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APPRECIATIVE INQUIRY

Applying the Heliotropic Principle to Influence Organizational Development

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Appreciative inquiry?It is the co-evolutionary search for the best in

people, their organizations, and the relevant world around them.

A transformational change process that focuses on improving existing organizational processes and challenging established belief systems through sharing of new ideas and knowledge; in essence to change how people think rather than what people do.

Is rooted in radical social constructionism, appreciation, and the generative power of positive imagery, concentrating on positive means and methods rather than deficit-based, curative action.

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Appreciative inquiry?

Seeks to build unions between people as they talk about past and present capabilities; focusing on such things as achievements, potentials, innovations, strengths, benchmarks, and memorable stories.

Deficit-based, or concentrating on what’s wrong within an organization, isn’t a positive or a sustainable method of creating change.

Initiating organizational change requires an understanding that organizations are socially constructed entities and that generating the environment in which people act and interact creates new realities through learning and innovation.

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THE HELIOTROPIC PRINCIPLE

Is a fundamental aspect of appreciative inquiry.

Describes the scientific process of an organism rotating toward or developing into the sunlight, with the most recognized example being the sunflower.

The heliotropic principle as it applies in organizational development follows suit in that organizations operate like plants; they move toward what gives them life and energy.

The sunflower pinpoints the sun’s progress as it journeys across the sky.

Applying appreciative inquiry, with the heliotropic principle as the driving vehicle in discovering, dreaming, designing, and destiny, can not only transform organizational processes but do so in a way that becomes self-nourishing and therefore sustainable in the longer run.

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DETERMINING THE INTERNAL DIALOGUE

The greatest discovery of my generation is that a human being can change his life by changing his attitude of mind. – William James

To apply the heliotropic principle, determining the internal dialogue of the organization is needed.

In memory, stories, and imagination there are resources that enable the organization to shape the way dialogue is read and the choice of reading affects how change comes about.

If these images are out of step the group will experience itself as dysfunctional and rational attempts to fix itself will not work until the underlying affirmative image is changed.

Fundamentally, an organization’s affirming image is the most important aspect of change potential as nothing the “rational mind” decides it wants will happen if the “inner dialogue” is resistant to it.

What are people really

saying? How is this information interpreted?

Dialogue and organizationa

l image are not in synch

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Delving into the inner dialogue through…

…to encourage organizational change.

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DISCOVERING THE BEST OF WHAT IS AND HAS BEEN

No pessimist ever discovered the secret of the stars or sailed an unchartered land, or opened a new doorway for human spirit. – Helen

KellerPeople share stories of times in the organization's history when relationships, processes, methods, and other characteristics were most effective.

By focusing on existing successes and desired conditions, rather than deficits collected from the past, people are more likely to accept change directed at accomplishing the ideal while continuing their work in the present.

As people become increasingly aware of the positive core of their organization and appreciation escalates, hope grows, as does the organization.

When people change their inner and explicit dialogues to focus primarily on affirmation and support, they change their stories and their organizations for the better

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DREAMING OR IMAGINING WHAT COULD BEDeep into that darkness peering, long I stood there, wondering, fearing,

doubting, dreaming dreams no mortal ever dared to dream before. – Edgar Allen Poe

It is at this stage that people use past achievements, personal dreams, a mission, a calling, or a vision to develop a clear, compelling visual image of a desired future state.

As long as a society’s image is positive and flourishing, the flower of the culture is in full bloom. Once the image begins to decay and lose its vitality the culture does not long survive.

When it comes to organizational health and performance, there may be no single factor more important than positive images of the future, consistently communicated through vital internal dialogue.

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DESIGNING WHAT SHOULD BEEach man should frame his life so that at some future hour fact and his

dreaming meet. – Victor Hugo

Once a vivid dream of an organization’s potential is shared amongst its people, they are far more likely to cooperate in designing a system that makes that dream a reality.It is during this phase that people identify key facts of the organizational systems and structures needed to support the realization of their collectively generated dreams.

As positive images are shared about how to design the best way to achieve the organization’s vision, behaviors change and performance improvement is evident.

into

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DESTINY OR DELIVERING WHAT WILL BEOur destiny changes with our thought, we shall become what we wish to become, do what we wish to do, when our habitual thought corresponds

with our desire. – Orson Swett Marden

Sensible strategies are put into practice and room is created for the systems and structures needed to allow ideas to continuously flow and develop.

Generative conversations create a new belief system with novel and innovative ways to collaborate, to infuse technology, and improve practices.

After all, people, and

their organizations, create the worlds they

live in

How each goes out and enacts what is important to him or her, their organizations, brings about a flourishing destiny for everyone.

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CONCLUSIONMan is a being who, being in the world, is ever ahead of himself, caught up in bringing alive with his projection…Whatever comes to light owes its presence to the fact that man has provided the overall imaginative

sunlight for viewing. – Edward Murray

The heliotropic principle, in drawing out the “human spirit” within an organization, begins to construct a more desirable future.

A sunflower, along its daily journey does not just seek the sun; its large, vividly flowering face finds and embraces it.

So too do organizations turn toward a positive image of itself. It is this positive image that gives the energy the organization needs …and the process for creating that image that creates the energy to drive change throughout the organization.