Tools To Open Up A Dialogue

Self-Managed Learning Model

This tool is often used by developers when helping individuals create a personal development plan, but the underlying questions, of which there are five, can also be used as a basis for strategic change. The model can be used with senior managers, as well individuals at other levels within the organisation, and the outputs used to identify the extent to which there is an overlap in thinking. The five key questions are:

Where have we come from as an organisation?

This question is designed to get people to reflect on the organisation’s history, so there is an understanding of why things are as they are and why certain values have come to be important.

Where are we now?

This creates an opportunity to explore what is currently working well and why this is the case. It can create an opportunity to explore current capabilities and which of these will be important to develop further in the future, as well as where there are gaps.

Where do we want to get to, or be in the future?

Here individuals will need to be encouraged to visualise and articulate the future that they are trying to craft, in quite graphic terms. This articulation can come in the form of words, or in pictures – whichever works best for the audience that you are working with.

How will we get there?

Here we are dealing with some of the pragmatics of getting from A to B. Who needs to be involved? What expertise can we draw on to help us, either within the organisation, or outside? What projects might we need to set up? What things might we want to experiment with?

How will we know when we have got there?

This question is intended to get people thinking about what the end position will really look like. What will the observable differences be?

Appreciative Inquiry – The Art Of The Impossible

A technique that seems to be gaining popularity as a tool for organisational change is Appreciative Inquiry (AI). AI has been developed by David Cooperrider and colleagues at Case Western University in New Mexico, together with the Taos Institute.

Cooperrider (1998) argues that successful change requires:

Novelty – new and innovative possibilities Continuity – of those practices that an organisation wants to maintain as it moves through its journey of change

Transition – specific and tangible areas to change

The philosophy behind AI is that change follows from what is studied, since the inquiry process plants the seeds of change. AI is an engaging and inclusive process, its aim being to produce a dialogue among different stakeholders about what is currently working well and to establish what is happening when an organisation is working at its best.

The process of AI starts by asking people to consider a simple question, ‘What works around here?’, which then leads on to a future-orientated dialogue. Often the change process in an organisation starts by asking ‘What are the problems here?’, which leads to a problem-solving approach.

Some of the underlying principles behind AI are:

• Accentuate the positive – AI is based on the assumption that life-giving forces are present in people, organisations and relationships, but that these can get overshadowed by negative elements. In traditional approaches to change, the positive elements, i.e. what is currently working well, often gets lost among things that are not working. This can be de-moralising and also reduce energy levels.

• We are masters of our own destiny – we create our world and we therefore need to consciously set about creating the sort of world that we want. It is a hopeful and pragmatic philosophy, based on the assumption that we can choose whether to be optimistic or pessimistic.

• Discovery – seek out positive stories of what is working well and promoting these throughout the organisation.

• Inclusivity – engage the whole of the organisation, not just particular groups, thus maximising opportunities for discovery.

• Respect for history – what has contributed to the success of the organisation in the past.

The start point for any AI would be the identification of an area that the organisation wants to learn about, or become better at, in order to enhance their business. As a tool for generating an interest in and developing a more knowledge-focused culture it would seem to have many possibilities. AI could be used at the start of the change process to engage different groups in a dialogue about how to build a knowledge-centric culture.

Some of the underlying tools used as part of an AI are ones that most HR professionals will be familiar with, e.g. Focus Groups, 1:1 interviews, Story Circles. Each of these tools will need to be combined to ensure that as many people as possible within the organisation get an opportunity to voice their positive thoughts about the organisation as it is now, as well as their thoughts and dreams for the future. As well as being used to gather key information at the beginning of a culture change process, Appreciate Inquiry sessions can be used to start to drip in some of the behaviours that the organisation wishes to encourage, such as: the importance of narrative forms of communication; encouraging more ‘rapport talk’; good ideas are meant to be borrowed and everyone’s ideas are important, irrespective of levels of seniority.

Appreciative Inquiry seems to fit with the Balanced Approach to culture change discussed earlier, where the aim is to preserve existing cultural benefits, and build on existing strengths. As AI can be resource intensive, clearly there is a need to ensure that senior management are supportive of the need for change and are willing to invest the necessary resources. Strengthening and Balancing an organisational culture is easier than trying to change everything about the existing culture.

Although seen as being an important tool for use in change programmes, AI also has applications in Personal Development, Career Development, as well as a tool for leaders to draw on as part of their overall leadership approach.