Do you know what Appreciative Inquiry is?
Appreciative Inquiry is a strengths-based positive approach. Unlike the traditional methods, it focuses on an individual and team’s strengths. We become aware of how we can polish those strengths to succeed in the future. Appreciation is to acknowledge the best in society, people, and the world around us. And Inquiry is to ask a question for the betterment of them. So, Appreciative Inquiry is to work on strengthening the good in individuals.
Traditional Inquiry begins by focusing on flaws and problems. On the other hand, Appreciative Inquiry asks people to focus on strengths that already exist in them and the organization, both internally and externally. This positive approach leads to the extraordinary performance of team members. It creates a shared vision and direction. It also promotes learning, innovation and energizes the team’s strength by reinforcing relationships and culture.
Let’s go through the stages of Appreciative Inquiry.
Appreciative Inquiry follows the 4-D cycle- Discover, Dream, Design, and Destiny, or Deliver. One more D now adds up to make it a 5-D. Adding define, it becomes- Define, Discover, Dream, Design, and Destiny.
- Define: In the define phase, organizational members gather data to clarify the area of work. They collect information to focus on one topic that has room for improvement.
- Discover: In the discovery phase, the team inquires deeply about the question’s strengths and capabilities. They look at the positive aspect of an issue to improve it.
- Dream: It includes your imagination or vision for the success of an affirmative topic. In this phase, you imagine new possibilities for a preferred future.
- Design: It consists of the work you are going to do. All the members should decide what we should do to bring the vision into reality. Who is going to work on this project?
- Destiny/Deliver: This phase includes creating the future through innovation and action. That is, how is this service or change going to be?
Learn how to make Appreciative Inquiry more fruitful.
There are techniques to make Appreciative Inquiry more abundant. Improving the stages of appreciative Inquiry helps to gain a more favourable result.
When everyone gets the chance to put their point forward, we never know who will get fast and maximal results. Also, there are more options of solutions for the organization to choose from.
All team members can unleash their dreams to know more creative ways to solve the problem affirmatively.
When everyone is listening to each other, they contribute more. This is not because they are forced to but because they want to participate.
Treating people from different cultures equally reenergizes people. They come to learn and focus on the positive conversation.
Do you know about the best situation to use Appreciative Inquiry?
Appreciative Inquiry has global usage to address sales growth. It certainly improves customer service. Appreciative Inquiry develops leadership, redesigns organizational divisions. It also improves cost, quality, and cycle time.
Appreciative Inquiry is an alternative to the approach of problem-solving. As traditionally, communication approaches focus on the root cause of problems in the organization. However, Appreciative Inquiry focuses on improving the organization’s strength by working on what is right.
You can use Appreciative Inquiry to improve communication.
Learn how to do that:
Never criticize anyone for the thing they do not know. Moreover, learn to motivate others for their positive points, which will give them the confidence to participate more and show their skills and talent.
Try to polish the strengths of others rather than highlighting and pointing to their weakness.
Give an equal chance to every individual to speak up and allow putting their favour forward. Thus, practicing this will decrease the gap between the team members and give them a feeling of acceptance.
To learn more about using Appreciative Inquiry, you can enroll in the Communication Strategies course. Meet Us here and get the details of the course.
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