Appreciative Inquiry: A Positive Way of Managing Change

Abstract

In our problems lie our greatest opportunities. Appreciative inquiry creates a dialogic environment that excites imagination. The appreciative conversations that take place one to one, in small groups, and in ever larger circles, serve to build trust and strengthen relationships allowing for the disruption of old patterns of thinking. This opens a pathway for new insights, new hope, and therefore new possibilities. We are better able to reach for these new possibilities when we are mindful of the successes we have had and of the strengths in our system. The best of our past gives us new confidence permitting us to be bold in our aspirations. The present article illustrates the ideas and approach of appreciative inquiry and demonstrates that our biggest challenge as well as opportunity lies in developing a platform for co-creating a new plane of understanding, a more interesting place, where individual passion and collective commitment, fuelled by a bold and expanded image of what is possible join forces in pursuit of the ideal.