Intro to appreciative inquiry for health_Szecesy_4.30.12

Copyright C. Szecsey 2012© 1

CORE Group

Introduction to Appreciative Inquiryfor Health Workshop

April 30, 2012: Wilmington, Delaware

Designed and facilitated by:Christopher Szecesy/CORE Consultant


Welcome

• Rationale for this workshop-- • To learn how Appreciative Inquiry, as a

framework & practice, can contribute to international health success.


Getting Started&

Setting the Context


Introductions

• At your table:• Please introduce yourself, your

organization, what you do there, • And• What do you hope to gain from attending

this workshop?• Mini-survey results


Setting the Context


Workshop Purpose

• To learn the fundamentals of Appreciative Inquiry for Health, as a conceptual framework and for application.

• See handout for Workshop Objectives & Agenda


Why learn a new approach to supporting positive change?

“The significant problems we face cannot be solved at the same level of thinking we were at when we created them.”

• Albert Einstein


“We are increasingly confronted with a world in which change does not occur during a separate time period, after which we get back to business as usual. Rather, change is now the very water in which we swim.”

• Bernard J.Mohr (2001)

New Paradigm

• The assumption underlying AI is simple: every human system has a core of strengths that is often hidden and/or underutilized--what is known as its positive core

• AI searches for and finds the positive core


• When the positive core is revealed and tapped into, it provides a sustainable source of positive energy that nourishes personal, community and organizational change and, potentially, transformation



What is a simple definition of AI to get us started?

• A positive / strength-based approach to change that builds on strengths & assets & identifies collective hopes & dreams to create an empowering vision of the future that leads to action for communities, teams, & organizations.

MegKinghorn

Maybe take CB out? might confuse the group. Just An appraoch that builds ...

12

AI

1. Choose the positive as the

focus of inquiry

2. Inquire into exceptionally

positive moments

4. Create shared images of a

preferred future

5. Innovate and improvise ways to create that future

3. Share the stories and identify life-

giving forces

Discovery

Definition

Dream

Design & Destiny/Delivery

Five Generic Processes of Appreciative Inquiry*

Copyright C. Szecsey 2012©

DISCOVERY: Inquiring into the Best of what is



Appreciative Interviews/Pairs

• Please pair up with someone you don’t know, or don’t know well, from another organization.

• Introduce yourselves• Decide who will interview first• You will have 20 minutes total for your

interviews

1. Share a time when your project/organization was highly successful in having a positive health outcome/impact in a community based project. What happened?


2. After sharing your story, explain what made success possible. What were the reasons, conditions, or factors which contributed to this success?



• Person A will interview Person B for 10 minutes

• Then, Person B will interview Person A for 10 minutes

• Ask follow-up questions• Listen deeply• Make notes of key points/quotes

Meta Cards

• With your partner, jot down together on meta cards the 2 or 3 most important factors in total that were key to the successes you described.

• Write one factor per card

• Select one compelling story to share



Work Groups

Groups of 6 (3 pairs) or

Groups of 8 (4 pairs)

Sharing of stories and ideas

Work Groups

• Each person take turns briefly sharing highlights of the one compelling story from their pair interviews

• Select one inspiring, compelling story from each table group to share in large group



Identifying the Positive Core

• Share one compelling story from each table group as time allows

Meta Cards

• Table groups share and discuss Meta Cards

• As a Table Group, now select 3 to 4 most important Success Factors to present to large group


Success Factors

• Each table group reports out 1 important success factor


Post Meta Cards

• Collect and post cards on wall• Cluster if possible• Explain label-• “Positive Core of Health Success”• Summarize key points


AI Summary(So far!)

• Key points on Definition

• Key points on Discovery


Case Study

• Appreciative Community Mobilization for Health


Application

• Self select into one of the following topic work groups. (6 to 8 members per work group)

1. Individual health and care

2. Community-based health programming

3. Multi-stakeholder collaboration


Define a Positive Topic

• Reframe your topic as a Positive Topic

• Example: Health practices• Reframe: Inspired adoption of good health

practices

• Report out reframed Positive Topics


Positive Inquiry

• Positive Topic: Inspired adoption of good health practices

• Example inquiry:• Tell me about a time when you consciously

choose to make a good health practice a habit and followed through

• What happened? • Whate were the root causes of success?


Report out

• Report out process and key learnings


LUNCH

• Gallery walk of-• Positive Core of Community Health

Success

• Please return at 1:30Copyright C. Szecsey 2012© 31

DREAM: Envisioning the Future

“What Might Be”

• DREAM – To create shared images of a preferred future

• “…the ability to express a vision in metaphors…is an essential quality of leadership.” (Capra, 2002)


Purpose of Dream/Vision Phase

• To build upon the Positive Core, yet…

• To challenge the status quo and present assumptions

• To stretch into the future and to envision a preferred future that is bold, compelling and mutually desired


Form new work groups

• Find a new partner, someone you don’t know, or don’t know well, from another organization

• Find other pairs you don’t know or don’t know well

• Form new work groups of 6 or 8


Imagining

“Imagine it is about 3 years from now, and your project communities are healthy and empowered to manage their own health. What is different now? What are the keys to this success?”


Visioning process

• Building on the success factors identified in the earlier interviews, explore new possibilities that challenge the status quo and your assumptions!

• Discuss and agree on key points of your vision


Prepare Creative Presentation

• Using your flip chart, create a visual image that captures your vision

• List your key points on the flip chart

• Presentation to be no more than 5 minutes


Presentations

• Each group presents their visions and key points

• Identify common themes across the different visions

• List themes on new flip chart sheet


Dream Summary

“Positive action follows positive image”

• Key points on Dream phase


Case Study

• AI for Health Systems Development (HSD)


Dream Questions

• Develop Dream focus for one of these topics (return to same work group or join a new one):

1. Individual health and care

2. Community-based health programming

3. Multi-stakeholder collaboration


Table Report Out

• Work groups report out


DESIGN: Co-Constructing the Roadmap

“What Should Be”


What is “Design”?

• Both a product and a process• As a verb … “to design” … Is to invent, to

innovate, to conceive and to make choices

— about the purpose, roles, relationships, processes, practices and structures which will house, support and give life to the organizations members and the dream they have created.

• As a noun, “The Design” … is the set of choices we have made about the above.



Design: A Time for Innovation

• A time for the creation of new forms, new containers, new practices and even new directions which embrace and are infused by the positive core unearthed in Discovery and imagined in our Dream

• A time which calls forth and even demands the spirit of invention and pioneer action so long dormant in many systems


Design-cont.

• A time to close the gap between now and the future

• A time to align values, structures and processes with your dream

• A time to identify the strategic priorities that enable you to move in the direction of your dream


Work Groups

• Discuss and agree on the following:• What should be your 2 year community

health programming, to move in the direction of your 3 year vision?

• What would be your 2-3 strategic innovations/initiatives?

Design Phase Summary

• Key points for Design Phase



BREAK

Appreciative Inquiry Learnings & Summary

• Introduction to session

• How many of you have had a chance to read the materials sent in advance?

• Form new groups – two groups for each of two following topics


Key learnings – Case Study

• Groups A & C respond to the following same question:

• What did you learn from the AI Practitioner case study on “AI for Community Health in Kyrgystan” that you will carry forward to your development work?

• Record your group’s most important 4-5 learnings on Flip Chart


Key learnings – AI Essentials

• Groups B & D respond to the following same question:

• What did you learn from the AI Essentials piece that helps you understand what AI is and how to apply it?

• Record your group’s most important 2-3 learnings on Flip Chart


Exchange and Review

• Exchange FC sheets between different groups (A & B exchange as do C & D)

• Each group reviews the work of the previous group, indicates learnings with which you most agree by placing a star by the item

• Add your own 3-4 learnings not yet listed• Exchange back to 1st group for review


Debrief

• What did you learn from this exercise?



The Doing and Being of AI

• AI is both about the process of change/the “doing”

AND

• Incorporating an Appreciative Approach to your own life and work/the “being”


The Appreciative Inquiry5 D-Cycle

DEFINITION Choose the positive as the focus of inquiry

DISCOVERY “What gives life to moments when we are at our best?”-Appreciative Interviews and Story telling

DREAM “What is ‘boldly possible’, given the best of the past?”-Building “Propositions” and Images of Future Ideal

DESIGN “What needs to happen to realize the Future Ideal?”

-Actionable Ideas to expand, improve, create Capacity-Organizational functions

-Relationships

DELIVER “What will empower and sustain movement toward the ideal?”

-Continuous Learning


Appreciative Inquiry Summary

• There is value in every organization/ community.

• Starting a change process from a position of strength adds power and possibility to the process.

• Framing questions/statements are tools for facilitating change.


• Stories are an important part of information gathering.

• Image (vision, dream) and action are linked.

• Having a positive, powerful vision/dream empowers people to take action.

• Getting the whole system involved helps bring about change.


The AI Process

• What we ask determines what we find

• What we find determines how we talk

• How we talk determines how we imagine together

• How we imagine determines what we achieve together


• The tangible result of an inquiry is a series of statements that describe where the organization, group or community wants to be, based on the high moments of where it has been

• Because the statements are grounded in people’s real experience and history, people know how to repeat their successes

• AI is generative process

– It generates new possibilities through new or deeper relationships

– It generates hope


“If you can imagine it, you can achieve it; if you can dream it, you can become it.”

“…nothing expands possibilities like unleashed imagination.”

• William Arthur Ward


Variety of AI Applications

Strategic Planning Network Development Teambuilding Leadership Development Community Mobilization Performance Appraisal (e)Valuation


RESOURCES

• Ai listserv - to join, send an email to [email protected]

• AI Commons web site <http://appreciativeinquiry.cwru.edu/>

• Appreciative Inquiry Practitioner

<http://aipractitioner.com>

mailto:[email protected]


Discussion

Questions?

Clarifications?

Comments?


DELIVERY: Next Steps

“What Will Be”

Sustaining the Momentum with Action & Learning


Introduction to Delivery Phase

Innovate and improvise ways to create the future you want through:

Action steps and commitments

Continuous innovation


Delivery: Making It Happen

• A time to deliver on the new images of the future and the dynamic elements and systems created during the Design Phase

• It is also a time for continuous learning, adjustment and innovation

• And—a time to sustain the momentum by reinforcing the systemic “Appreciative Eye”


Work Groups

• Discuss the following and be ready to report out:

• How will you apply what you have learned today to your organization and its health programs?

• Report out


Workshop eValuation

• Please write your workshop feedback responses to the following:

• 1. What did you learn from this workshop that you will share with your organization?

• 2. What did you appreciate about this workshop?

Final Comments

• Thank you for your interest and participation in this workshop. Much appreciated!

• Wishing you all the best of success in applying Appreciative Inquiry for multiple applications!

• Let me know if you would like to get together this evening after dinner for more discussion.



Adjourn

Business

Intro to appreciative inquiry for health_Szecesy_4.30.12