Encyclopedia of Leadership

✔ Real communication is possible only when groups value their differences.

✔ The language we use influences our reality—the way we see things. Leaders who look

for problems will find problems. Leaders who look for successes will find successes.

“...three umpires disagreed on the tack of calling balls and strikes. The first one says, ‘I call them as they is.’

The second one says, ‘I calls them as I see them.’ The third and cleverest umpire says, ‘They ain’t nothing ‘till I

calls them.’”

—H. W. Simons

Appreciative inquiry differs from traditional visioning work in that the envisioned future

is grounded in past and current successes. In this way, the system maintains the best of the past

by articulating what has been achieved, then continuing and adapting these successes into the

future.

HOW TO USE THIS LEADERSHIP TOOL

“While traditional problem-solving processes separate, dissect, and pull apart, appreciative inquiry processes

generate affirming images which integrate, synthesize, and pull people together.”

—Tom Pitman and Gervase Bushe, OD PRACTITIONER

An organization has been through a number of tremendous changes in a period of three years:

a merger, a restructuring, and an accompanying downsizing. People have become disillusioned

at even the hint of further change. Yet you, as a leader, have been told, and you know instinc-

tively, that further change is needed. Instead of using the traditional leadership processes that

have been used over the past three years (asking, “What problems are you having?”; focusing

on deficiencies; defining problems; and fixing what’s broken), you may want to use apprecia-

tive inquiry (asking, “What’s working well around here?”; multiplying hope and energy by sur-

facing the organization’s history of success).

WEB WORKSHEET

Use the workspace provided here to plan your approach to a difficult organizational issue using

an appreciative inquiry process.

SECTION 5 TOOLS FORLEADINGCHANGE 167

How might you approach the system (the group, department, and so on) in order to:

• Build working relationships with group members?