Welcome to Appreciative Inquiries! This month's edition is a celebration of wonder - a chance to explore and rejoice in the great work that’s taking place in and around the CPC community.

IN THIS ISSUE (linked list): News: Northwest Community Hospital, Cuidando Los Niños, Boulder County Aging Services, JUUT Salonspa, Community Development Institute; Celebrating Our Graduates, Certificate Program, "Dear CPC," Current Workshops, Conferences & Resources.

CPC Consulting News

During the summer months, Mike Mantel and Susan Wood led an Appreciative Inquiry Foundations workshop for Northwest Community Hospital in Arlington Heights, IL. The program was focused on preparing members of the hospital’s operations team to lead change and enhance the hospital’s strong culture with Appreciative Inquiry processes. Courageous Thinking, Spirit of Excellence and Caring Culture were the topics. Here’s one of their creative definitions!

From the NCH Success Kitchen
Pre-heat the climate with Trust and Affirmation
Add 1 cup of Creative Ideas,
2 cups of Empowerment
Listen for 30 minutes
Add a dash of validation
Stir with Recognition
Bake intuitively
Adjust Recipe to taste
Celebrate the sweet reward!

In preparation for a series of strategic planning sessions in late September, Cuidando Los Niños has asked Tish Wilson and her CDI colleague Sandy Hill-Binkley to facilitate an appreciative inquiry with staff, clients and Board members. Cuidando Los Niños is a child care program for homeless children in Albuquerque, NM.

Amanda Trosten-Bloom consults with Boulder County Aging Services community in a  strategic planning initiative dubbed Greeting Our Future: A New Approach to Aging. This is a groundbreaking project whose purpose is to engage the passions, creativity, and life experiences of all generations and cultures in Boulder County, to transform the aging experience across the community. Rounding the bend on about a hundred one-on-one interviews, coordinators are now launching a series of community conversations (group interviews) to culminate in a late-October summit.

In seven locations in Minnesota and one in Palo Alto, JUUT Salonspa is “Transforming Beauty”. JUUT is committed to transforming the guests they serve in a beautiful way, changing society’s perception of beauty and setting an example for other businesses. Last June, JUUT’s President Tom Kuhn invited 50 JUUT team members to be introduced to Appreciative Inquiry by CPC consultant Susan Wood.  They chose Talent, Harmony, Excellence and Beautiful Business for a salon-wide inquiry with staff and customers. Stories are being collected and shared at quarterly meetings and the positive core of the exceptional business is growing.  To learn more about this visionary organization, visit their Web site at www.juut.com.

CPC’s client and “sister” organization, Community Development Institute (CDI) has been nominated for the Innovations in American Government Award, in recognition of exceptional practices in the areas of organizational learning and continuous improvement. Since the year 2000, CDI has systematically applied key organizing principles to its systems and structures; and has thereby successfully operated 68 locally-controlled programs, serving nearly 27,000 children and families in 29 states. CPC Associates Carolyn Miller, Nila Rinehart and Tish Wilson (also affiliated with CDI) share the following excerpts from the Innovations in American Government Web site: 

Through its annual awards competition, the Innovations in American Government Program provides concrete evidence that government can work to improve the quality of life for citizens and that it deserves greater public trust. Many award-winning programs have been replicated across jurisdictions and policy areas, and some have served as harbingers of today’s reform strategies or as forerunners to state and federal legislation. By highlighting exemplary models of government’s innovative performance, the Program serves as a catalyst for continued progress in addressing the nation’s most pressing public concerns.

Please join CPC in celebrating this extraordinary acknowledgment of insight and perseverance, and in wishing CDI well in the next phase of the “competition.”

Celebrating Our Graduates

CPC workshops are a great place to meet colleagues, build skills, and design future work!  Here’s the latest from some of our recent graduates . . .

AI in Action graduate, Larry Dressler (Blue Wing Consulting) describes having brought AI to one of the largest synagogues in North America. Clergy members, educators, and temple administrators interviewed staff and congregants from every corner of the organization, then gathered in a two-day summit to articulate a set of workplace values, and identify key elements of organizational architecture that they plan to intentionally align with the newly voiced values. 

Two graduates of the AI Summit workshop also share news of their projects.  Keiko Tsuchiya describes a 130-person strategic planning meeting she facilitated this summer in Tokyo. Participants included all associates, temporary staff, and senior executives from the parent company. Similarly, Judith Light is facilitating a three-day summit for the regional office of a Federal agency, dubbed Extraordinary People Delivering Excellence Together.  Interview topics include: “Creating a Supportive Learning Environment among Extraordinary People” and “Trusting and Respecting One Another – Keys to Delivering Excellence Together.” 

Finally, Certificate Program graduate Nancy Ogilvie recently facilitated a one-day mini-summit for leaders in nonprofits, entitled From Surviving to Thriving. Recognizing the mounting challenges faced by today’s nonprofits, her program provided leaders with opportunities to strengthen their individual agencies through shared learning and the creation of new opportunities. A summary of the proceedings and photos of the summit are available on Nancy’s Web site.  

CPC Certificate Program: Appreciative Inquiry and the Practice of Positive Change

Welcome to our three new participants in the CPC Certificate Program:

• Lisa Culhane
• Alex Jaccaci
• Rosemary Williams

The next practice-sharing call for participants and graduates will take place on October 11, 2005.  It will be hosted by CPC Principal and positive change strategist Amanda Trosten-Bloom.

For more information or to register for the Certificate Program, download the Application Form or contact Corporation for Positive Change at 505-751-1232 or office@positivechange.org.

"Having completed the CPC Certificate program, my ability to use AI in multiple ways has been raised to a new level. I really understand the AI process, and can use it in many different ways with skill and confidence."

Belinda Rinker

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Dear CPC: a source for ongoing capacity-building, questions and answers

Dear CPC,

I recently graduated from one of your internal workshops, and have a series of questions about the materials that you shared.  Please help me to understand this theory better so that I can apply it as effectively as possible! 

Sincerely yours,
Wilda Torres
San Juan, Puerto Rico

Dear Wilda:

Thank you for your great questions. I’ve embedded them in my responses, below: 

• You mention the Myth of Neutrality in one of your slides.  What does it mean, and is it referenced in any of your books? 

What we mean is that there is really no such thing as a neutral question. AI says that questions are fateful, they determine what we talk about and learn about. So all questions move the people who answer them in a particular direction. What we often think of as neutral questions such as, "How is your compensation?" will most often be answered negatively because of people's habits of talking about what's wrong more than what's right.

• What do you mean by the term “Accelerated Learning” (cited in your ‘Positive Image - Positive Action’ presentation)? 

We talk about accelerated learning because the research shows that people learn more and faster when they have the opportunity to see positive images and hear positive stories. We use the example of the bowling camp to demonstrate this. The same bowling team was divided into three groups, to study the effect of positive images on their performance. The first group viewed edited video footage of only their “bloopers.” The second group received “balanced feedback,” watching edited footage that combined their best and worst shots. Finally, the last group watched and analyzed footage of only their most brilliant shorts. The story has it that, while all three groups improved, the third group improved twice as fast.   

In support of the benefits of positive emotions on learning, we cite the work of Barbara Fredrikson, Marty Seligman and other contributors to the field of Positive Psychology. They have statistically demonstrated what we have already observed in our work: that positive emotions broaden people’s thinking and resources, and increase their resilience, or capacity to “undo” negative emotions. We consider these capacities to be crucial components of organizational performance.

• What recommendations would you make us to turn the following
  two concepts into an Affirmative Topic:  Compensation (people feeling not well compensated) and Workload (too many work and no time).

These are great potential topics! For an inquiry into Compensation I might consider:

• Feeling Valued for a Job Well Done
• What's Money Got to Do With It?
• Money and Meaning at Work

For an inquiry into workload, perhaps:

• Whistle While you Work
• Work Hard and Play Hard
• Permission to Say No

Or for more ideas, you might visit one of the books I’ve co-authored with Amanda and others, Encyclopedia of Positive Questions, Volume One, and Appreciative Team Development. Both of these books contain 40 to 50 sample questions on a variety of topics that can be used to stimulate your thinking – or to guide an inquiry. [For details on the above books, please visit our Web site.]

These are just some of my creative thoughts. Perhaps the best approach would be to bring together few people, and have them interview one other on just one question: a highpoint at work, when your workload was just right and you felt well compensated. See what shows up, and turn that into your topic. 

Diana Whitney
for the CPC Consulting Team

Do YOU have a question for CPC? If so, contact us at office@positivechange.org. We will answer it in a future Appreciative Inquiries.

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Upcoming Educational Opportunities

2005 CPC WORKSHOP SCHEDULE

* * * WORKSHOP DEADLINE PENDING * * *

AI in Action, Boulder, CO, October 12 – 14, 2005. EARLY BIRD DISCOUNT APPLIES UNTIL SEPTEMBER 21 .  Want to build on your experience as a leader of positive change? Go deeper, faster and farther with Appreciative Inquiry? In this workshop, Amanda Trosten-Bloom and Mike Mantel will help you identify and build upon your strengths as an AI practitioner. Explore a variety of approaches for applying AI at different levels in an organization, community and across our world. Discover new ideas, approaches and frameworks for building your capacity and your own projects by studying the projects of other participants as case examples. Previous attendance at a Foundations-level Appreciative Inquiry workshop, as well as experience applying the AI approach to at least one project, is recommended. For information and to register contact Corporation for Positive Change at 505-751-1232 or email: office@positivechange.org.

What participants are saying about AI in Action:

AI in Action is a dynamic course that absolutely exceeded my expectations!  From pre-work to rich discussions to case studies, it stretched my capacities as an AI practitioner.  Within a day, I had applied what I learned to my job.

Barbara Bitondo
The World Bank

AI in Action has built on what I learned in the Foundations course. It gave me case studies and alternative methods of design, so now I am ready to “fly with AI.”

Diana Sadighi
Director, Human Resources
Hunter Douglas Window Fashions

The Appreciative Inquiry Summit, Chicago, IL, November 7 – 10, 2005.  EARLY BIRD DEADLINE APPLIES UNTIL OCTOBER 10. Join Jim Ludema and Diana Whitney for their highly regarded Appreciative Inquiry Summit workshop. This is a practical, hand-on program, based on Jim and Diana’s book The Appreciative Inquiry Summit: A Practitioners Guide for Leading Large-Group Change, which has produced breakthrough results for many organizations.

A recent participant said,

My team and I immediately took what we learned at the workshop and brought it back to our organization. Since then, with the full support of senior leadership, we have launched a series of 15 summits to create a customer-centric culture that maximizes business results. The impact of these summits on our workforce in terms of engagement, energy, and execution has been nothing short of extraordinary!

The AI Summit is a process for getting the "whole system in the room" (30-3000 people or more) to launch meaningful and often revolutionary change. It has been used by dozens of organizations such as McDonald's, BP, Hunter Douglas, Nokia, US Cellular, Roadway, Nutrimental, World Vision, and the US Navy – and is rapidly becoming a method of choice among executives, managers and practitioners because of its capacity to quickly unify people around a common vision and enable them to innovate, execute, and sustain positive change. For more information or to register contact Maggie at 505-751-1232 or office@positivechange.org, or visit the CPC website at www.positivechange.org.

Appreciative Leadership Development Program, Clearwater, FL, December 5 - 8, 2005.  At last – an Appreciative Leadership workshop for executives and managers. Developed and facilitated by Diana Whitney and Jim Ludema this is a strength based leadership development program. It is designed specifically for executives, managers, and leaders of change who want to enhance their capacities in a constructive, inquiry-intense learning environment. It is also ideal for leadership teams who want to elevate their collective performance by combining and leveraging individual strengths.  For information and to register contact Corporation for Positive Change at 505-751-1232 or email: office@positivechange.org.

What participants are saying about the Appreciative Leadership Development Program:

This was a life altering experience. I not only got in touch with my strengths as a leader but really got in touch with who I've been "being" as a leader and what is effective about it as opposed to what I've been "doing" as a leader.  I loved how we took the different data points and used them to take a look at ourselves and what we're up to as leaders. I am completely re-inspired as a leader and feel very supported and connected with my colleagues. Thanks.

Tish Wilson
Vice President
Community Development Institute

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Conferences and Resources

If you’ve not already done so, please register for the upcoming Taos Institute conference: Social Construction: A Celebration of Collaborative Practices, October 6-9 in Taos, NM. CPC Principals Diana Whitney, Jim Ludema and Amanda Trosten-Bloom will present to over 150 participants from 12 different countries. Hear stories of cutting edge initiatives in the fields of organization development, education, family therapy, social work, medicine, and community development. For more information, visit the Taos Institute web site at www.taosinstituteconference.net.

Then on October 26-29, 2005 in Washington, DC, hundreds of thought leaders who are shaping the next generation of business will convene for a groundbreaking global event: The WorldBlu Forum: ReWriting the Rules of Business for a Democratic Age. Highly successful CEOs, best-selling authors, former prime ministers, high-stakes revolutionaries, technological gurus, emerging leaders and the next generation of business thought-leaders will use organizational democracy to actively accelerate the inevitable positive evolution of business.  For more information or to register, contact Traci Fenton at 202.251.8099, or visit the conference web site at www.worldblu.com. 

Finally, follow this link to the AI Practitioner, the only newsletter on the practice of Appreciative Inquiry. Published quarterly by Anne Radford in London, the AIP features articles on such diverse topics as AI and strategic planning, AI in Health Care, and AI in school systems. The $28 subscription fee is modest, and well worth it.

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About Corporation for Positive Change

Corporation for Positive Change (CPC) is the premier consulting firm using Appreciative Inquiry for transformation and innovation in business, government, and non-rofit organizations around the world. For more information about CPC, or to contact any of our principal consultants, please visit our Web site at www.positivechange.org.

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