APPRECIATIVE INQUIRY: Change at the Speed of Imagination, SECOND EDITION

The Emerging Paradigm

We previously wrote that we are living in a time of unprecedented and unpredictable change. And we noted that the impact of such a rapid pace of change on all of our human systems—families, schools, organizations, communities, governments—had become the focus of great interest and concern. Now, a decade later, we are beginning to comprehend that our task is not necessarily to adjust to rapid change. Rather, we face the reality of the necessity to shift the very ground of our previous beliefs that human behavior, like inanimate objects such as computers, could be programmed and made predictable. We recognize that we live in a world that is continuously unpredictable and emerging. Our task now is to recognize that “change” ...