Complex Change and the Two Gifts of Appreciative, Inquiry
Facing the challenge of transformative change in complex systems from the perspective of an emerging paradigm gives AI the potential to flourish in areas in which many techniques have been applied that have produced only moderate success. AI’s potential comes from the integration of (1) a practical change process and (2) a new paradigm view of how we shape our future. It is the integration of these two valuable gifts that makes AI a powerful shift from the deficit perspective of traditional OD practice.
The practical change process of AI can be described using the well-known 4-D Model that was developed in the work of the GEM Initiative (see Exhibit 2.1). In reality, we explain the model with an additional “D” (Definition) that, for OD practitioners, is roughly analogous to the contracting stage of consulting. The five “D’s” are:
1. A Definition phase during which the inquiry goals, including the framing of the question and the inquiry protocol, the participation strategy, and the project management structure are developed.
2. A Discovery phase during which members from the system develop an in-depth understanding of (a) the “life-giving properties “ that are present in those exceptional moments when the organization is performing optimally in human, economic, and organizational terms and (b) of the structures, dynamics and other associated conditions that allow those “life-giving properties “ to flourish.
3. A Dream phase during which system members create shared images of what their organization would look, be, feel, and function like if those “exceptional moments” and the “life-giving properties” in the system became the norm rather than the exception.
4. A Design phase during which system members agree on the principles that should guide changes in the organization’s sociotechnical architecture and develop the details of whatever changes are thought to be needed, based on the previously articulated guiding principles.
5. A Destiny phase, sometimes called the Delivery phase (and more recently the “deploy” stage), during which the organization evolves into the preferred future image created during the Dream phase using the work done in the Design phase.
While this 5-D process can be reduced to a linear explanation, in fact the change in the system begins with the first questions asked in the Definition phase. We recently had a client, struggling with a Design process, exclaim in frustration that it was hard to make a plan when people were already working to bring about ideas that were articulated in the Discovery and Dream phases. This is almost inevitably the case. The change begins with the articulation of the image—change at the speed of imagination—not at the end of a linear planning process, which brings us to the second “gift.”
The second “gift” of AI combines the notion of AI as a philosophy of knowledge and AI as applied to an intervention theory that articulates an alternative view of how we shape our future. Grounded in the theory base of social constructionism, research on the power of image, and research on the powerful effects of positive emotions, this alternative view of OD interventions emphasizes the role of language, dialogue, and ordinary organizational conversations, particularly as they influence the crucial choice of how the topic or issue for inquiry is framed, and the subsequent development of the inevitable inquiry protocol that accompanies almost all change efforts as the organizations seeks to understand what Dick Beckhard described as “the present state.” Because this alternative view is not just another technique, but a total reframing of our current theory of practice, it leverages all that we do in organization development, design, and change consulting, rather than just adding another “tool” to our “kitbag.”