Allowing ideas to cook
Conversation and dialogue:
Harnessing a breadth of
perspectives, experience and
know how
Peter Franks
The Second South African
Public Management Conversation
Gordon’s Bay - December 2004
Achad Ha'am 1891
• “Our greatest need is emancipation
from self-contempt, from this idea
that we are really worse than all the
world. Otherwise we may in course
of time become in reality what we
now imagine ourselves to be.”
Allowing Ideas to Cook
Copyright 2002
Peter E. Franks
Limiting horizon
• In everyday life, most people and
organizations are constrained by the
perception that their resources, and hence
their horizons, are limited. This perception
-- that we must "face realities" -- is without
a doubt the greatest single constraint on
human imagination, vision and enterprise.
Allowing Ideas to Cook
Copyright 2002
Peter E. Franks
Ap-pre’ci-ate
• verb., 1. Valuing; the act of recognising the
best in people or the world around us;
affirming past and present strengths,
successes and potentials; to perceive those
things that give life (health, vitality,
excellence) to living systems. 2. To increase
in value – for example, the economy has
appreciated in value. Synonyms: VALUING,
PRIZING, ESTEEMING and HONOURING.
Allowing Ideas to Cook
Copyright 2002
Peter E. Franks
In-quire’ (kwir)
• verb., 1. The act of exploration and
discovery. 2. To ask questions; to be
open to seeing new potentials and
possibilities. Synonyms: DISCOVERY,
SEARCH and SYSTEMATIC
EXPLORATION, STUDY.
Allowing Ideas to Cook
Copyright 2002
Peter E. Franks
Appreciative Inquiry (AI)
“AI asks us to pay special attention to "the best of
the past and present" -- in order to "ignite the
collective imagination of what might be."
Appreciative inquiry is about seeing that which
others may not see. It's about heightening our
awareness of the value, strength and potential of
ourselves and others -- and overcoming the limits
that we impose, often unconsciously, on our own
capacities.
Dr. David L. Cooperrider
Case Western Reserve University
Allowing Ideas to Cook
Copyright 2002
Peter E. Franks
“The power of positive
imagery is not just some
popular illusion or wish
but is arguably a key
factor in every action.”
• “We see what our
imaginative horizon
allows us to see. And
because "seeing is
believing," our acts often
take on a whole new tone
and character depending
on the strength, vitality,
and force of a given
image.”
Positive Image,
Positive Action:
of Organizing
David L.
Cooperrider
1990
Allowing Ideas to Cook
Copyright 2002
Peter E. Franks
Socially Constructing Reality
Rather than seeing language as a passive purveyor of meaning between
people, post modernists see language as an active agent in the creation
of meaning. As we talk to each other, we are constructing the world we
see and think about, and as we change how we talk we are changing
that world. From this perspective, theory, especially theory that is
encoded in popular words or images, is a powerful force in shaping
social organization because we "see what we believe". Creating new and
better theories/ideas/images is, therefore, a powerful way of changing
organizations. Appreciative inquiry seeks these new images in and
among people’s best intentions and noblest aspirations, attempting a
collective envisioning of what the group could be at its very best.
However, beware the half truth
Allowing Ideas to Cook
Copyright 2002
Peter E. Franks
The Heliotropic Hypothesis
That social systems evolve toward the
most positive images they hold of
themselves.
Allowing Ideas to Cook
Copyright 2002
Peter E. Franks
Imagining - visioning
“We are each made and imagined in the eyes of one
another. There is an utter inseparability of the
individual from the social context and history of the
projective process.
And positive interpersonal imagery, the research
now shows, accomplishes its work very concretely.
Like the placebo response it appears that the positive
image plants a seed that redirects the mind of the
perceiver to think about and see the other with
affirmative eyes.”
D. Cooperrider (1990)
Allowing Ideas to Cook
Copyright 2002
Peter E. Franks
Assumptions of AI
include the following.
• In every society, organisation or group something works.
• What we focus on becomes our reality.
• Reality is created in the moment, and there are multiple
realities.
• The act of asking questions of an organisation or group
influences the group in some way.
• People have more confidence and comfort to journey to
the future (the unknown) when they carry forward parts of
the past (the known).
• If we carry parts of the past forward, they should be what
is best about the past.
• It is important to value differences.
• The language we use creates our reality.
Allowing Ideas to Cook
Copyright 2002
Peter E. Franks
Principles of AI
• Appreciate: the best of what exists, hopes for
the future.
• Apply: knowledge of what works and what’s
possible.
• Provoke: imaginations regarding new ways of
organising, creative improvements.
• Collaborate: collective capacity building,
expertise and resources
Allowing Ideas to Cook
Copyright 2002
Peter E. Franks
5
Define
Allowing Ideas to Cook
Copyright 2002
Peter E. Franks
Warnings
• systems full of deeply held and unexpressed
resentments will not tolerate an appreciative
inquiry until there has been some expression
and forgiving of those resentments. From a
theoretical perspective there is the question
of what happens to negative images and
affect if they are "repressed" from collective
discussion by a zealous focus on the
"positive". Experience from psychoanalysis,
sociology and medicine suggest repression
usually results in some nasty side effects.
Allowing Ideas to Cook
Copyright 2002
Peter E. Franks
A Concern in Appreciative
Inquiry
Promoting appreciation where there has been
little can, of itself, generate a wave of energy
and enthusiasm but that will go away just as
quickly as the next challenge or tragedy to a
social system rears its head.
Gervase R. Bushe (1998)
Five Theories of Change Embedded in
Appreciative Inquiry
Allowing Ideas to Cook
Copyright 2002
Peter E. Franks
Will
The aesthetics or progressiveness
of the systems and structures
is not as important as the
willingness to make even
inadequate systems and
structures work for the people
they are meant to serve.
Allowing Ideas to Cook
Copyright 2002
Peter E. Franks
Remember the Minister’s challenge
"Change for Action – Action for Change".
“After having been involved in trying to establish a new
order of things for most of my life, I can wholeheartedly
concur with him. However, I am a daughter of Africa, and
draw my insights from Africa and the wisdom that is so
deeply imbedded in the African people. I want to leave
two African proverbs with you as inspiration and for
further thought.
One piece of wood only does not keep the fire alight.
It takes a village to raise a child.
• The key questions are:
™ Are you going to contribute to feeding the fire?
™ Are you going to assist in raising this public service
child?
™ How?
•
Allowing
Ideas –toaction
Cook for change Geraldine FraserBudget vote speech 2001 change
for action
Peter E. Franks
Moleketi, Minister of PublicCopyright
Service2002
and Administration
17 may 2001
Some principles
• Allowing as many perspectives to emerge as
possible
• Deal with everything that emerges,
• look for the positive in ideas you instinctively
reject or resist
• Both/and rather than either or.
• No one can win, the whole really is bigger than
the sum of the parts
• Let the ideas to cook, it is the magic that creates
new knowledge
Allowing Ideas to Cook
Copyright 2002
Peter E. Franks
The Bottom Line
You can’t get more out of truth then
what you put into it
Milorad Pavic
Allowing Ideas to Cook
Copyright 2002
Peter E. Franks