Skills and Knowledge Needed to Lead AI Processes
,Once practitioners grasp the idea that AI is not a method in the traditional OD sense, it becomes clear that they need solid skills in experiential education methodologies and in organization development theory and practice, as well as in-depth knowledge about and experience in the field of human behavior and group process. This kind of skill and knowledge is critical for those who want to use AI in their practice since a major characteristic of an AI intervention is that it is co-created with the client. There is no AI “cookbook”!
We do not mean to imply that AI can be used only by long-time, highly skilled practitioners. Indeed, one of the wonders of AI is that people can begin to experiment with its use after only a small amount of exposure to the theory and practice. However, in order to use AI for complex systems change, we have learned from our own practices and from participants who come to our consultant training workshops that those with a broad range of consulting skills and long experience with OD practice will be more likely to undertake large-scale change projects using AI.
In response to participants in our workshops who asked what training they might want or need to equip them to use AI as the basis of their practice, we created the following chart.
Our thoughts here are intended to provide useful guidelines for the professional development of those wishing to work as facilitators and practitioners in Appreciative Inquiry. We see these guidelines as evergreen—always a work in progress, as we all gain more experience with this evolving practice.
We might usefully differentiate between professional development at three levels. These we have named:
- AI Facilitators;
- AI Practitioners, and
- AI Meta-Practitioners/Trainers
| Role Definition: AI Facilitator | Competencies for This Role |
| AI facilitators are internal staff or line people
whose development could come from internal two-to-five-day workshops
conducted by AI practitioners. AI facilitators are folks who would work collaboratively under the guidance of an internal or external AI practitioner or meta-practitioner. |
After a workshop, AI facilitators would be
comfortable in: a. Co-facilitating (with an AI practitioner) the development of customized protocols; b. Conducting interviews; c. Co-facilitating (with an AI practitioner) the writing of Provocative propositions; d. Co-facilitating (with an AI practitioner) for members of their organization, a variety of large group processes for systemic/structural changes (as needed). |
| Role Definition: AI Practitioner |
Competencies for This Role |
AI practitioners are
“consultants” (internal or external, either in staff
or line management roles) who are competent at guiding client systems
through the whole appreciative inquiry process, including:
|
AI practitioners function best when they are
comfortable in the following areas: 1. Competence in articulating the concepts and research behind: a. Social constructionism; b. Image-action connection; c. Role of language and inquiry in image creation; d. People and organizations as mysteries to be embraced; e. The emerging paradigm as context for AI; f. A wide range of AI “applications” (e.g., strategic planning, organization and business process design, quality improvement, career counseling, mergers and acquisitions, team building, diversity initiatives, evaluation etc.). 2. Competence in coaching clients in the following Appreciative Inquiry processes: a. Identifying topics (life-giving forces) from generic interviews; b. Crafting customized protocol AI questions; c. Conducting interviews; d. Identifying themes from the customized protocol interviews as prelude to PPs; e. Writing provocative propositions (PPs); f. Consensual validation and possibilities for expanding appreciative conversations throughout the system; g. Innovating the sociotechnical architecture of the organization (the structures, roles, processes and systems) so as to support and help bring to life the PPs; and h. Helping the system to build ongoing internal capability. 3. Competence in collaborative skills: a. Experiential Education; b. Use of self as instrument (being personally congruent with AI theory); c. Contracting/client relations/project management; and e. Integration of AI with large group/interactive methods (e.g., Open Space, Future Search, Whole System Design, etc.). |
| Role Definition: Meta-Practitioner |
Competencies for This Role |
| Meta practitioners/trainers of practitioners are people who can run extended in-depth professional development events. | In addition to the proficiency in the same areas as
a practitioner, a meta-practitioner would typically: a. Have extensive experience in a variety of AI applications and settings; b. Be actively participating in an ongoing forum for peer consultation and development during the course of whole system AI change processes; and c. Be steeped in the theory and research, models of practice and what is going on worldwide in this field. |
During the decade since the first edition of this book appeared, we have learned much about what people need and want in order to feel competent to use AI in their work internally in organizations or as consultants to groups and organizations.
First, there is now a certification process established by the NTL Institute of Applied Behavioral Science and Case Western’s School of Organization Behavior. This program has trained and certified a large number of AI practitioners equipping them to be not only master practitioners, but also to be able to train others in the skills and knowledge needed to become master practitioners.
Second, we have also learned that there are skills required by the changing environment in which we live and work. The following ideas come from the final chapter written by Jane Watkins in Practicing OD (2009).
Competencies Needed in OD Consulting Today
In a world where, according to Einstein, “our technology has exceeded our humanity,” it becomes the job of OD Consultants to help human beings in organizations “acquire a new manner of thinking.” If OD Consultants heed the warnings of Einstein, there are important competencies that must be added to the traditional human relations skills of well trained OD practitioners. These competencies include:
1. OD Consulting in the Post-Modern Era requires consultants to have a deep understanding of the phenomena of wholeness—the intimate connectedness of every part of the organization. Consultants need the ability to examine and challenge their own assumptions about their work and about how human systems really function. They must, themselves, shift from traditional beliefs in dichotomous reality and the idea that we can study “parts” of a system, to an understanding of the concept of “whole systems,” interconnected in complex ways that make it impossible to change one part of the system without affecting the whole.
2. OD Consultants need to know how to transfer that knowledge of wholeness to the clients so that they, too, understand the impact of their individual actions on the whole; and, further, to understand that an intervention in any one part of the organization will ripple out to affect all other parts. This understanding on the part of those in the organization will lead to greater collaboration and stronger commitment to each other as they observe and learn from the impact of their own behavior on multiple parts of the organization.
3. OD Consultants need to know how to enable people within the system to develop the skills needed to help their own organizations become high performing, interconnected systems and to empower the people in the system to create ways of working creatively and effectively in an environment of continuous and accelerating change. It is essential that the people within the organization feel ownership for the process of managing continuous change. The consultant’s task is to empower the system to know itself and to trust that by seeking to identify the strengths and the positive core of their enterprise, they will collectively imagine and then create their best possible future.
4. OD Consulting in the Post-Modern Era requires that consultants themselves have the capacity to engage multiple ideas and possibilities without judging, and the ability to facilitate the development of that capacity in those with whom they work.
5. OD Consulting in the Post-Modern Era requires that consultants step aside as clients develop the understanding, skills and abilities to function creatively and independent of outside guidance. Ideally, the OD Consultant facilitates the process so the role of consultant is almost invisible.
6. Finally, in this Post-Modern Era, as in the past, OD requires that consultants understand and act congruently with the values and beliefs that are reflected in the theory and practice of Organization Development. From its inception, OD has focused on helping consultants understand themselves and the impact of their behavior on the groups with whom they consult. It is from the consultants “way of being” that client systems are able to observe, learn from, and eventually emulate the behavior of the consultant through an experiential learning process. Master OD consultants are the embodiment of the kind of behavior needed to facilitate and empower the people of an organization to become successful change agents within their own systems.
With these competencies, OD Consultants can move easily into complex and daunting situations comfortable in the knowledge that within any system there resides all of the knowledge and expertise needed to create a successful enterprise.
As we continue to participate in the spread of AI theory and practice, we all share the challenge of making this work, this thinking, accessible to many without either trivializing it or making it overly complex.
We assume that all initiatives that people undertake to alter, develop, or in some way shift their world, have, in their beginning stages, some form of “data gathering”—that is, some form of collecting information about the current status or functioning of the system which we are seeking to alter, develop or change in some way. In AI, we refer to this data gathering as “inquiry.” Within the framework of Appreciative Inquiry, the “data” which is gathered comes in the form of stories from people in the system since we hold the dual assumptions that: (1) people in the system are able to provide the richest responses to our questions and (2) the very act of asking and answering the questions begins to shift the system in the direction of the questions asked. Master AI Consultants are comfortable with the idea that this work is “Not about me!”