At the same time, a number of recent global forces and trends are thwarting "business-as-usual" among PVOs. Complex and unpredictable environmental changes such as the end of the Cold War, the rise of a global marketplace, the explosion of information, the redefinition of U.S. "national security" and "foreign assistance," the disappearance of the North-South dichotomy, and the growing complexity of U.S. relationships with developing countries have rendered obsolete many of their traditional organizational assumptions and practices. Today it is realized, for example, that more than the international exchange of goods and services, development actors are called to participate in globally-linked, community-based networks that exchange knowledge to truly affect sustainable human development. The complexity of global changes is also demanding that to truly have impact PVOs must enhance their roles in areas such as advocacy, development education, networking and inter-agency facilitation. Furthermore, with increasing numbers of actors wanting to influence the development process-especially indigenous peoples- PVOs need to develop new capabilities for bridging boundaries and building partnerships.
Accordingly, for PVOs and most major actors in international development, the 1990's are unfolding as an unprecedented time for organizational learning and capacity building. The moment is opportune, for example, for PVOs to review and re-imagine their organizational missions, to develop shared vision among their diverse stakeholders, to create more vital strategic plans, to explore new alliances and partnerships, and to create more flexible organizations able to take advantage of emerging opportunities. More than new modes of acting, PVOs need new ways of knowing their organizations, their environments, and their futures so as to build the organizational capacities necessary for social innovation.
Based on a study of longer-term organizational change efforts among twelve PVOs this article reveals how appreciative forms of inquiry support and stimulate the organizational knowledge and capacities essential for social innovation. Through their participation in the Organizational Excellence Program, the top management teams of nearly 50 PVOs have led their staff and stakeholders through Appreciative Inquiry, a constructive approach to organizational analysis and learning. This article describes how the inquiry process leads to a largescale re-imaging and renewal of organizational leadership, history, strategic orientation (e.g., mission, roles, vision), and relational arrangements at the team, organizational and inter-organizational levels.
-Albert Einstein
Now is a critical time for re-assessing how our institutions learn. Noting the dichotomy between a growing complexity of our own making and a lagging development of our own capacities to respond to the world problematique, in their Report to the Club of Rome, Botkin et al. (1979, p. 7) argue that only new forms of learning can bridge the "human gap." Whereas traditionally societies and individuals have thrived through "maintenance learning," or using problem-solving abilities for dealing with known and recurring situations in order to maintain established practices, they hold that positive change and renewal is only possible through "innovative learning" that is choicefully normative, anticipatory, and participatory.
Similarly, established strategic planning methodologies that are typically based on an objectified, problematized and techno-rational world view have hardly proven creative of the kind of organizational innovation needed in the global independent sector. Indeed, in problem-solving the "ideal state" is defined a priori, as the status quo from which all problems detract, and therefore little exploration is fostered of the unknown possibilities that can usher in novel organizational futures. What began as a methodology for dealing with select organizational issues has in effect become an overarching paradigm or metaphysical reality for strategic thinking: its no longer that organizations have problems-they are a problem.
Clearly, to respond to the increasing pace and complexity of global changes, these times call for alternative approaches that can spark strategic imaginations and accelerate the large-scale search for new models of organizational excellence. Needed are methodologies that encourage exploration of the unexplored, or as Henry Wieman (1930) has put it, that move beyond "the lure of established ideals" to "the lure of undiscovered possibilities." Advanced in the Organizational Excellence Program is such a paradigm of organizational analysis and learning that, rather than assuming that organizing is a problem-to-be-solved, holds organizing as a solution-to-be-embraced. This stance invites learning characterized by qualities such as wonder, mutuality, anticipation and inspiration. We turn now to an overview of the philosophy and practices that characterize this constructive approach to institutional capacity building.
Appreciative Inquiry is an approach to organizational analysis and learning intended for discovering, understanding, and fostering innovations (Cooperrider & Srivastva, 1987). It represents both a search for knowledge and a theory of intentional collective action, which are designed to evolve the vision and will of a group, organization or society as a whole. The functioning of appreciation and its generative consequences in organizational life have been studied by numerous writers, most vigorously by Srivastva & Cooperrider (1990), who depict appreciation as the core task of leadership and management:
Executive appreciation represents a towering capacity to cognitively dissociate all seeming impossibilities, deficiencies, and imperfections in a given situation and to see holistically and compassionately into an organization as a totality and especially into that which has fundamental value. The appreciative stance awakens the desire to discover and envision new social-organizational possibilities and draws one to inquire beyond superficial appearances to the deeper life-enhancing essentials and potentials of collective existence. In all of this it creates a language and climate of interaction that embraces differences, accepts polarities, and helps create new cultures where diverse values are heard and honored. If taken deeply enough, appreciative processes of knowing and interaction enlarge our sense of solidarity with others, overcome the arrogance of prejudice and cultural blindness, and allow for the cooperative evolution of the shared values, accountabilities, and meanings that shape the collective good. (P. 9)
At the core of Appreciative Inquiry is the social constructionist logic that organizational realities and relationships are products of the collective imagination. Viewed as the product of broad social agreement, whether tacit or explicit, patterns of organizational action are not fixed by history or nature in any automatic physical, economic, technological or environmental way. No matter what the durability to date, virtually any pattern of organizational action is continuously open to revision. Participants in Appreciative Inquiry, therefore, embrace this constructive freedom to intervene and reimagine the "appreciative system" (Vickers, 1968) of values, beliefs and expectations that guide their collective perceptions and actions. (For a more indepth treatment of the constructive and empowering logic of the appreciative approach, see Cooperrider & Pasmore (1987), and Srivastva et al, (1990).
In the (OEP) the appreciative approach creates a climate of learning that affirms the knowledge and experience of organizational excellence among inquirers, and unleashes collective imaginations for bolder impact by building futures on what their organizations do best. This process unfolds through preparation work and four phases that together comprise a "4-D Model": 1) Discovery, 2) Dream, 3) Design, and 4) Delivery. Based on a study of longer-term PVO change-efforts, we find that movement through these phases also renders new knowledge and capacities for organizational excellence. Below we briefly describe the basic assumptions and dynamics that characterize each of these phases and illustrate them with the (OEP) experiences of an alumnus organization, the Centre for Development and Population Activities (CEDPA).
One implication for strategic learning and planning is that participants must be choiceful about defining their topics and questions for inquiry. They can choose, for example, to study an entire range of phenomena, from their weaknesses, breakdowns and environmental threats, as is the common practice of "SWOT Analysis," or to focus on the common values, empowering moments in their histories, and shared aspirations for the future. Appreciative Inquiry begins and ends with valuing that which gives life to organizations. During their preparation work, inquirers are encouraged to generate affirmative topics-or bold hunches about what gives life to their organization-that represent what they want to discover or learn more about and that evoke conversations of the desired future-or what they most want to see grow and flourish in their organizations. It is understood that the seeds of change are implicit in these very first questions that are asked.
This process unfolds through a cycle of four phases that together comprise a 4-D Model:
1) Discovery
2) Dream
3) Design
4) Delivery
In the OEP, a PVO's top management team-typically comprised of the CEO, his/her top managers, and representative board members, donors and partners who are key to making changes happen-gathers for a preparation workshop with a GEM staff member. Upon building an understanding of the PVO's unique situations and learning wants and needs, the team then conducts miniappreciative interviews with each other about their original attractions to the organization, peak experiences, core values, and wishes for the organization's future. These stories and comments are then openly shared as team members cull out what they agree are the core strengths, or "life-giving factors" of the organization. Based on these topics, a "homegrown" interview protocol is then constructed to explore these topics in more depth; that is, to learn more about their unique functioning and the organizational factors that contribute to their success. Interviews are then conducted with a full representation of organizational staff and stakeholders and brought to the OEP's residential institute.
These dynamics of the Preparation Phase are illustrated by CEDPA's early OEP involvement:
The Centre for Development and Population Activities (CEDPA) seeks "to empower women at all levels of society to be full partners in development" by improving the managerial and technical capabilities of health and development professionals overseas through family planning, health services, education and skills training. In the early 1990's CEDPA had undergone tremendous growth and change: in just three years the organization had doubled in budget and staff, implemented several new programs, and undertaken a succession to a new CEO, CEDPA's executives held out two hopes for their involvement in the OEP: a revitalized vision that could respond to the rapidly changing development environment and lead them into the next century, and a process for building ownership for the vision among its diverse array of stakeholders.
Through interviews with each other in their preparation workshop, CEDPA's CEO, and five senior managers arrived upon the core values that give life to CEDPA: "partnership, " "equality, " justice, " "diversity, " "excellence" and "respect. " They were eager to learn what these values meant to their various stakeholders, especially their perspectives on "partnership, " and to hear peoples' aspirations for CEDPA's future role in development. They decided to interview representative samples of staff members, program alumni, donors, and board members about their peak experiences in working for CEDPA, when and where they have seen these core topics most alive in the organization, the factors that made those times possible, and their wishes for heightening the organization's overall vitality.
Continuous inquiry into what gives life to organizations, as CEDPA's work in the Preparation Phase portrays, creates a sense of ultimate concern, or clarity around what "can claim ultimacy for human life or the life of a social group" (Tillich, 1957, p. 1). Tillich's term also describes a state of being, "a centered act of the total personality" (p. 4). It is in this sense that the ultimate concerns shared by organizational members become their collective focus, the raison d'etre around which they orient the whole of organizational relationship and activity. This intentional focus inspires an appreciative worldview, and an understanding of that which has fundamental value in organizational life. The capacity of appreciative leadership, is also fostered by inquiry into these ultimate concerns.
Phase one: Discovery
At the residential OEP Institute, PVO/NGO teams (representing typically between five and ten organizations) from around the world gather for five days to share and analyze the data collected and to work towards a vision statement that, based on the input of these larger circles of stakeholders, could position the organization for a more valued and vital future. Their core task in the Discovery Phase is to appreciate the best of "what is" by focusing on peak times of organizational excellence and understanding the unique factors (e.g., leadership, relationships, culture, structure, rewards, etc.) that made those moments possible. They share stories of exceptional accomplishment, discuss the core "life-giving factors" of their organizations, and then deliberate upon the aspects of their organization's history that they value most and want to bring into the future. These activities are based on the assumption that every organization works to some degree and is built upon a set of rich traditions, beliefs, core values, and best practices. The valuing of such can be readily seen by CEDPA's work in the first days of the OEP Institute.
When they came together at the PVO/CEO Institute to review their interview data, CEDPA 's executives immediately saw commonalities among their stakeholders' responses. One member affirmed the common ground around partnership: "We operate with a high value for partnership, where the dignity of every person or group that CEDPA works with is respected and valued and where we learn from them as much as they learn from us. " The shared meanings of other core values were likewise constructed, such as justice " as "an ideal pursued by all in confronting the oppressive circumstances that hinder the basic human rights of women."
Other aspects of their organization's continuity were discovered through storytelling, an assessment of best practices, and experiential learning exercises with other PVO teams present at the Institute. For example, many tales were told of how CEDPA values "diversity, " ranging from what staff have learned from varieties of participants of CEDPA's educational programs, to the wisdom and support they derive from their diverse group of board members and funders. This sharing of stories from the data revealed two more core values of "empowerment" and "honesty. " The CEDPA team also affirmed their best practices that support their values, such as how their "open door policy, " regular staff retreats and ongoing organizational development activities foster "honesty and openness. " And through their interactions with other PVOs where CEDPA's efforts at building partnerships were well-received, team members found great confirmation of their collaborative approach as a real strength. Upon successfully working through this Discovery Phase, CEDPA's CEO, remarked, "We've reaffirmed that the values we've chosen and live by are really the ones that are most important to us, and are at the center of everything we do. "
We can see that in the Discovery Phase members come to know their organization's history as positive possibility, rather than as a static, problematized, eulogized, romanticized, or forgotten set of events. That is, empowering and hopeful conceptions of organization emerge from stories that are grounded in organizing at its best. This is why books, videos, orientation and training programs, and other rituals that celebrate and affirm the founding and evolution of organizations are so important to organizational learning. Organizations innovate to the extent that members are able to interpret their histories for positive possibilities.
These empowering interpretations of organizational histories in turn build the capacity for managing organizational continuity within change. Salipante (1992) finds that the valuing of continuity, or traditionality, stimulates ethical behavior, strengthens commitment, transmits intergenerational learning, provides meaning in times of rapid change, and serves many other key functions for both individuals and organizations. Valuing continuity is especially applicable to PVOs for which stories, symbols, customs, beliefs, myths and artifacts prove to be an essential part of institutional memories and cultural fabrics. Unlike many other approaches to organizational change, Appreciative Inquiry reinforces the idea that managing transition and novelty successfully depends upon valuing and nurturing these very aspects of organizational continuity. In fact, recent scholarship points to the conclusion that the management of continuity is key to the management of change, and "central to the executive role in bringing about organizational health" (Fry & Srivastva, 1992, p. 2).
Phase Two: Dream
Upon building a shared understanding of their continuity, participants are encouraged in the Dream Phase to challenge the status quo by envisioning more valued and vital futures. one aspect that differentiates Appreciative Inquiry from other visioning or planning methodologies is that images of the future emerge out of grounded examples from the past; they are compelling possibilities precisely because they are based on extraordinary moments and aspects from an organization's history.
Cooperrider (1990). proposes a direct linkage between the collectively held positive image and positive action; he posits the heliotropic hypothesis that organizations have an "automatic" tendency to move in the direction of shared, affirmative images of the future. Furthermore, the more an organization experiments with the conscious evolution of positive imagery, the better it will become. This phase of Appreciative Inquiry thus represents an opportunity for organizational members to together craft a positive image of their most desired and preferred future, to extend the best of "what is" to "what might be" by asking, "What is the world calling our organization to become?"
During the Institute the CEDPA team assessed the global forces and trends that would influence development work in the coming decades and discussed the most vital role that CEDPA should undertake. They recognized that development is increasingly becoming a game of influence through knowledge, and that the activities of advocacy and public education are crucial to affect change. Based on this realization, and the numerous success stories in the data of CEDPA's ability to bridge diverse groups, the team agreed with one member's proposition that "there's a real opportunity right now for us to relate the voices of women overseas to donors and government here in the U.S. "
The team then built a new development model focusing on their role as policy advocates for women, and that included their other core competencies of education, training, service delivery, institution building, gender and development, environment, coalition and network building, and evaluation and documentation. This model has since translated into "CEDPA 2000, " a set of affirmative statements of their future role including: "Policy and Advocacy: We build consensus for development by increasing awareness and promoting development programs. "
Phase Three: Design
With a sense of their lifegiving continuity and vital strategic orientation, team members naturally begin to envision and plan how they should design their organizations so as to more fully realize the ideals that both they and their stakeholders share. The goal of the Design Phase is to create social architecture, or institutions that embody common values and that are responsive to both internal and external aspirations (Perlmutter, 1965). With most teams having involved their stakeholders during the preparation work, much of this phase is done at the OEP Institute by creating "provocative propositions," or statements concerning what "should be" the ideal organization.
Upon articulating their future role, CEDPA's top management team next began to consider how they might redesign their organizational structure to live out their values of "openness" and "empowerment. " In contrast to their traditional organization chart, with the board and CEO, at the top and support staff at the bottom, they aspired toward a more "circular" organization - one that was less hierarchical and more flexible and participative. Making an imaginative leap, the CEO, drew their field offices and alumni at the center of their organization chart, junior staff in a middle ring, and senior staff in an outer ring. This picture was quite different from the "chain of command " image they had held previously. It enkindled a lively conversation about what it meant to be an executive at CEDPA. For the first time they agreed that their primary tasks as executives were to serve and empower organizational members, who in turn empower people overseas. Members reported feeling a "freeing of energy " and new sense of excitement and relevance for their work in the organization.
In order for new images of organization to be fully owned and therefore vital, strategic thinkers and planners must create opportunities for stakeholders at all levels to develop agreement and "buy-in" to their visions. Typically after the residential institute, the PVO teams conduct participatory dialogues with widening groups of staff and stakeholders to build their commitment. In fact, program evaluation studies have shown that more than half of Institute alumni have undertaken long-term, large-scale organizational change efforts that have involved up to a thousand staff, board members, donors, beneficiaries and others with an investment in the future of the organization. Since many of these stakeholders had been involved in the preparation work, these follow-up events are a time of supplementing the vision crafted at the Institute and elaborating upon the proposed organizational designs and changes. Typically a great deal of enthusiasm and initiative is unleashed as people coalesce around shared ideals and enact plans for their fulfillment.
With a re-energized spirit and commitment to the organization's new vision, after the Institute CEDPA's executive team sought to create alignment and commitment to these ideals among staff and stakeholders. They held a full-staff retreat to share their vision, facilitated a second round of Appreciative Inquiry into the extent to which these ideals were desired by the collectivity and to which they were being practiced, and then conducted a second retreat where the vision was recrafted to more fully represent shared ideals. Through this process, whenever CEDPA executives learned of any discensus, rather than being bogged down in diagnosis and problem-solving, they choicefully inquired into what people really valued and why; it was a continuous and constructive dialogue to affirm common values and shared vision. over time, adjustments were made to the vision and when their CEO, became satisfied with the staff's ownership and commitment to it, she soon championed a strategic plan that crystallized their new mission, values, development model, strategies, and regional objectives and goals.
Phase Four: Delivery
The last phase of Appreciative Inquiry, "Delivery," is a time of continuous learning, adjustment and improvisation in the service of shared ideals. The momentum and potential for innovation is extremely high by this stage of the inquiry. Because there is a shared conviction and ownership to shared values, vision, and a plan, people naturally begin to search out opportunities and undertake action initiatives in order to realize their shared aspirations.
CEDPA's guiding image has since spawned new activity in policy advocacy, a sense of greater influence in the development community, new partnerships, a style of leadership that appreciates possibility, and a greater sense of empowerment and confidence. Presently, they are focused on building commitment to their vision among stakeholder groups outside of staff.
Affirmative Leadership: One such observation is that leaders and their constituents showed a heightened commitment to finding value and untapped possibilities in people and situations and affirming collective purpose and vision. For example, in championing a participatory visioning process that has led to a statement of their social architecture for the year 2000, the newly hired CEO, of OIC International adopted an affirmative leadership style in valuing his top managers and encouraging them to take ownership and create the future of their PVO. Many other CEOs also report having found a paradigm of leadership and management that is congruent with their own worldviews; as stated by one: "The appreciative approach completely changed my way of looking at problems. Now I look for opportunities for a preferred vision instead of just at the problems." Upon guiding whole-systems through the process of affirming common values and futures, the narratives of the PVO executives reveal that leadership over the longer term involves continuously holding the vision out in front of people and searching for opportunities for its fulfillment.
Strong Organizational Continuity: Through its emphasis on the principle of managing continuity within change, a second impact of the OEP is a strengthened value for and commitment to the traditions, values, best practices and other aspects of the organizational lifegiving history. In the face of rapid change and turbulent environments, OEP alumni have drawn upon the appreciation of their histories to envision novel futures. For example, The Foundation for Peoples of the South Pacific drew upon its 30-year track record of working with indigenous groups in building self-reliant and -sustaining institutions in Micronesia to transform into Counterpart, a more global organization that works with donors, other PVOs and NGOs, governments and businesses to catalyze local institutions in the spirit of partnership. Similarly, we are seeing more appreciative organizational cultures with practices that celebrate and foster continuity, such as in how Lutheran World Relief's use of the occasion of its 50th anniversary to involve its stakeholders in documenting its greatest accomplishments, appreciating the traditions that have made the PVO successful, publishing a book on its history, and creating new orientation and training programs to promote understanding of their core values.
Vital Strategic Orientations: More relevant and vital missions, roles and strategic directions are evident among these alumni organizations that have appreciated their own continuity and considered what broader sociohistorical trends are calling them to become. For example, with the realization during the OEP that their impact on nutritional blindness over the longer-term is intrinsically tied to issues such as poverty, education, literacy, etc., Helen Keller International re-oriented their strategic direction from caring for the blind to ending the global social, economic and political causes of blindness. The Christian Reformed World Relief Committee, moreover, is shifting paradigms from autonomous or unilateral action to developing relationships of mutuality with a wide variety of collaborators. And World Vision Relief and Development has re-organized around the shared discovery that their most important customer is their field office. Indeed, a more vital strategic orientation has been reported by most every alumnus organization, as manifest in new development roles as catalysts, networkers, educators, advocates and collaborators-roles that position the organization to realize its potential impact in a turbulent world.
More Relational Organizations: The OEP's emphasis on creating "social architecture," that is, designing organizations that flexibly respond to stakeholders' wants and needs, encourages more value-congruent relational arrangements. As we have seen, when CEDPA's senior staff realized that their most important role was to empower junior staff to in turn empower people overseas, they created a circular organizational chart with rotating positions and enacted new policies and practices that better serve staff and live out core values. In other organizations as well, we are noticing new arrangements that instill relational values, such as more egalitarian and cross-functional structures, opportunities for more meaningful involvement in decision-making, a greater investment in orientation and training programs, and management audits and appraisal systems oriented around fostering peoples' strengths. Inter-organizationally, as Counterpart's evolution illustrates, there is great experimentation with new forms of partnership with other PVOs, partner NGOs, indigenous groups, corporations, donors and universities based on mutuality of purposes and values. The enactment of shared vision serves as the glue for more united stakeholder relationships, as illustrated by how Food for the Hungry International conducted Appreciative Inquiries with nearly one thousand stakeholders, discovered that all agreed on the core values of responding to hunger and celebrating peoples' gifts, and created its first corporate vision that unites all of its global partners.
Social Creativity: Finally, our study of longer-term change efforts shows a variety of bold social innovations introduced by alumni. Perhaps nowhere is this better illustrated among the alumni than in how The Mountain Institute caught a glimpse in the Institute of a new global role and subsequently catalyzed the first truly global alliance for collective advocacy and mutual support concerning the preservation of mountain cultures and environments. Similarly, INMED has reaffirmed its role as a catalyst among 2000 partners for educating about and treating international health issues. Accion International, moreover, drew upon the OEP to create a new autonomous training and technical support institute for affiliates. Much like the well-accepted notion that human development can be viewed as the positive extent to which individuals relate to and are able to shape broader environments, these PVOs and NGOs are more capable of generating new forms of social relationships for more enduring impacts on global issues.
References:
Botkin, J., Elmandjra, M. & Malitza, M. (1979). No limits to learning: Bridging the human gap-A report to the Club of Rome. New York: oxford
Coleman, J. (1970). Social innovations. Social Forces, 2, 163-173.
Cooperrider, D. (1990). Positive image, positive action: The affirmative basis of organizing. In S. Srivastva,D. Cooperrider, &Associates (Eds.), Appreciative management and leadership, 91-125, San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
Cooperrider, D. & Srivastva, S. (1987). Appreciative inquiry in organizational life. In R.W. Woodman & W.A. Pasmore (Eds.), Research in organizational change and development. Vol.1: 129-169, Greenwich, CT: JAI Press.
Fry, R. & Srivastva, S. (1992). Continuity and change in organizational life. In S. Srivastva, R. Fry, and Associates (Eds.), Executive and organizational continuity. 1-26, San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
Gorman, R. (1994). Private voluntary organizations as agents of development. Boulder, co Westview.
Hunt, D. (1987). Beginning with ourselves in practice, theory and human affairs. Cambridge, MA: Brookline Books.
Perlmutter, H. (196S). Towards a theory and practice of social architecture: The building of indispensable institutions. London: Tavistock.
Salipante, P. (1992). Providing continuity in change: The role oftradition in long-term adaptation. In S. Srivastva, R. Fry, and Associates (Eds.), Executive and organizational continuity. 132-167, San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
Srivastva, S., Cooperrider, D. & Associates (Eds.) (199O). Appreciative management and leadership. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
Union of International Association. (Ed.) (199S). Yearbook of international associations. New York: K.G. Saur Verlag.
U.S. General Accounting office (December 199S). Report to the Ranking Minority Member, Committee on International Relations,
House of Representatives. Foreign assistancePrivate voluntary organizations ' contributions and limitations. GAo/NSIAD-96-34.
Vickers, G. (1968). Value systems and social process. New York: Basic.
Wieman, H.N. (193O). The issues of life. New York: Abingdon Press.
Return to the Table of Contents