Learning to Appreciate. A look at appreciative inquiry. Excerpts are taken from, Appreciative Inquiry Handbook (2003) by David Cooperrider, Diana Whitney, and Jacqueline Stravros.
“Appreciative inquiry begins with three fundamental questions. One, can you describe a high point experience in your organization, a time when you were most alive and engaged. Two, without being modest what is it that you most valuable yourself your work and your organization? Three, what are the core factors that give life to your organization without which the organization would cease to exist?” P. 23
Note: We can apply these questions to our daily lives They take our attention away from the dark spot on the wall and allow us to focus on the good that exists. Have you, for example, let a single negative comment from a family member, friend, or colleague ruin your day? I think it’s happened everyone. I know it’s happened to me. While we give that one comment an inordinate amount of power there are many other god things happening simultaneously. When appreciative inquiry asks us to describe high point experiences when we felt most alive and engaged that not only happens at work, but it happens in our daily lives outside of work. And it happens every day. Tonight, when you’re sitting at dinner, why not ask each other to describe a high point experience that happened during the day when each of you felt totally engaged. I think that happens to each of us every single day. I’m writing this on Sunday morning after I returned home from mass. On the way into the church, I met a friend, and we had a most wonderful conversation. I left the conversation feeling uplifted. That was a high point experience. When we begin to think of our lives this way, our lives take on a new hue of optimism, hope, and affirmation.
