6

Scaling Up Great Conversations

When you think about people having productive and worthwhile conversations, how many individuals do you assume are in the conversation? You probably know intuitively what the research tells us: if there are more than eight to twelve people, you can’t really have a meaningful conversation. We know that conversations worth having energize and motivate people. We also know they are productive and meaningful. Imagine the potential for organizations and communities if we could have those kinds of conversations with the whole system!

This potential has already been achieved in cities such as Cleveland and Denver and in countries as different as Nepal and Chile. Contrary to what research would have us believe, these powerful whole-system conversations have taken place with fifty, one hundred, even forty-five hundred people at the same time. They have also happened in thousands of organizations around the world, including Google, Accenture, Verizon, ANZ Bank of Australia, Green Mountain Coffee Roasters, Nutrimental, Bibb County School District (Georgia), Clarke Group, the US Navy, the Cleveland Clinic, World Vision, the United Way of America, and the United Nations Global Compact.¹ One of our favorite organizations is Fairmount Santrol, which has been using Appreciative Inquiry to engage people in worthwhile, whole-system conversations for over fifteen years.² Jenniffer Deckard, its CEO, shared the following:

The people and their conversations are the organization.

It may be hard to imagine having a great conversation at the system level. Yet it is actually made possible because the AI practices are formalized in a structured process that catalyzes whole-system conversations worth having. The process is called the Appreciative Inquiry 5-D Cycle, named for its five phases: Define, Discover, Dream, Design, and Deploy. Let’s take a look at what happened when this process was used to catalyze a new venture abroad.

Gerard Krupp was president of a German automotive supplier. The company was faced with mounting challenges from its original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) and suppliers in the United States. In addition, it needed a clearer direction, stronger customer relationships, and improved profitability. The solution was to set up a second Technology Center in Michigan to be closer to the automotive OEMs. Gerard was sure that this was the way to meet the multiple demands from his customers. However, he knew that it wouldn’t be easy. He had a team of talented, committed, hardworking people who stuck their necks out for him time after time. Asking members of the Technology Center in Germany to pick up their families and move to the United States was going to be a bold move.

For two reasons, Gerard chose Erich to be the program manager to lead the move. Erich had the ability to work across silos. This capability was important because the Technology Center’s administration, technology, sales and marketing, and research and development (R&D) teams did not currently collaborate well. Erich was going to have to hire several additional US employees and create a unified team as well as a winning strategy to drive growth. Over the past seven years in Germany, Erich had demonstrated his ability to lead conflicting teams in meaningful dialogues that resulted in win-win outcomes.

For the first thirty days in the new location, the transplanted teams set up shop while anticipating that headquarters would send a game plan for them. As people typically do, those who moved took their current office culture with them. They reproduced the workplace customs and climate they knew, thus being loyal to their functional team. But it was a challenge for the newly hired American employees to find their place in that climate. In general, no one thought to share information or planning outside their own small team. Conversations across those divides were infrequent. When they did occur, they were often critical and destructive.

Meanwhile, Erich knew that he could not wait for corporate to tell them what to do and how to do it. Having attended an AI professional development workshop a few years earlier, Erich planned to unite the separate teams into one that worked collaboratively. He wanted them to focus collectively on increasing existing business and driving new business for the whole organization. He planned to accomplish this by changing the tone and direction of the conversations among team members. To initiate that, he engaged all of them in a center-wide conversation to design a strategic plan using the 5-D Cycle.

Erich knew that the 5-D Cycle would leverage the team’s knowledge and experience to create unprecedented change. This more-formal methodology for using generative questions and positive framing to foster strategic conversations promised to unite the Tech Center, eliminate silos, and generate a shared vision and plan for achieving the center’s purpose. Since the framing for a systems strategic conversation is just as important as it is for a one-on-one interaction or a meeting, Erich knew it would be important to have the perspectives from each of the different areas as well as both countries involved in creating that frame. So he brought together a representative from each area to form a six-person core team. To enlist them in planning the event, the first thing he did was to explain AI and the 5-D Cycle.⁴

Overview of the 5-D Cycle

Erich began his first meeting with the core team by saying, “Most of us want to continue to create a company that excels, to feel inspired at work, and to make meaningful contributions. What if we all felt free to innovate and create new possibilities for products, services, and processes that will help shape a bold future for our organization? If I could show you an idea for how we might get to that future, would you join me in making it happen?”

He went on to tell them about his experience with AI. He shared a few stories about how other companies were using it. His core team seemed enthusiastic and curious about how they could proceed. Erich then showed them the 5 Ds (see figure 6.1) and explained what each of the Ds stood for. He explained, “At each phase of the cycle, we’ll have worthwhile conversations that will generate meaningful information and creative possibilities for our team and our work together. Those conversations will enable us to identify our strengths and values and to create positive images of our shared future. We will also design pathways to achieve that future and collectively decide how to put those solutions into practice.”

Figure 6.1 Appreciative Inquiry 5-D Cycle

Erich noted that, typically, a professional facilitator is engaged to guide the members of the organization through the 5-D Cycle, freeing all stakeholders to participate in the conversations. He added, “Since I’ve had training in this process, I’d like us to give it a try without a facilitator. My AI workshop trainer said she would be available to coach or support us from the sidelines. We are small. There are only thirty-four of us. I think we can pull this off together. Are you on board?”

The sales and marketing representative, Joep, responded, “I love your enthusiasm, but I don’t really understand what you’re asking us to do. I don’t know what I’d be saying ‘yes’ to.” Martha, the tech representative, added cynically, “How can thirty-four people have a ‘meaningful’ conversation?”

“Great question!” replied Erich. “First, most of the conversations are among small groups of six to eight people. Larger group conversation happens when small groups share and merge their ideas. Using this 5-D Cycle will be pretty straightforward for what we are trying to do.” Then he went on to explain briefly what the 5 Ds were and how the cycle flowed:

Erich asked if there were any questions. Joep asked, “Who will participate in these conversations?” Erich replied, “What if all thirty-four of us participated in the same set of conversations at the same time? If we want to be one united team, then we had better be one team when we discover our strengths, create a vision, and plan our future, don’t you think? Are you in?” Erich got a thumbs-up from each representative. The adventure was about to begin!

Define Phase: Framing the Task and Crafting Generative Questions

Erich had closed the first meeting by asking the core team members to think about why using this approach would be valuable for them. At their next team meeting, Erich opened by asking them, “If you had a chance to think about why this approach would be good to use, what did you come up with?” Each representative had different responses:

Heads were nodding around the table as team members spoke. Erich smiled. He knew how important it was for everyone to be on the same page about why they were using this approach. His next question to the group was “What are your highest hopes for the outcome from our conversations?” Erich captured their ideas as they spoke:

He was delighted that they had named everything he was hoping for. Erich asked one additional question: “We know our corporate goal: growth from increased sales. What are some of the challenges or issues that we need to address to achieve that?” Again, he captured their comments:

It was clear to everyone that they needed purpose and direction. Erich framed their next conversation this way: “We know what headquarters wants: help grow the company by increasing sales to current and new customers. That’s all we really need to know from them. If there’s anything I’ve learned in life, it’s that people commit to what they help create. Let’s not wait for instructions from headquarters—let’s create our own mission, vision, and strategic plan!” This lit a fire under the core team. “Where do we start?” the R&D representative asked.

“We start by creating a positive frame,” Erich replied. “This means clarifying our task for our strategic planning meeting. It will be important for us to identify an affirmative task. That means getting really clear on what we want, or what we want more of, to achieve what the company wants.” Erich introduced flipping to guide the core team through positive framing. He asked the group to identify the core issue standing in their way of achieving consistent growth. The team landed on this core issue:

The team first worked together to identify the positive opposite, and then created the positive frame or affirmative task:

Just seeing this frame, the core team immediately got excited about future possibilities. Erich suggested, “To accomplish this together, let’s make sure we figure out the positive core we bring to becoming a unified, high-performing team. We’ll also need a mission and a vision we believe in, as well as a strategy to deliver on our mission. What do you think? Are there other tangible outcomes we want from our meeting?” The core team agreed that those were all that were needed.

Culture and climate emerge from our conversations.

Erich explained that the next step in this phase was crafting questions that would surface positive experiences of high-performance teamwork, key employee strengths, central purpose, and values that would support the center as one team. This would clarify their positive core. They needed to craft two sets of questions. The first step was to devise questions as a guide for one-on-one interviews. Erich showed them a set of classic AI interview questions to help all of them think through the questions they needed to craft (see table 6.1).

The core team worked a long time, putting great care into ensuring that questions were positively framed to elicit stories and conversations that would help the team discover their true potential. The questions also needed to help them learn more about the organization and think through their ultimate purpose. Their final interview guide contained these five questions:

Erich explained, “After the one-on-one interviews, groups of six to eight people will come together and interviewers will share the high points of their partner’s stories, not their own. This will encourage people to listen for understanding and help build positive relationships. Our next task is to design those conversations. We need to structure them so small groups can tease out important themes and ideas from their interviews.” The core team came up with the following instructions:

After this meeting, the core team seemed very happy with how they had defined the upcoming strategic planning meeting. Erich told them that at their next meeting they would set a date and design the flow for the meeting.

When the core team regrouped the following week, Erich explained how the meeting would flow through the remaining 4 Ds: Discover, Dream, Design, and Deploy. Their focus for this last Define phase meeting was to design the agenda, using the remaining four phases, and also to create any further instructions for small-group conversations and planning. They followed with a logistics plan, divided up responsibilities, and left excited to generate enthusiasm among the other members of their teams.

A Look Inside Their Strategic Planning Meeting: The 4 Ds

All thirty-four employees gathered for a one-day strategic planning session.⁵ Erich opened by reading the following statement:

Discover Phase: Appreciating What Gives Life

The meeting started with one-on-one interviews, using the questions the core team had crafted. To build relationships and knowledge across silos, the core team asked people to pair up with someone they did not know or work with regularly. Following the interviews, interview pairs formed small groups of six or eight. Guided by the Discover instructions (see page 124), people shared their interview partner’s story and what stood out for them as key concepts and ideas related to the task. Then, each group identified common themes from their stories and drafted a mission statement. Each small group shared their themes and mission statement with the larger group. The large group sorted the themes and chose those that they believed made up their positive core for a unified team with one plan and one vision. Later, over lunch, a small group of people merged the ideas from the mission statements into a single shared statement.

Erich and the core team could feel the excitement in the room; the energy was palpable. People were talking across silos, learning about each other, and identifying important concepts that would grow their capacity to thrive as a center while also contributing to organizational success. The Discover phase of their meeting surfaced the following values, strengths, and mission for moving to a state where the center would be a unified, high-performing team:

Values: Dedication, flexibility, creativity, innovation, team spirit, and continuous communications. These values are how we will work collaboratively.

Strengths:

Based on six core values and four strengths, the five groups converged on the following mission statement:

The room was buzzing; people were talking about how affirming and inspiring this approach was and what great conversations they were having with people they didn’t really know. Erich introduced the next activity on the agenda: the Dream phase. He explained, “We don’t need to identify weaknesses and threats because we know them. That’s why we relocated. We need to come up with a way to inspire each of us to support our customers’ and prospective customers’ needs and anticipated needs. That begins with dreaming big!”

Dream Phase: Envisioning What Might Be

Guided by the Dream instructions (see page 124), the same small groups drew on and amplified their positive core to create shared images of the future. Their conversations centered on what might be a chance to envision the organization at its best, the ideal high-performing center team, and a community where all members could flourish. Imagining a desired future and creating literal images shifted people from abstract thinking to creative possibilities, freeing them to explore a shared vision.

The core team had designed this activity to encourage playfulness and inspiration. Small groups created skits and posters. These gave everyone a tangible, sensory understanding of new ways of working together. They also each crafted a written statement to accompany their visual. The vision statements were short, catchy, affirmative, and inspirational.

The whole room came alive with laughter, excitement, and potential during the presentations. To move toward a shared vision that represented the whole group, they did a Vision Walk, an exercise in which everyone reviewed the images and vision statements and then placed sticky dots on those vision statements with which they resonated most. During lunch, a second small group merged the high-dot-count visions into a single image and vision statement, and the group confirmed it:

The energy and synergy created during this phase carried participants into the Design phase after lunch. This was when they identified strategies and actions to make their vision a reality.

Design Phase: Co-constructing What Should Be

After lunch, the group did a gallery walk to look at all that had been generated earlier. They were tasked with identifying ideas that called out to them, opportunities that triggered their passions. Then they generated possibilities: strategies and actions for achieving their dream. People self-organized into small groups around these possibility topics. The first thing they did was clarify the possibility by writing a descriptive statement that captured the contribution this initiative would make to the company. Next, they designed a prototype. Starting with a prototype freed people to see that they didn’t have to wait for permission or have to get things exactly right before they could present ideas. Instead, there in the meeting they could design and test their initial thinking. The core team had created some great questions to stimulate small-group design conversations:

A techie from one of the groups smiled and said, “This is like a hackathon.” If she meant that this activity was to “hack” the current ways of doing and thinking to make room for creativity and innovation, she was right.

When it was time to share prototypes with the whole, Erich felt blown away by the creativity and knowledge base that had emerged. One team created a new sales call protocol that bridged every team, from product design to delivery. Another team created an innovative process to bring potential clients to the Technology Center to see firsthand how the firm develops custom solutions. After each presentation, Erich invited the rest of the group to provide feedforward—a new concept the core team was introducing: What resonates for me (what do I like about it)? What did I notice? What suggestions do I have to make it even better?

The day was almost over. The outcomes from this Design phase set the stage for taking action. Implementing these prototypes and getting started on tasks were in the next phase of the 5-D cycle.

Deploy Phase: Living into Empowering Action

Each group gathered for a final conversation about how to deliver or deploy their prototype. They created written plans with action steps that would move their prototype into reality.

In closing, Erich reflected on the day and how excited he felt with the outcomes. He graciously thanked the members of the planning team and explicitly drew attention to how carefully they had used generative questions and positive framing throughout their design. He spent a little time sharing these two practices with everyone, encouraging them to continue to inspire great conversations as they rolled out their plans and worked together to achieve their goals. Then he invited all those present to tell a brief story about the best thing that happened today and their commitment to taking action.

Deployment continued as people engaged in daily work following the meeting. That day inspired a whole new way of engaging in conversation. Relationships had been formed across the silos, and commitment both to one another and to their shared vision had been strengthened. The core team remained champions for the vision and mission. They made sure prototypes had the support and resources they needed to move forward.

Erich reported back to Gerard in Germany, “The conversations that took place to create the center’s mission, vision, and strategic plan went beyond my expectations. The various divisions have become boundaryless in this new Tech Center. I guess that’s what happens when people co-create a shared purpose, vision, and plan of action. We are on fire to deliver on our plan!” Everyone was heard; everyone had a stake.

Within ninety days of launching the plan, the tech team saw improved results in productivity, sales, and communications. Morale for the new center had risen to an all-time high, and a positive feeling of a home-away-from-the-corporate-home emerged. A team-based mentality was focusing on continuous improvement, using a results-driven mindset. The members’ ability to act so successfully on the outcomes from their planning meeting was the result of their commitment to practice generative questions and positive framing as ways of being and working together.

This was the first time that any division of the company had created a strategic plan based on all employees’ insights, not only those of a few senior leaders. Gerard took notice of the results. He phoned Erich to ask him, “What made this relocation project a success?” Erich paused for a moment and replied, “I think it’s because our strategic conversations were inclusive. Everyone mattered. Conversations centered on how we could make this a great success. People were invited to share their best selves, and the conversations unleashed the momentum to become a unified, winning team. Everyone knows that we can achieve the tasks ahead because they co-created them!”

Gerard then asked, “Erich, can you teach me how to create these kinds of conversations back at corporate? We need to ignite the potential of everyone in this organization.” Erich smiled and replied, “I’d be delighted. It will be easy to teach you generative questions and positive framing to help you have meaningful conversations and possibly even to guide department-size planning meetings. However, if you’re talking about a whole-organization effort, I think we’ll need a professional AI facilitator.”

What made this process relatively easy for Erich to use was his applied understanding of the two basic practices, his attention to the principles, his past experience with the 5-D structured approach, and coaching from his AI trainer. Table 6.2 summarizes what Erich and his core team did for the Technology Center. You can do it with your division or department as well. Just keep in mind what inspired Erich. He assumed that the responsibility for change resided with all the people in the center. He realized that the people and their conversations are the organization. They create the culture and climate in the way they talk and work together. Real organizational change begins when the people are invited to take responsibility for the system by engaging in productive, worthwhile conversations about their shared future.

Organizations and communities are socially constructed systems. People designed the structures, processes, workflows, and policies that are in place. So make sure those systems are supporting the outcomes you want. The 5-D Cycle enables people to have strategic conversations to identify and amplify the best of what is in a system, to continuously create the best of what can be, and to design how it can be, which often means changing structures and systems. The result is that people come alive and formally commit to the future of the organization or community. Why? You’ll find out in the next chapter, where you’ll learn how the practice of using generative questions and positive framing affects us in ways that support our work and our lives in general.