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

Define: Focusing on the Positive

Significant organization change is often catalyzed by some form of external pressure or opportunity (for example, decreasing customer satisfaction, emerging technologies, new government regulations, shifts in the competitive landscape, unforeseen market opportunities, changing stakeholder expectations, or, more generally, a desire to increase collaboration and to share knowledge, ideas, and successes). As an organization begins to contemplate systematic and deliberate change in response to these pressures or opportunities, one of the first activities is generally a situation analysis: “Where are we right now in relation to ‘issue X’?” In other words, faced with some impetus for change, the first conscious step ...