AI is the acronym for Appreciate Inquiry and it designates a
methodology to drive positive change in any living system such as organizations.
My first contact with Appreciative Inquiry happened during a
Culture Transformation summit organized in Barcelona, early February 2006 by
the Global Business Unit I worked in. Until then I had never heard of AI. I was
impressed by the positive energy in the room that increased during the day and
as we were moving along a 4-D cycle - Discovery, Dream, Design, Destiny. What
really had a WOW effect in me was the fact that my colleagues and I were having
loads of fun! I had never thought I would be drawing, doing collages, singing
and role playing for work…
I was fortunate to continue that transformation journey
towards a High Performance Culture and fly to my company’s site in San Diego,
United States for an integration summit with participants coming from all over
the world and including the Business Unit Executive VP and his staff. Once more
we had much fun while keeping the focus on the purpose of the event, and we
were constantly reminded of the wise words of Mahatma Gandhi “be the change you
want to be”.
The summits were facilitated by employees, mostly HR
professionals that had been trained by Sanchez & Tennis Associates, the consulting
firm who worked with our business unit senior management in understanding the
need for change to drive higher performance, innovation and business growth,
and in designing the transformation summits. Anita Sanchez and Kit Tennis and
the business unit’s top management team went through the discovery of the
Positive Core – the key qualities and strengths of our organization - prior to
the series of summits.
The experience and outcome of the summits was so good, that
our leaders decided to train 100 AI Facilitators in all geographies and called
in Anita and Kit to train the group. It was only when I on boarded this other
great journey of that Culture Transformation that I met Anita and Kit.
I am curious to learn if you already knew or used Appreciate
Inquiry? In my next post I will share more about how AI evolved in my professional and personal life.
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