg Campus offered a brief introduction to the emerging Appreciative Philosophy. The introduction began with a 10-minute interview on how faculty can create a student-focused learning community at Gettysburg Campus.Following the interviews the professors shared some of the best stories, and then moved quickly into suggested techniques for helping students develop a “can-do” spirit. These ideas were collected and the cross-fertilization of good ideas proved to be a help to all teachers.
Participant evaluations were collected after each session. Evaluations were consistently positive and each session led to requests for the methodology to be used in a wider arena.
In 2004, Susan and Dr. Baehre led four 2 hour “celebrations” in each of the regional campuses, seeking to discover partnerships that were under development or in full swing, and to have students, faculty and administration interview one another about what was working and to generate ideas for going forward. The amazing outpouring of work that had been accomplished surprised even these hands on administrators, and the reams of great ideas came just in time to be added to the next five-year plan. These ideas were taped to the walls at the next cabinet retreat, and these seasoned administrators concluded that it was the most painless strategic plan they’d ever experienced. By the end of the retreat, all that was left was to “clean it up”, and a small committee could do that.
A Board Retreat led by Susan passed on the appreciative philosophy, and continued the planning that had begun two years before. Today Dr. Baehre is invited to conferences to speak about the power of inclusive planning through appreciative inquiry.
Parts of this story were first published in the Monograph: Appreciative Inquiry in the Community College: Early Stories of Success (League for Innovation in Community Colleges, edited by Charles Miller and Nancy Stetson, 2004) www.league.org
