APPRECIATIVE LEADERSHIP

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APPRECIATIVE LEADERSHIP
LEAD San Diego Class of 2006
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Introductory session

•  Being Leaders
• - Appreciating ourselves as leaders
• -Exploring conditions that energize us
• Imagining your leadership future

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Recent Interview Peter Drucker

• The task of leadership is to create an alignment
  of strengths, making our weaknesses irrelevant.

Interview with Peter Drucker
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Appreciative Inquiry is a Shift

• No problem can be solved from the same level of
  consciousness that created it. We must learn to
  see the world anew.
• - Albert Einstein

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Problem Solving
Appreciative Inquiry
vs.
Appreciative Inquiry
Problem Solving

• Identify Problem.
• Conduct Root Cause Analysis.
• Brainstorm Solutions Analyze.
• Develop Action Plans.
• Metaphor Organizations communities are
  problems to be solved.

• Appreciate What is (What gives life?).
• Imagine What Might Be.
• Determine What Should Be.
• Create What Will Be.
• Metaphor Organizations communities are
  solutions/mysteries to be embraced.

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Ap-preci-ate, v.,

• 1.valuing the act of recognizing the best in
  people or the world around us affirming past and
  present strengths, successes, and potentials to
  perceive those things that give life (health,
  vitality, excellence) to living systems
• 2. to increase in value, e.g. the economy has
  appreciated in value.
• Synonyms VALUING, PRIZING, ESTEEMING, and
  HONORING.

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In-quire (kwir), v.,

• 1. the act of exploration and discovery.
• 2. To ask questions to be open to seeing new
  potentials and possibilities.
• Synonyms DISCOVERY, SEARCH, and SYSTEMATIC
  EXPLORATION, STUDY.

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Assumptions Underlying Appreciative Inquiry

• Organizations move in the direction of what they
  inquire about.
• Deep change change in active images of the
  future.
• Our images of the future are grounded in our best
  experiences of the past and present
• The more positive the question, the greater and
  longer-lasting the change
• Change begins at the moment you ask the question.

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Where do positive stories and images come from?
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Exploring Moments of Leadership in Your Life

• A story or high point experience leading
  positive change.
• What things do you value most about
• Yourself?
• The nature of your work?
• Your community?

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Appreciating ourselves as leaders

• Who are we as leaders?
• What do we appreciate about each other?
• What conditions bring about the best in us as
  leaders?

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• One thing I know The only ones among you who
  will be really happy are those who will have
  sought and found how to serve.
• -Albert
  Schweitzer

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• Identifying conditions that energize
  our leadership
• Whats at the positive core of this leadership
  what motivates us to contribute?
• What one condition, if we could create more of
  it, would make our leadership even more vital
  alive and powerful?

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As leaders, we are energized, motivated
by..)

• an adjective noun, that are
• -appreciative
• -grounded in the stories

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• Martin Luther King did not say, I have a
  strategic plan.
• Instead,
• He shouted, I have a DREAM!, and he created a
  movement.

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Imagining a leadership community

• Reflecting on what inspires us and assuming that
  youre at your best, how do you see yourself as a
  community leader in the future?
• What do your see (imagine, wish for) that will be
  the impact of your leadership on the region?

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Imagining your leadership future
Imagine its 2010 and the San Diego Magazine has
a feature issue on the region as one of the most
vibrant leadership communities in the world. You
are profiled as one of San Diegos New
Leaders -Whats have you done? What roles
have you played? -Whats been the impact of
your contributions? Whats changed over the past
few years? Whats different because of your
leadership? -What are other people seeing?
What are they saying? -How did it get this
way? Whats changed over the past few years?
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Write a title for your leadership profile a
verbal picture of the desired future that is

• Desired Does it reflect what you really want? If
  you got it, would you want it?
• Bold and provocative Is it a stretch that will
  attract others?
• Affirmative Is it stated as if it is happening
  now?
• Grounded Are there examples that illustrate your
  dream as a real possibility?

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Confidence-builders

• What do you have going for you now?
• What gives you confidence that this future is
  possible?

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• If I were to wish for anything, I should not
  wish for wealth and power, but for the passionate
  sense of the potential, for the eye which, every
  young and ardent, sees the possible.
• - Soren Kierkegaard

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Reflecting on your work

• What about these images energizes you?
• What are you learning thats supporting you?

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• Far better than a precise plan is a clear sense
  of direction and compelling beliefs. And that
  lies within you. The question is, how do you
  evoke it?
• -Dee Hock (founder and chairman emeritus of Visa)

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Appreciative Inquiry The 4-D Cycle
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What is Appreciative Inquiry?

• It is the discovery for the best in people, their
  organizations, and the relevant world around
  them. It is an art and practice of asking the
  unconditional positive questions that strengthen
  a systems capacity to apprehend, anticipate and
  heighten positive potential. Instead of
  negation, criticism and spiraling diagnosis,
  there is discovery, dream, design and destiny.
  It works from accounts of the positive change
  core. AI links the energy of the positive core
  directly to any change agenda and changes never
  thought possible are suddenly and democratically
  mobilized.