New Futures Circle

In a nutshell, appreciative inquiry (“AI”) is about asking questions.

Questions that are much more powerful than the usual because they contain in them an assumption of life and vitality — an assumption that there’s something good and worthwhile in whatever you’re studying.

By asking positive questions, we generate new ideals for the future … possibilities “proven” by the best of the past and present. In the words of its primary originator, Dr. David L. Cooperrider of Case Western Reserve University, AI asks us to pay special attention to “the best of the past and present” — in order to “ignite the collective imagination of what might be.”

It’s an exciting way to take human enterprise to its next level, and to inspire people, for the benefit of us all.

Seeing hidden strengths

AI is about seeing what others may not see. It’s about heightening our awareness of the value, strength, and potential of ourselves and others — and overcoming the limits that we impose, often unconsciously, on our own capacities.

One example of great historical significance is the way that Winston Churchill appealed to the beleaguered British people in the darkest days of the Second World War.

Churchill’s impact was the result of his towering ability to cognitively dissociate all seeming impossibilities, deficiencies, and imperfections from a given situation, and to see in his people and country that which had fundamental value and strength. His optimism, even in Britain’s darkest moment, came not from a Pollyanna-like sense that ‘everything was just fine,’ but from a conviction that was born from what he, like few others, could actually see in his country.

David Cooperrider

Most of us have had glimpses of these possibilities. And yet, the pervasive “background music” of our culture seems to draw us all into a chorus of hopelessness, irony and negativity.

Churchill and many others have demonstrated that we can find signs of life and hope, if only we decide to look for them — and that what we choose to pay attention to has everything to do with how we see ourselves, how we envision the future, and how the future actually turns out.

But in everyday life, most people and organizations are constrained by the perception that their resources, and hence their horizons, are limited.

This perception — that we must “face realities” — is without a doubt the greatest single constraint on human imagination, vision and enterprise.

Appreciative inquiry begins with a different set of assumptions. We begin with the belief that we have a choice — that we can consciously choose what we “see” and act upon. In both the personal and social realms, we can choose to focus on problems, needs and deficits — the traditional problem-solving approach. Or we can choose to see strengths, capabilities and possibilities — the basis of appreciative inquiry.

By focusing on what’s right, rather than what’s wrong with an organization, an individual or even a society, AI gives us access to the kind of energy that can be transformative. Having that kind of energy to work with gives us the confidence to develop and pursue a new image of the future.

A key question: If you want to inspire, mobilize and sustain human energy which is the most effective way — by focusing on problems or pursuing possibilities?

So, AI can be a way of seeing the world. It also can be a methodology. Through a carefully developed set of questions, we uncover stories of our “peak experiences” — those moments in our lives when we felt most effective, most connected, most alive.

These stories provide irrefutable proof of our actual capabilities. They give rise to new images of what the future could be. They raise our sights, energize us and give us the courage to dream and act boldly. They give us a grounded confidence in the future.

Rather than “accepting reality,” we see that what we call “reality” is defined by what we choose to see, to think and talk about, what we choose to act upon. It follows that we have the capacity to create the kind of future we desire.