An Introduction to Appreciative Inquiry

300 Pages·1999·0.99 MB·English

by  Charles Elliott

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Locating the Energy
for Change:
An Introduction to
Appreciative Inquiry
Charles Elliott
Dean of Trinity Hall
University of Cambridge
D INTERNATIONALINSTITUTEFOR
SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT
S
I INSTITUT INTERNATIONAL DU
I DÉVELOPPEMENT DURABLE
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Locating the Energy for Change: An Introduction to Appreciative Inquiry
The International Institute for Sustainable Development
(IISD) is an independent, not-for-profit corporation head-
quartered in Winnipeg, Canada, established and supported
by the governments of Canada and Manitoba. Its mandate is
to promote sustainable development in decision-making in
Canada and around the world.
Copyright © Charles Elliott 1999
Published by the International Institute for Sustainable
Development
All rights reserved
Printed in Canada
Copies are available for purchase from IISD.
Copies may also be ordered through IISD’s online order form
at http://iisd.ca/about/prodcat/ordering.htm
Canadian Cataloguing in Publication Data
Elliott, Charles, 1939-
Locating the energy for change: an introduction to
appreciative inquiry
Includes bibliographical references.
ISBN 1-895536-15-4
1. Organizational change. I. International Institute for
Sustainable Development. II. Title.
HD58.8.E445 1999 658.4'06 C99-920073-9
This publication is printed on recycled paper.
International Institute for Sustainable Development
161 Portage Avenue East, 6th Floor
Winnipeg, Manitoba
Canada
R3B 0Y4
Tel: [phone]
Fax: [phone]
E-mail: [email protected]
Internet: http://iisd.ca
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Acknowledgements
As will quickly become apparent, this book depends on the cooperation of many,
many people. At the risk of failing to acknowledge some, I would like to say a
big thank you to the following:
• to Neil Ford at the IISD for making this volume available to a wider
public
• to David Cooperrider and his colleagues at Case Western University for
pioneering appreciative inquiry and sharing their findings so generously
• to my colleagues in the Cambridge Partnership for Organisational
Transformation who have taught me so much, and especially to Mette
Jacobsgaard with whom I shared much of the fieldwork reported in this
volume
• to my colleagues in Trinity Hall, Cambridge for granting me leave of
absence to do much of the fieldwork
• to Virginia Greany who helped read proofs against a tight deadline at
considerable personal inconvenience
• to all those people and organizations that have undertaken an apprecia-
tive inquiry and shared the process and outcomes with me. Without
them, this book could never have been written.
Joe Petrik edited the original manuscript and coordinated the layout and print
production. Shannon Brown, Lael Dyck, Virginia Gonzales and Alison Patmore
entered the edits to the manuscript. Don Berg designed the volume’s cover and
typeset the manuscript.
Charles Elliott,
Trinity Hall,
Cambridge.
17th March, 1999.
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Locating the Energy for Change: An Introduction to Appreciative Inquiry
About the author
Charles Elliott, Dean of Trinity Hall, teaches economics at the University of
Cambridge in the UK. He founded the Cambridge Partnership for
Organisational Transformation to promote the practice of appreciative inquiry
and has used it on three continents with groups as diverse as churches and pris-
ons; African villages and multinational corporations; clinics and law firms.
He is married with three grown sons and a grand-dog.
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Locating the Energy for Change: An Introduction to Appreciative Inquiry
Foreword
The International Institute for Sustainable Development (IISD) is publishing
this book to introduce development practitioners to appreciative inquiry. This
methodology can help them turn sustainable livelihoods from a theoretical con-
cept into a practical approach. What’s more important, it can help local people
build improved, sustainable futures for themselves and their children, based on
their strengths and achievements.
To date most applications of appreciative inquiry have taken place in the corpo-
rate world. Indeed, many of Elliott’s examples come from executives who are
positioning their businesses for the 21st century. But what works for companies
can also prove valuable for communities, especially those that are struggling at
the subsistence level, as Elliott demonstrates so effectively through his case stud-
ies from West Africa. Local people can use the appreciative approach to identify
their current strengths, then plan an improved future, based on their under-
standing of the “positive present.” I believe that appreciative inquiry is an excit-
ing tool that local people can use to empower themselves and break free from
poverty through their own vision and effort.
IISD has been working in poverty alleviation and empowerment since it was
founded in 1990. We began by exploring the complex livelihoods of rural peo-
ple in drought-prone areas of Africa to help us understand why five decades of
development assistance had made such a small impact. IISD defines livelihoods
as the activities, assets and entitlements that poor people use to survive. Unlike
those of us who work for wages in developed economies, families struggling to
live in the developing world usually depend on a number of activities. The father
may herd goats and also pan for gold in a nearby stream. The children may ped-
dle crafts in the street. The mother may grow food in a communal garden. None
of it adds up to much, but by working together, family members can achieve a
basic existence.
But can they ever prosper, and if so, will they prosper without diminishing
opportunities for their children and grandchildren? For IISD a family’s livelihood
is sustainable when it can cope with stresses and shocks such as floods or low
commodity prices, when it can maintain and enhance the family’s capabilities
and assets, and when it can preserve the natural resource base of the community
for future generations. By 1995, through workshops and fieldwork, we had
developed a framework that described the elements that produce sustainable
livelihoods. They are:
• community adaptive strategies and local knowledge;
• enabling policies;
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Locating the Energy for Change: An Introduction to Appreciative Inquiry
• appropriate science and technology; and
• access to credit and investment opportunities.
For us the first element is the most important. A community must understand
what makes it strong if it is to participate effectively in decisions that affect local
livelihoods. This knowledge can then be used to inform the other three elements
to improve the overall community structure.
Our current challenge is to help communities participate effectively within this
sustainable livelihoods framework by developing techniques and methodologies
to help local people understand their strengths, analyze their options, plan effec-
tively and participate more equally in decision-making. That’s where appreciative
inquiry can make a contribution. The current state of the art in poverty allevia-
tion is the use of participatory methodologies to help local people identify prob-
lems, resource constraints and unmet basic needs. Development professionals
then work in partnership with local people, implementing projects to fix the
problems. Although this approach is logical and efficient, it can often disem-
power the community it is meant to help, by conditioning local people to view
their village as a place full of problems that only outsiders can solve, and needs
that only governments can meet. The problem-oriented approach can establish a
sense of dependency in the community that seems insurmountable. As a result,
community participation often dwindles when a project finishes and develop-
ment professionals withdraw. Sustainability is difficult to achieve.
Appreciative inquiry starts from a fundamentally different—and more positive—
point. It is designed to help local people identify their achievements. This process
can be very empowering for people who have always considered themselves poor
and disadvantaged. When they look for their strengths, they are often amazed to
discover how resilient, adaptive and innovative they are. They have to be—
poverty is a cruel and unforgiving circumstance. By focusing on their strengths
they can use the “positive present” to build a shared vision of a better future, one
that is grounded in reality. Appreciative inquiry creates a development pathway
based on what is right rather than what is wrong.
But can appreciative inquiry help poor people protect and preserve their natural
resource base, ensuring opportunities for future generations? Can it open up new
income-generating opportunities? Can it enhance social conditions? Quite sim-
ply, we don’t know, and we won’t until we have more experience helping local
people use appreciative inquiry and have evaluated its results more rigorously.
Initial indications, however, are positive. The appreciative approach encourages
people to think deeply about the ways they would like to develop. What con-
tributes to the well-being of their community? Material success? Cultural
identity? A clean environment? Can they choose a development pathway that
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Locating the Energy for Change: An Introduction to Appreciative Inquiry
does not sacrifice some of these goals to achieve others? This holistic emphasis,
this focus on gross national happiness rather than gross national product, fits well
with a concept of sustainable development that integrates economic growth,
environmental integrity and human well-being.
Charles Elliott is a pathfinder. He has used appreciative inquiry in corporate and
institutional settings, then applied the lessons he has learned to community
development in poor and remote regions of the world. It’s up to us—community
members, development professionals, corporate citizens and public servants—to
widen that path into a well-travelled road to sustainable livelihoods.
Neil Ford
Program Director, Community Adaptation and Sustainable Livelihoods
International Institute for Sustainable Development
January, 1999
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Locating the Energy for Change: An Introduction to Appreciative Inquiry
Table of Contents
Acknowledgements iii
Foreword v
Introduction: A first glimpse of the appreciative mode 1
Part 1. Some theoretical soundings 7
Chapter 1. The appreciative approach 9
1 Learning and looking 9
2 Reading the text 14
3 The organization as text 17
4 Writing the text 19
5 The appreciative approach and ideal speech 22
i Power asymmetries 22
ii The intrusiveness of ideology 24
iii Commitment to the process 25
iv Critical self-reflection 27
Chapter 2. The sources of appreciative inquiry 33
1 The resources behind the text 33
2 The making of memory 34
3 Imagination 37
4 Using imagination 38
Chapter 3. Making appreciative inquiry work 43
1 The heliotropic principle 43
2 Evidence for the heliotropic principle 45
3 The approach at work 48
4 When to use the appreciative approach? 52
Chapter 4. The role of unconscious processes in appreciative inquiry 61
1 The unconscious and the appreciative approach 61
2 Anxiety 62
3 Projections 70
4 Stereotypes 81
5 The appreciative approach, the unconscious and risk 85
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Locating the Energy for Change: An Introduction to Appreciative Inquiry
Part 2. Anatomy of an appreciative inquiry 89
Chapter 5. Making a start 91
1 Getting underway 91
2 The context 92
3 The design of the process 94
4 Getting the board on board 96
5 The board retreat 98
6 The wider testing of the approach 99
7 Constituting the work group 100
8 Drawing breath 102
Chapter 6. The spade work 105
1 Selecting the work group 105
2 The work group forms 106
3 Identifying the themes of the inquiry 108
4 The appreciative protocols 109
5 Turf wars 112
6 Organizing the interviews 114
7 The work group uses the protocol on itself 115
8 The debrief 116
Chapter 7. Progress—and diversion 123
1 The appreciative interviews 123
2 The interviews completed: A quick and dirty start to analysis 125
3 Widening the conversation 127
4 Another agenda 129
5 A risky shift? 130
6 The work group reacts 132
7 Keeping the conversation alive 132
Chapter 8. The provocative propositions 135
1 Organizing the preparation of provocative propositions 135
2 Extracting appreciative data from the art competition 138
3 The analysis of the interview data 144
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