Creating and maintaining success is a very different kind of challenge than it was only a few years ago. Organizations generate complex problems that cannot be solved by simplistic, quick-fix solutions, but human beings are designed to manage ambiguity and excel at tackling complex problems when we take the right approach.
For much of the last four hundred years, human ingenuity has sought to improve the world through modern science with its focus on linear logic and dissecting things to understand them. This works well when applied to technical challenges, such as computer systems and medical devices but is inadequate when applied to the dynamics of human systems, such as businesses, families, work teams, or community groups.
Appreciative Inquiry is an approach based on the simple idea that organizations – and even individuals — move in the direction of what we most frequently ask about. Instead of focusing on the problems, we have Appreciative Inquiry asks us to discover what is already working and build on it. It is an invitation to uncover the best in ourselves and others and to envision and live in the best images of that future. And it works! Appreciative Inquiry is used by organizations of all sizes around the world to create and achieve extraordinary results.
