Last week, I introduced the concept of Appreciative Inquiry, and explained that it is a technique of change management which focuses on identifying the positive rather than the negative aspects of change. Today, we will look at the practicalities of implementing AI...
I have discussed a number of different approaches to change management over the past few weeks. Today, I want to talk about an approach that to a certain extent turns traditional change management on its head. Appreciative Inquiry (AI) is nothing complicated. In fact,...
Carrying on our focus on Appreciative Inquiry and the use of good questions, here we will consign a few more well-intentioned but counter-productive questions to the bin marked ‘never to be asked’. Bad question #3: Have you thought of doing it this way? This sounds...
People often ask good questions; but that they ask questions is rather less important than how they ask them. Case Western Reserve University Professor David Cooperrider puts what is at stake when asking a question rather deftly: “We live in the world our questions...
Returning to our young entrepreneur, my aim was to help him become aware of and then extricate himself from the implicit questions he was inclined to ask: his subliminal questions directed his attention and energy onto problems and negatives. In their place, I invited...
A young entrepreneur who has created a successful recruitment consultancy tells me that he’s just failed to secure a potentially lucrative contract with a large company. He looks and sounds despondent, asking: “How come I blew it? What’s wrong with me? Why didn’t I...
