Appreciative Inquiry Essay

History of Appreciative Inquiry
Appreciative Inquiry is a change management approach which concentrates itself on determining what is working well within an organization, scrutinizing why it is working well and then focusing on doing more of these things. “Appreciative Inquiry focuses us on the positive aspects of our lives and leverages them to correct the negative. It’s the opposite of ‘problem-solving” (White, 1996). Appreciative Inquiry has it birthplace within the Case Western Reserve University doctoral program in Organizational Behavior and began as a partnership between David Cooperrider and his advisor Suresh Srivastva in 1980. The foundation of Appreciative Inquiry was established during the process of Cooperrider completing his doctoral thesis. Initially, Cooperrider’s work was concentrated on constructing a conventional analysis or an organizational examination of what were the flaws within the personnel side of the organization. “The history of Appreciative Inquiry is the history of a major shift in the practice of organization development and transformation. In fact, it is also the history of an unplanned, even unintended, process with no particular intent at all to use it for changing organizations or other human systems”( Watkins et al, 2011. p.23).
The first reference of the expression "Appreciative Inquiry" is found in the footnotes of a report on emergent themes by Cooperrider and Srivastva that was written for the Cleveland Clinic’s Board of Governors. In 1982, Toward Transformation of Social Knowledge was published by Ken Gergen and it provided a powerful analysis of conventional scientific meta-theory which leads Cooperrider towards a completely original method of applying his new theory. This lead...

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...to course correct for any shortcomings we identify. This would be an excellent time to bring the concept of kaizen into play. “The Kaizen Event is an effective tool for moving past “analysis paralysis,” tying improvements to a larger strategy, and involving all the necessary perspectives to create relevant, measurable, and sustainable improvements” (Martin & Osterling, 2007. p. 20). We would attempt to maintain fresh ideas by adding new members and leaders to the change coalition.
The last thing we must accomplish if the change process is to be a lasting one is to attempt to anchor the changes into the culture of the organization. This is done by including the change concepts when new personnel are assigned, by recognizing the contributions of everyone who participated in the change process, and talking about the success yielded during every opportunity to do so.