When most people think of change, they think of something that directly affects them, or something that affects those around them. In both cases change is perceived as a negative! It turns out that change itself is seldom addressed from a positive or strength based approach.
Combining Appreciative Inquiry and Open Space
The Strength-Based Organizational Change session that was hosted by Bob Petruska, author of Gemba Walks for Service Excellence: The Step-by-Step Guide for Identifying Service Delighters, and I last year was my first effort at using this unique approach that is based on a positive skills framework and a collection of rich and interactive festivities. We worked with the facilitators of the breakouts during the month beforehand to construct the type of open-space atmosphere that we were after. Our goal was to harness not only the knowledge of the facilitators, but to open up a dialog with the conference participants sharing ideas. This variety of perspectives was captured in the twelve interactive breakouts in a strength-based collaborative style of learning. It worked. We had great feedback and the sessions included a lot of interactivity and smiles.
Bob Petruska is an outstanding strength-based consultant and I was honored to assist and have him on a past podcast which you can find here along with the transcription: Service Gemba Walks with Bob Petruska.
Bob recently wrote an excellent post Seven Keys to building a High Performing Team where he says…
Trusting environment leads to discretionary effort. It’s more of a feeling than anything. In battlefields, trust is the ethos of a winning army. You have my back, and I have yours. With human beings, the helping relationship is key to building trust, as Dr. Egar Schien points out, and reciprocation is a most powerful influencing skill from Robert Cialdini, Ph.D.
This past weekend, I posted material that I have collected on Strength-Based Lean and Appreciative Inquiry. This in preparation for an exciting podcast this week with Dr. Joey Faucette the author of Work Positive in a Negative World: Redefine Your Reality and Achieve Your Business Dreams. In the podcast, I asked Dr Joey: Can I work for the greatest organization in the world? Is Disney a work positive relationship or Pixar?
Dr. Joey: Yes. Google or SAS, we could go on and name a bunch of them. I think so, and I think those organizations are the ones that are leading edge innovators that are providing better customer service, better product, better services at large when they’re following these five core practices. In fact, my particular enjoyment in life is working with small business owners. Small business owners constitute about 85% of the businesses in this country and employ a little better than 40% of all the people that work in this country today. What I enjoy doing is helping business owners achieve what I like to call the work positive DNA in their company. Their sales increase, their teams, are more effective, and that business owner gets to get out of the office earlier as does everyone else on the team. They can get out there and do what they love with the people that they love because that’s why we’re all really working. We want money, but really what we want is independence, to be able to spend time with our children or grandchildren, to be able to take a long walk on the beach or hike a mountain. These are the things that we really want to do.
I am not trying to draw any conclusions in this post other than to cite a few examples of Strength Based thinking and a few resources to draw upon to learn more.
Mastering Appreciative Inquiry
Accentuate the Positive with Appreciative Inquiry
Strength Based Approach to Lean and Six Sigma
The Blend of Appreciative Inquiry and Lean
What is holding you back from a Strength Based Perspective?
What is holding back your Organization from a Strength Based Perspective?