Acronym

For those of us most comforted by orderly task lists and “here’s-how” learning, an exposure to the messy work process involved with the business methodology known as appreciative inquiry can be, frankly, exhausting and a tad overwhelming. It also can be insightful, motivational, fun and—dare I write—even intimate, regardless of the number of folks in the room.

That’s a good thing since there were more than 60 together on October 29 and 30—all of them members of the Design Team for the Global Summit of Social Responsibility, being convened by ASAE & The Center on April 30-May 1, 2008. Although few of us had any experience with the four stages of appreciative inquiry, we believed this strengths-based approach could be the best tool for co-creating what we hope will be a pioneering and innovative event that will strengthen member organizations and measurably benefit the world. No small task for any business strategy!

Mercifully, we had the best help possible—David Cooperrider, Ph.D., of Case Western Reserve University, the actual developer of AI and a guy who has worked with everyone from IDEO to the American Red Cross to the United Nations. David explained how AI works and started us down a “discovery” path of personal Q&A interviewing that helped us identify our own strengths, perspectives and visions. As a group, we picked our way through AI’s process of adopting a “systems of the whole” philosophy to ensure that every possible type of stakeholder would be involved in the summit and its design. We broke into smaller teams that brainstormed and asked more questions on a particular topic (summit title and tasks, pre-summit research, etc.) to help everyone envision (or “dream” as the methodology describes) and later refine (“design” or plan and prioritize) just how we might jointly pull off such a powerful effort. Now we’re at the “destiny” or “deliver” stage, during which we start to implement the design.

Several volunteers from each team have stepped up to provide additional advice to staffers as we break down the takeaways from the design meeting into tangible work tasks. Huge thanks, y’all! And thanks, too, to David, the iCohere squad and the rest of the association professionals and business partners who devoted two days to the face-to-face process and many more hours communicating online. We’ve all been using a cool new Web site established by iCohere just for this team for now, and posting has been thoughtful and steady. Although we’re not always sure what we’re doing, people seem to really want to make AI work for this important initiative. Having participated in so many other types of business approaches, I’m excited to try something fresh to help unify our diverse sector, and I’ll keep you posted as we progress. Meanwhile, here’s the official press release, but I wanted to share a more personal viewpoint with you via the blog.