Appreciative Inquiry: Organization Development and the Strengths Revolution

Appreciative Inquiry: Organization Development and the Strengths Revolution CHAPTER SIX By Jacqueline M. Stavros, Lindsey N. Godwin, and David L. Cooperrider    Leveraging the power of generative questions, AI changes the focus of what we typically study in organizational life, questioning the prevailing mindset that “organizations are problems to be solved,” (Cooperrider and Srivastva 1987). Instead, AI suggests that “organizations are mysteries and miracles of human relatedness; they are living systems, alive and embedded in ever-widening webs of infinite strength and limitless human imagination. Organizations, as centers of human connectivity and collaboration, are ‘universes of strengths,’” (Cooperrider and Godwin 2010, 10). AI invites change agents to look into their organizations with “appreciative eyes”—scanning the system for things for which to be grateful, seeking out what is next and what is possible, and focusing on valuing those things of value wort...