Rethinking What Gives Life
to Organizational Transformation
Ronald E. Fry, Ph.D.
Department of Organizational Behavior
Case Western Reserve University
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Appreciative Inquiry
A collaborative search to
identify and understand the
organization’s strengths, its’
potentials, the greatest
opportunities, and people’s
hopes for the future.
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What is AI?
Learn from the “best of the our past”
to envision our future
Celebrate and exploit our “Positive Core”
Create bold, positive images of our
future to drive organizational change
Work together on ideas that most
attract us
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Who’s Using It?
US Navy
British Airways
Roadway Express
MacDonalds
Dalai Lama
Nutrimental (Brazil)
Palestine/Jewish Entrepreneurs
Avon Mexico
American Red Cross
Cleveland Public Schools
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Los 5 Principios de “AI”
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El Principio Construccionista - Organizations move in the
direction of what they most talk about.
El Principio de Simultaneidad - Change begins with the
first question you ask.
El Principio Poético - Anything can be studied in every
social system.
El Principio de Anticipación - Deep change = change in
our active images of the future.
El Principio Positivo - The more positive the anticipatory
image, the more positive the change.
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2 Key Questions…
1. What, in this particular context, has
made
(organizing) possible?
2. What possibilities exist, latent or
explicit, to have even more effective
forms of (organizing) in the
future?
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Background:
US Navy: 6 AI Summits since 12/01
250-300 persons each
3.5 to 4 days each
Seaman to Admiral; External Stakeholders
System-wide and community- centered
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Chief Naval Operations
Family Services
Third Fleet Command Ship
Informational Professional Community - 2
Naval Reserves
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Classic Leading of Change
Unfreezing:
Changing:
Refreezing:
Establish Urgency
Form Coalition to Guide
Create Vision
Communicate Vision
Empower Others to Act
Plan/Create Short-term Success
Consolidate Successes
Eliminate Barriers
Intro. New Opportunities
Institutionalize New Approaches
Decide…………Advocate…………Defend
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AI Summit “4-D” Cycle
Discovery
•Opportunity & Call
•Positive Core
•History
Destiny
•People &Actions
•Learning &
Improvisation
Affirmative
Topic:
Dream
•New Story
•Provocative Aspirations
Design
• 1 yr. Targets
•Actionable steps
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An Emerging View…
Unleashing Positive
Change
Tapping into “Passages”
Affirmative Dislodgement
of Certainty
Separation
Elaborating the Positive
Core
(Powley, 2002)
Initiation (Liminality)
Synchronous Experience
of Positive Affect
Centrifugal Processes of
Attunement
Aggregation (Reincorporation)
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Propositions from our
Experiences with AI Summits:
Positive change begins with an
Appreciative Dislodgement of
Certainty
Holistic (Re)Discovery through voice and
storytelling
Separation (Turner, 1969): detachment of the
person either from a fixed point in social
structure or a set of cultural conditions (a ‘state’)
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Propositions…
Elaboration of the “Cooperative Core” Creates
a Holding Environment that Encourages
Experimentation and Enables Further
Exploration of the Unknown
Positive Core is always rooted in cooperative acts
Psychological Safety
Experience of “Liminality” (Turner) – Transition
between stable states; subjects are passengers
through unknown territory where significant
knowledge is revealed through sacred stories.
Connection to “Communitas” (Turner)
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What would you call it?
(all these things taken together)
Achievements
Strategic
opportunities
Cooperative
Moments
Technical assets
Innovations
Elevated thoughts
Community assets
Positive emotions
Community wisdom
Core competencies
Visions of possibility
Vital traditions, values
Social capital
Embedded knowledge
Financial assets
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The “Positive Core”
Complete Organizational Wealth—
”Well-being”
An Incredible Energy
Source of Continuity
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Propositions…
Synchronous Experiences of Positive
Affect Generate Interest in Shared
Possibilities
Positive sentiment from AI conversations stimulates nonrequired activity and more interaction (self-organizing).
(Homans, 1950)
Cathartic Commitment derives from frame of mind and
emotionality in which it is received; the Affirmative Topic
offers a ‘business case’ and the Appreciative Inquiry
interactions create positive affect (Sekerka, 2002)
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Whole Organizational Connection
to the “Positive Core”
Elevates: elicits positive emotions of hope, inspiration,
confidence, joy; raises intelligence; expands the language of
life (internal dialogue); increases in appreciative interchange
and mutually elevating relationships; heightens creativity,
ignites decision making, increases collective capacity.
“Undoes” Negative Impacts: releases, makes irrelevant,
finishes the residual of negative past.
Protects: Increases health, resilience, accumulation of power
- like an increase in immune system functioning.
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The Idea of
Positive Change
 Any form of organization change, re-design, or planning that
begins with comprehensive analysis of an organization’s
“positive core” and then links this knowledge to the heart of
any strategic change agenda.
 Because human systems move toward what they persistently
ask questions about, positive change involves the deliberate
discovery of everything that gives a system “life” when it is
most effective in economic and human terms.
 Link the positive core directly to any strategic agenda, and
changes never thought possible are more rapidly mobilized
while simultaneously building enthusiasm, corporate
confidence, and human energy.
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Propositions…
Acts of Positive Change are Spread
and Sustained through Centrifugal
Processes of Attunement
Process of Inclusion; widening circles of dialogue about
possibilities (Fry & Srikantia, 2000)
Center-out (vs. top-down)
Improvisational dynamics (Barrett, 2000) in egalitarian
context
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Call for an Appreciative
Declaration of Faith
Positive Change is fostered through an
appreciative declaration of faith in
the universal goodness of human
groups and organizations.
Recurring voice of possibility:
James, Barnard, McGregor, Frankl…
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Pioneering Research
Across Many Fields
An Emerging Vocabulary of
“Positive Change”
Many
Disciplines
Positive Images
of Future Drives
Positive Change
Placebo Effect:
Pygmalion Effect:
The Role of Positive Emotions?
Imbalanced “Inner Dialogue”
Cultural Consequences
Learned Affirmative Capacity
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What Good are Positive Emotions?
JOY
Play
INTEREST
Exploration
CONTENTMENT
Savor & Integrate
LOVE
All of the above
Positive Emotions broaden our thought
and action repertories…
B. Frederickson
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Empirical Support
In the moment, Positive Emotions:
Broaden Attention and Thinking
(Fredrickson & Branigan, 2002; Waugh & Fredrickson, in prep)
Undo Lingering Negative Emotional Arousal
(Fredrickson & Levenson, 1998; Fredrickson, Mancuso, Branigan &
Tugade, 2000)
Fuel Resilient Coping
(Fredrickson, Tugade, Waugh & Larkin, 2002; Tugade & Fredrickson, 2002)
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Empirical Support
Over time, Positive Emotions:
Prevent depression
(Fredrickson, Tugade, Waugh, & Larkin, 2002)
Trigger Upward Spirals to Increase Wellbeing (Fredrickson & Joiner, 2002; Tugade & Fredrickson, 2002)
Build optimism, tranquility, and resilience
(Fredrickson, Tugade, Waugh, & Larkin, 2002)
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Expansion of Relatedness
Low
& Universal Capacity High
A Theory of Positive Organizational Change
Activation of
Energy
Fusion of
Strength
Elevation of
Inquiry
Initiating
Inquiry into
The Appreciable World
Advancing
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