Culture Magic - Egalitarian Commonwealth - Parallel Culture

Culture Magic - Egalitarian Commonwealth - Parallel Culture: "The parallel culture is a 'chaordic' or chaotically-ordered, evolving network of intentional communities, affirming the balance of individual needs with social and environmental responsibility.

In contrast to the dominant culture, which may be described as affirming individuality over collectivity in an increasingly hierarchical, authoritarian government by the wealthy, and which in the extreme may be called 'plutocratic fascism,' the decentralized, participatory, economically-diverse culture balancing common and private ownership creates a parallel culture, which may be called the 'egalitarian commonwealth.'"

Appreciative Inquiry: Overview of the Theory & Application

When people focus on human ideals, achievements, peak experiences and best practices these things— not the conflicts—tend to flourish. Choosing to learn from moments of joy, wonder and excellence can be unusually effective in improving organizations.

The premise of Appreciative Inquiry (AI) is that organizations grow in the direction in which they focus their attention. People grow in much the same way, and therefore an organization must:

• empower its members to believe that they can make a difference,

• reward leaders who empower others,

• direct the energy of the system toward generative and creative forces.

The search for solutions to problems is recognized in Appreciative Inquiry as openness to change. Change in the way that issues are explained, in beliefs of what is "real," in the basic priorities of what to pursue and choices of what ends to serve, and change in a world view as a coherent whole or paradigm. Change in how our society organizes itself, or in our consensual reality involve "new paradigm" concepts of:

• Quantum Physics - change in particle theory from individual parts and linear events to interconnectivity and multiple possibilities, such as the observer affecting the observed

• Chaos Theory - very simple, previously predictable patterns become complex and unpredictable, leading to new levels or forms of order, such as weather patterns, fractals

• Self-Organizing Systems - complex and unpredictable situations evolve into more ordered patterns, such as with living organisms, ecological systems, and social change subcultures

• Complexity Theory - an emerging reality or wholeness can not be predicted from the sum of its parts, "chaordic" structures merge chaos and order and are nonlinear, discontinuous

The social science of organizational development is moving beyond the classical mechanics of seeing the universe as a machine, and human behavior as governed by a natural hierarchy with individual parts reacting to force or coercion, toward new paradigm organizations viewing chaos as a stage in the process of renewal and revitalization, where information sharing is the organizing force, diversity of relationships energizes teams, and a shared vision provides the context toward which behavior gravitates and is aligned. New paradigm organizations involve:

• Shared Leadership - where leadership is a function, not a position, accepted by individuals when their skills and interests are applied appropriately, recognizing morale as essential to productivity, that learning opportunities motivate people, and that traditional roles such as "director" may be collaborative or rotational

• High-Tech/High- Touch Communication - assuring collaboration and partnership at every level through face-to-face conversations, travel to meetings, and multiple electronic communications technologies providing options for varieties of information sharing

• Learning Organizations - providing flexible systems accommodating change according to circumstances and new information, giving adequate time to share knowledge and skills, and constantly studying their field, deriving theory and insights grounded in their own experiences and applying it in their ongoing projects and processes

• Multi-Locational Organizations, Partnerships and Alliances - in which coordinating units may be in multiple centers or moving as required, and multiple cooperative arrangements may exist for planning and program delivery as well as education and training

• Task Competence and Process Focus - encouraging people to be both skilled in their area of expertise as well as competent in human processes of interpersonal communication and group collaboration for win-win solutions

• Values and Vision Centering - affirming that tasks change, multiply and transform themselves in harmony with the values and vision agreed upon by the organizations "community" of stakeholders at every level, holding together an organizational awareness by the power and clarity of their shared values and vision

Appreciative Inquiry is an organizational philosophy supporting learning and renewal through:

• widespread inquiry, helping participants perceive the need for change, explore new possibilities, and contribute to solutions,

• customized interview guides eliciting stories of high performance from members of the organization, for igniting transformative dialogue and action,

• alignment of the organization' s formal and informal structures with its purpose and principles, translating shared vision into reality and belief into practice.

Applying the power of positive inquiry involves framing questions that focus upon positive thinking, such as by asking organizational members (one-onone, face-to-face interviews) to:

• tell a story of when you were working in a team when performance was high and you felt engaged and valued; what were you and the others doing?

• what external or organizational factors were present that supported this positive experience?

• how might this team function if we could expand the conditions that led to past successes?

Different from most behavioral approaches to organizational management which focus upon changing people, Appreciative Inquiry invites people to engage in building the kind of organization and community in which they want to work and live. AI uses a "collaborative discovery" of economic, ecological and human effectiveness, which is then woven into the organization' s formal and informal systems, from how people organize themselves for accomplishing tasks to how they develop and implement business strategies.

The AI process enables human systems to engage in continuous learning, and to translate that learning into ongoing innovation. Uncovering and supporting people's passions, skills, knowledge, experience and successes excite and mobilize them to implement innovations that they may never before have thought possible. Through encouraging and supporting individuals in identifying and sharing their stories of excellence, the organization may then reconceptualize and transform its purpose, processes, and design in ways that support its most generative forces and ongoing success.

How AI Works: Five Generic Processes
Guided by Five Core Principles

• Constructionist Principle – Organizations evolve in the direction of the images we create based upon the questions we ask as we strive to understand the systems at work.

• Principle of Simultaneity – Change begins the moment we ask questions.

• Anticipatory Principle – Behavior in the present is influenced by the future we anticipate.

• Poetic Principle – Just as poets have no constraints on what they write, we have no boundaries on what we can inquire about and from which we can learn.

• Positive Principle – The more positive the questions used to build a change process, the longer-lasting and effective the process will be.

Five Generic Processes of the Appreciative Inquiry Cycle:

• Define – Choose positive as the focus of inquiry; a positive topic statement as interview guide.

• Discover – Discover the best of what is. Inquire into exceptionally positive moments (interviews).

• Dream – Imagine what might be. Share the stories & identify life-giving forces (highlights).

• Design – Dialogue what should be. Create shared images of a preferred future (themes).

• Deliver /Destiny – Create what will be. Innovate and improvise ways to create that future(actions). Helpful Conditions for Implementing the Process of Appreciative Inquiry:

• Humble Beginnings: honestly acknowledge current difficulties without assigning blame, and invite co-construction of solutions.

• Congruence of Means and Ends: directly involve the people most affected by the changes desired, and specifically identify the desired end in a positive statement

• History as a Source of Innovation: accessing the "positive core" of the organization' s founding philosophy and history can be a source of new possibilities

• Focus Beyond the Event: learning and change is not a one-time event arriving at a point of excellence, but a process for creating a culture open to learning and discovering possibilities

• Stories More than Numbers: as stories of "exceptional moments" capture the wholeness of meaning they may be more helpful for creative innovations than quantification in numbers

Condensed by A. Allen Butcher from: Bernard Mohr and Jane Magruder Watkins, The Essentials of Appreciative Inquiry, Pegasus Communications, Innovations in Management Series, 2002, Waltham, MA, and Appreciative Inquiry for Organization Change: A Workshop Resource Book.

www.CenterforApprec iativeInquiry. net
www.CompanyofExpert s.net
www.AppreciativeInq uiry.cwru. edu

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The Appreciative Inquiry process is scalable, from small groups to large, and is being used to address issues of varying complexity from interpersonal communication to paradigmatic changes in human awareness. Processes from other organizational development systems are continually being added.

Appreciative Process:
• Develop an appreciative mind-set
• Be clear about what you want MORE of, not less
• Track it, fan it, and involve others in a fanfare!

Praise it – call attention to what is positive that has happened Bless it – give license to continue & ask for more Bushe, Clear Leadership, pp 155-180

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General Appreciative Inquiry Process Outline:

• Introductions of persons, and to the Appreciative Inquiry process

• Presentation of the suggested topics of focus, with refinement and acceptance by the group: "Identify what has been working well in CCCS to date; Create a shared vision for the future."

• Create small groups of four persons from different institutions to work as teams. Each team chooses a facilitator, recorder, presenter and timekeeper.

• Within the teams, pair up for interview sessions, each person to ask a set of prepared questions of the other, then reverse roles.

• Report by each person to the team of four on the interview responses of the other person. Record all of the "items that have worked well," and look for one or more common theme(s) among them

• Report by each team to the whole group, with each "item that has worked well" written on a sticky note, posted on a wall chart, with the "common themes" kept separate.

• Each person gets three sticky dots with which they indicate which of the items they feel are the most important (however each defines importance). Review and draw conclusions from the resulting "scatter-gram. "

Lunch Break

• Within the groups of four, create a shared image of the common theme identified in the morning process, expressed in one of the following ways: a mixed-media construction or collage, a song or skit. The point of this activity is to think on an intuitive, creative level, engaging different parts of the brain from the intellectual.

• Creations are presented to the group. Working with images inspires ways of thinking and new ideas that may not have entered our awareness earlier. What general perspectives or paradigms are expressed in the creations? What among these enhance, stretch or challenge the status quo in CCCS or the assumptions of the Online Course Migration Team?

• The theme developed by each team is transformed into a "provocative proposition. " Written in the present tense these stimulate awareness, provide guidance and provoke action. Each team may create their own "provocative proposition" or teams may merge.

• Convening as a whole group, review the provocative propositions and derive a vision statement from them (this must be done quickly, simply merging provocative propositions may suffice).

• Brainstorm innovative ways to act on the "provocative proposition( s)," drawing from the "items that have worked well" identified in the morning session, or other action item ideas.

• As a whole group, record creative or innovative "strategic intentions" or initiatives supporting the propositions or vision.

• As individuals, identify what parts of the vision or what action items each person personally wants to bring to fruition. Individuals may state their commitment, what they need, and/or what they can offer others to help with particular action items.

• Process Evaluation. What did participants most appreciate about the process? What might have made the process more valuable? In what other contexts within CCCS might the process be helpful? What personal commitments will each person make for after this process?

Appreciative Inquiry Interview One-on-One Sessions

Interviews are where we discover/uncover the generative or leading transformative changes in our experiences. Use the questions below, taking brief notes and asking follow-up questions as appropriate, to prompt memory and understanding. Each person interviews the other for 30 min.

A. Share a story about a time when you came to an understanding of how your organization actually works, the dynamics and imperatives of its functions, or a time when you recognized that others in the organization substantially shared a common vision of the organization.

B. What was your personal best experience of feeling valued by others in the organization, or when you helped others to feel valued?

C. Describe an event in which you provided good leadership through effective communication, or in which you experienced good leadership through effective communication.

D. What was your best experience of helping the institution thrive?

E. Share a story about how you could tell that what you were doing was working.

F. How do you keep focused on getting better?

Interview Report

• What was the most appreciative QUOTABLE QUOTE that came out of your interview?

• What was the most COMPELLING STORY that came out of your interview? What details and examples did the interviewee share? How were the interviewee or others changed by the story?

• What was the most LIFE GIVING MOMENT of the interview for you as a listener?

• Did a particularly CREATIVE and/or INNOVATIVE EXAMPLE of LEADING TRANSFORMATIVE CHANGE emerge during the interview? If so, describe what you learned about it, including who is doing it and where.

• What THREE THEMES stood out most for you during the interview?

Small Group Reporting

Report by each person to the team-of-four on the interview responses of the other person. Record all of the "items that have worked well," and look for one or more common theme(s) among them.

Large Group Reporting

Report by each team to the whole group, with each "item that has worked well" written on a sticky note, posted on a wall chart, with the "common themes" kept separate.

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Tips for Dealing with Negatives

Sometimes people feel compelled to talk about whatisn't working. People should not be caused to feel like they do not have permission to talk about things that need fixing, so constructive handling of negatives can be done in several ways:

Postponing. Promise to take a note of what theyhave said and to come back to it later, at the point where the following question is asked: "If you could change this organization in any way you wish, what would you recommend?" Return to the notes made of negative issues, and ask them to translate the negative feedback into methods for improvement.

Listening. If some is intent upon expressing negatives, they must have their say before they can get on to positives. Be empathetic but don't take on the other's problems. Keep a caring & affirmative spirit. Redirecting. After listening, guide the conversation back by affirming or paraphrasing the feelings, and then by asking for a positive (e.g., innovation, problem solved, etc). If none, ask if they've EVER had ANY positive experience and how that could be experienced again in the context of the conversation, before giving up.

Edited from:
AI for Organization Change: A Workshop Resource Book, by Jane Magruder Watkins and Bernard Mohr