 The
Idea: A combination of the Appreciative Inquiry approach, Four
Practices skills and attitudes, and Open Space meeting protocols might
be the ideal combination for dealing with complex systems -- which we
are learning most systems are.
I was initially put off
Appreciative Inquiry by the name: "Appreciative" sounded too close to
"affirmation" and "positive thinking", while "inquiry" refers to more
formal investigations driven by mandate, versus "enquiry" which is a
more fluid process driven by curiosity. But I was provoked by blogger Chris Corrigan,
with whom I had an astonishing Skype conversation yesterday, to take a
closer look. Principal author of 'AI' David Cooperrider describes
it as nothing less than "the end of problem-solving". And Cooperrider
does indeed use words like "life-affirming" and "spiritual" to describe
AI. If you wade through this you get to the approach, described as
follows (I'm paraphrasing extensively since I find some of his
terminology unhelpful):
- Discovery—exploring and discovering the relationships and patterns in the system;
- Vision—creating a clear results-oriented vision in relation to discovered potential and overall objective;
- Design—collaboratively creating alternatives, opportunities, possibilities towards realizing the vision;
- Realization—improvisational and consensual actions, practices, experiments and outcomes that move towards realizing the vision.
- At the core of the cycle is Topic Choice, the question that
frames the inquiry. This choice is critical since it often carries
within it presuppositions, unchallenged assumptions and limiting points
of view of what is, and what is possible, in the system.
Cooperrider uses as an illustration an organizational system and a
challenge of dealing with rampant sexual harassment in it. The initial
problem-focused Topic Choice—"How do we reduce sexual harassment in the
workplace", is replaced by the more visionary, strategic, human and
affirmative "How do we develop a model of quality cross-gender
relationships in the workplace." The process you then follow to explore
that topic (or those topics—there can be more than one) and realize the
vision has evolved substantially since AI was first developed, and is
very different from the prescriptive process used in traditional
problem-solving approaches. The best way to appreciate the approach
(it's deliberately not rigid enough to be called a methodology)
is to look at the four skills/attitudes you need to acquire to
facilitate or participate in AI effectively—which Chris explains as the
Four Practices of Open Space, citing his colleague Michael Herman (no paraphrasing from me this time):
- practice of opening:
It's about willingness. Willingness to see, to know, to open. It's
personal and reflective, but can be felt physically in body and charted
in organizations.
- practice of inviting:
It's about goodness. Finding benefits TO others, as in what's in it for
them, and also benefits IN others, as in recognizing what they can add
to the process of achieving what is desired personally in the first
practice. It makes that first practice social, collective,
organizational, and cultural, but also documented in invitation emails,
letters, posters.
- practice of holding:
It's about supporting movement and change. Providing space and time,
structures that support without making decisions for people, giving
attention, carrying in awareness or carrying forward, holding in one's
heart or home or conference room. It creates room for others to expand,
explore, experiment... to bring new things out in the world. It is
simultaneously logistical, mental, and emotional.
- practice of practicing:
It's about sustaining, returning, realizing, and making real. This is
action, taking a stand, making progress, going somewhere, documenting
results. This implies the continuation and diffusion of the above.
Standing ground, staying the course, seeing things through. It is the
personal and individual (I, me, my) pursuit of the good that WE invite,
in the space that WE provide. It can look simply mechanical and become
deeply meditative, as we go round again, starting with opening. (Note... this might also be called the practice of 'participating,' perhaps 'making,' or simply 'doing' or 'changing.'
Each of these 'practices' can be conducted holistically throughout the
four stages of AI. There is an enormous sense of personal responsibility
in this, as contrasted with the high level of structure and assignment
of tasks in problem-solving methodologies. There must be passion
around the topic to keep participants engaged -- and permission for
those that lose that passion to take time out or move to rekindle it
(the Law of Two Feet). And respect
is a critical component— in my discussion with Chris yesterday I was so
enthused by his explanations of this that I often interrupted him. He
was kind enough not to point that out to me, and he never interrupted me. He was practicing what he was trying to teach me.
And the medium by which most of this is carried out is—and this is critical—conversation.
Chris is an awesome conversationalist. Every word he says is nuanced by
and guided by the Four Practices. I learned more in an hour of
conversation with him (including learning about myself) than I have
ever learned in a week of intensive study. And the critical content of
the conversation is never analysis or argument, but contextual stories.
If you're not familiar with the concept of Open Space meetings, please read this short explanation now.
I think you should then be able to see how the Appreciative Inquiry
approach, the Four Practices, and the Open Space meeting protocols fit
together. I don't know that there's an umbrella name for these three
components, but let's just call them The Approach.
| My thesis in all of this is that this Approach is brilliantly designed
to deal with (not manage, not optimize, not improve, not solve problems
in— just effectively deal with) complex systems and environments. And we are
learning that most of the systems and environments that we puny humans
try to affect are, in fact, complex ones. |
Coincidentally (or perhaps not?) this month's running dialogue on the AOK Knowledge Management forum is led by Dave Snowden of the Cynefin Centre on the topic of sense-making in complex systems.
Snowden argues that systems fall into four categories (ontologies) that
each require different methods and tools. Simple systems are those
where there is one clear 'best practice' that always applies. For
example, in disinfecting and monitoring a water reservoir on a regular
schedule, there is one prescribed best way to do this. You don't want
authorities using their own judgement to override this best practice, just sense, categorize and respond. These systems are most suited to automation.
Complicated systems are what we have generally assumed we are dealing
with in business and in local ecosystems. Methodologies can be
developed following sufficient analysis to solve the problems of how to intervene in the system to achieve the desired change or correction. Senge's 'systems thinking', which I have used
extensively in these pages, is a wonderful tool for dealing with
complicated systems, where the cause and effect of things is not
obvious or simple, but is knowable. Sense, analyze and respond.
Complex systems are another matter entirely. In such systems no cause and effect is knowable—there
are just too many, perhaps an infinite number of, inter-related
variables. When consultants' analyses and solutions fail to solve a
business problem, or scientists' prescriptions or economists' forecasts
don't pan out, it's often because they've tried to use approaches meant
for complicated systems to address complex ones, and have (deliberately
or inadvertently) oversimplified or overlooked some or many of the
variables. Especially since the acceptance of the Gaia theory, that all
life (and all matter) on Earth is part of a single, complex system, we
are realizing that most of what we thought were complicated systems are
in fact complex, not completely knowable. This is galling to
scientists, rationalists, business leaders, and the rest of us that are
solution-oriented. Even the human body, it turns out, is more of a
complex system than a merely complicated one. And each attempt to find
a unifying theory or a fundamental constituent of all matter or the
precise size and shape and nature and age of the universe leads to the
discovery of more exceptions and variables, and realization that most
things are more complex than they appear.
This is where The Approach comes in. It is the embodiment of Snowden's probe, sense, respond method for dealing with complexity. It uses discovery (probing), with an acknowledgment that not all can be known, rather than analysis. It looks at design as the consideration of possibilities and options instead of the creation of plans and blueprints. It seeks to realize a vision through the knowledge-sharing and ideation of conversations, rather than to do so by implementing an action plan and assigning 'who will do what by when'. It trusts individuals
to act upon the emerging understanding of the group and in the
collective interest, improvisationally, unhampered by orders and
hierarchical channels, rather than prescribing precisely what must be
done. The Open Space meeting method optimizes the learnings and
teachings of the group instead of hamstringing them with structure and
process. And the Four Practices serve to guide and show each individual
how they can most effectively contribute to that collective learning
and doing process. No 'command and control', no 'solutions'. Just
powerful learning, collaboration, and doing.
Of course, none of this is new. It's been used by aboriginal
communities for centuries to guide decision-making and steer
communities in their collective best interest. As I keep saying, there
are no new ideas, just the (re-)discovery and application of old ones
in creative and appropriate ways, and the unlearning of all the myths
and misinformation we have been led, quite voluntarily and innocently,
to believe.
I had just finished designing and sharing with some of my colleagues a
quite elaborate model for a Solution Centre/Think Tank. Oh, well, back
to the drawing board.
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3:34:07 PM 
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MADE IN CANADA
trust your
instincts 
