Appreciative Inquiry – enabler for the “new Normal” after COVID-19 crisis

by Gabriele Wittendorfer

Appreciative Inquiry (AI) was pioneered in the 1980s by David Cooperrider and Suresh Srivastva, two professors at the Weatherhead School of Management at Case Western Reserve University, Ohio. Today it’s one of the Neuroscience-based Psychology Models which could frame all levels of action, from the individuum to groups and the whole company.

The key question in AI:
Coming back to the experience I gained, whereof I want to have more in the future?

Starting with this positive opener, three core terms of sustainable change are set:
Self-Empowerment, Purpose and Reality-Check.
With AI we neither hunt white elephants nor do we escape to science fiction. Following the steps in the 4-D-Cycle both, individuals and teams, start with the strengths they gathered in the past to design their future practice:

Transferring the AI process to the current situation, we all should engage against a simple return to our pre-Corona routines. Konkret. Organisationsberatung recommends to leaders to install the following procedure as part of unlocking the “after Corona business”:

• Pass through your individual 4-D-Cycle, if needed with support of your coach.
• Invite your team to a special come-together (virtually or not), e.g. under the headline “Harvesting” and ask about their positive experience during the Corona cooperation phase; write down the essence of every given story and announce one AI dialog for every given subject.
• Install the first AI dialog promptly after this session (virtually or not) and invite everybody to join. Nobody is forced to take part, but it is important that you as the leader do, additional facilitation might be helpful.
• Pass with the team through the 4-D-Cycle and don’t forget to align those who are not part of your regular communication.
• Celebrate your first implemented feature of the “new Normal” with the whole team and continue with the next subject from the Harvesting-collection; it might be another part of the team who is interested in this subject, therefore don’t forget to invite all team members for the first session of the next AI dialog!

If you discover Appreciative Inquiry as your way of developing yourself, your team and your business, you as well work on the culture of cooperation. Underlining the positive experience as driver of change, you create openness for the new. Let me put it in a nutshell:

By chance
we were lucky to undergo that something works right.
By appreciation
we are able to fix it for the future.