| Date |
Event |
| 1980 |
Cleveland Clinic Project is initiated.The
birthplace and co-founding of AI happened in the doctoral program in Organizational
Behavior at Case Western Reserve University in the collaboration between
David Cooperrider and Suresh Srivastva in 1980. As a young 24 year old
doctoral student David Cooperrider was involved doing a conventional diagnosis
or an organizational analysis of "what's wrong with the human side
of the Organization?" In gathering his data, he becomes amazed by the
level of positive cooperation, innovation and egalitarian governance
he sees in the organization. Suresh Srivastva, Cooperrider's advisor notices
David's excitement and suggests going further with the excitement-making
it the focus. Having been influenced by earlier writings by Schweitzer on
the idea of "reverence for life", David obtains permission
from the Clinic's Chairman Dr. William Kiser to focus totally on a life-centric
analysis of the factors contributing to the highly effective functioning
of the Clinic when it was at its best. Everything else was ignored. The
Cleveland clinic became the first large site where a conscious decision
to use an inquiry focusing on life-giving factors forms the basis for an
organizational analysis. The term "Appreciative Inquiry" was first
written about in an analytic footnote in the feedback report of "emergent
themes" by David Cooperrider and Suresh Srivastva for the Board of
Governors of the Cleveland Clinic. The report created such a powerful and
positive stir that the Board called for ways to use this method with the
whole group practice. The momentum set the stage for David Cooperrider's
seminal dissertation, the first, and as yet, one of the best articulations
of the theory and practice of Appreciative Inquiry. |
| 1982 |
Ken Gergen publishes Toward Transformation
of Social Knowledge, and it has a major impact on Cooperrider's
thinking. It offers a powerful critique of conventional scientific metatheory,
pointing to a whole new way of thinking about theory. He calls this new
method "generative theory," described by Cooperrider as "anticipatory
theory that has the capacity to challenge the guiding assumptions of the
culture, to raise fundamental questions regarding contemporary life, to
foster reconsideration of that which is taken for granted, and thereby furnish
new alternatives for social action." (AI Listserve, 1999) |
| 1984 |
NTL Institute for Applied Behavioral Science
holds international conference in Tampa Fla. with a focus on applied
behavioral science. John Carter makes a presentation Appreciative Inquiry
for OD practitioners. |
| 1984 |
Cooperrider makes the first public presentation
of his still evolving ideas about AI to the Academy of Management where,
he reports, his ideas are met with great challenge (e.g. it is Pollyannish),
debate (e.g. there are such "things" as problems), and even laughter
(e.g. organizations as "miracles" of human interaction, dialogue,
and infinite imagination). |
| 1986 |
Cooperrider completes his doctoral dissertation
"Appreciative Inquiry: Toward a Methodology for Understanding and Enhancing
Organizational Innovation" at Case Western Reserve University in
Cleveland, Ohio. What began as a study of the development of generative
theory had evolved into a strategy for organization change. This paradigm
shifting work laid out the principles and logic of Appreciative Inquiry,
the phases of AI (e.g. affirmative topic choice, discovery, developing provocative
propositions, etc), and provided a social constructionist meta-theory arguing
the need to go beyond the deficit or problem focus of the field. The inspired
dissertation, written at a cabin where Cooperrider retreated in silence
for five weeks, became the basis for much of the writing to follow. |
| 1986 |
Suresh Srivastva and Cooperrider publish "The
Emergence of the Egalitarian Organization," a case history of work
at the Cleveland Clinic (during 1980 -1985) that started out as an organizational
diagnosis of pathologies and problems, and became instead the first major
large- scale AI project. |
| 1987 |
Cooperrider and Srivastva publish "Appreciative
Inquiry in Organizational Life." This marks the first time that
the term Appreciative Inquiry appears in a professional publication. For
many the article is considered the classic statement on AI calling for a
shift in the field from its deficit-based theory of change to a positive,
life-centric theory. Organizations, Cooperrider and Srivastva argue, are
not "problems to be solved" but are centers of infinite human
capacity-ultimately unpredictable, unknowable, or, a "mystery alive".
They offer the hypothesis that human systems grow in the direction of what
people study, therefore, let us all search for the true, the good, the better
and the possible in human systems. The article is noteworthy not only because
it makes public the term Appreciative Inquiry but because it represents
the beginning of the transition from thinking of AI as just a theory-building
approach to seeing its potential as a full blown intervention framework. |
| 1987 |
The first public workshop on AI, promoted
by two MBA students, is held in San Francisco with David Cooperrider as
the key presenter. |
| 1987 |
The Roundtable Project at a Canadian accounting
firm (with John Carter as the external lead) becomes the first large-scale
change effort in which AI is conceived of as a comprehensive intervention
framework from data gathering to implementation. After four years of collaboratively
searching for the right organization-wide intervention, John Carter offers
his client Appreciative Inquiry as a possible framework for change and brings
in David Cooperrider to create a video tape explaining the idea of AI for
all partners of the firm. Within less than three months and without any
coaching from Carter, the client selects AI as the way to ensure the future
of the firm. Over a one- year period, Carter, Cooperrider and the client
system plan and implement a 12- step process that starts with the establishment
of a philosophically congruent project structure, incorporates the systematic
design of a customized AI protocol, and includes widespread interviews followed
by the development of provocative propositions (PPs), followed in turn by
widespread consensual validation of the PP's and an organic, rather than
mechanistic, implementation process. Some 400 partners came together
with Carter and Cooperrider in large group format "the roundtable"
and used the AI data and stories to help create a plan for the future.
A major innovation in the use of AI - having members of the organization
interview each other - was piloted by Carter and has become a major part
of AI methods for organization intervention. Note however that although
this project was highly collaborative, the data analysis (the meaning making)
was still in the hands of the external consultants. |
| 1988 |
The Appreciative Research Carnival, an
innovation that resulted from Tojo Joseph Thatchenkery's dissertation research,
marked the first incidence in which clients took over the "meaning
making" (analysis) with the data. As part of his dissertation research
at Case, Thatchenkery begins a major 3-year AI based data gathering process
with the Institute for Cultural Affairs (ICA) in the USA. Much to his surprise
members of the client system wrest from his control the data analysis and
the process of developing future plans based on the data. Thatchenkery calls
the process, that had been initially designed to gather data to build more
grounded theory, "The Appreciative Research Carnival". The following
year Thatchenkery experiences the same phenomenon again. ICA inadvertently
becomes the most "fully blown" collaborative use of Appreciative
Inquiry for organizational change to date. |
| 1988 |
Frank Barrett and David Cooperrider team
up to extend AI approach-"generative metaphor intervention"--
as a way to work with a Hotel management team locked in seemingly intractable
conflict. Breakthroughs occur. A paper they write on the use of AI wins
the "Best Paper of the Year" Award in 1988 at the National Academy
of Management in the OD Division. |
| 1989 |
SIGMA Program for Global Change is founded
by The Weatherhead School of Management at Case as a center for research
and education dedicated to the study and development of worldwide organizations
and leaders capable of addressing the most complex and pressing global issues
of our time. Committed to the premise that there are no limits to cooperation,
the center mandate asserts that virtually every item on the global agenda
for change can be dealt with given the appropriate forms of effective management
and organization. SIGMA focuses its attention on innovative organizations
that are pioneers in building a healthy and vibrant world future. AI is
the theory building method. Highlighted are organizations from across sectors
(public, private, non-profit, cross-sector partnerships) that take a lead
role in advancing positive global change. Issues of focus include (1) intelligent
environmental policy and practice, (2) people-centered approaches to sustainable
economic development, (3) the growth and support of local and global civil
society, and (4) the emergence of a global ethic or set of higher values
that inspire human action in service of the widest possible good. |
| 1989 |
Social Innovations in Global Management Conference,
held at Case Western in November of 1989 highlighted studies of five global
social change organizations, one of which was ICA. Articles from these studies,
along with papers on the subject of social innovations in management in
the global arena were subsequently published in "Research in Organizational
Change and Development," Volume 5. From JAI Press Inc and a special
series of articles in Human Relations. This marked the first major activity
of SIGMA and laid the groundwork for what in 1990 developed into a role
for SIGMA in the Global Excellence in Management initiative for management
of international development agencies. |
| 1990 |
Suresh Srivastva, Ron Fry, and David Cooperrider
team up in SIGMA to work with Romania's Health Care System after the collapse
of communism, and create a model to describe Appreciative Inquiry in more
poetic and simple terms. It was the beginning of the 4-D model-- describing
the cycle of AI as "Discovery, Dream, and Destiny". |
| 1990 |
Suresh Srivastva and David Cooperrider publish
Appreciative Management and Leadership: The Power of Positive Thought
and Action in Organizations. This book contains Cooperrider's much
quoted research on the power of the positive image, an article entitled
"Positive Image; Positive Action." |
| 1990 |
The Taos Institute is founded by Ken and
Mary Gergen, Diana Whitney, David Cooperrider, Suresh Srivastva, Sheila
McNamee, and Harlene Anderson and becomes a major center for AI training
and learning. |
| 1990 |
The Organizational Excellence Program (OEP),
a pilot project to create ways for the US Agency for International Development
(USAID) to offer innovative management and leadership training to US Private
Voluntary Organizations - PVOs - in the US, was founded under the leadership
of Ada Jo Mann. Case Western Reserve was chosen as the University partner
for the pilot because of the work of David Cooperrider and his colleagues
with Global Social Change organizations. At the end of the pilot phase,
the OEP became the Global Excellence in Management Initiative (GEM)
operating under a USAID grant given to SIGMA/Case Western Reserve University.
GEM's goals are to (1) Promote organizational excellence in development
organizations in the US and abroad; (2) Create new forms of global cooperation;
and, (3) Sustain excellence, develop capacity to continually learn, adjust
and innovate over time. AI provides the foundational operating principles.
The OEP and the GEM Initiative have fostered major innovative ways to use
AI in the global arena, creating approaches and models that are being used
in all organizations today. It was in this work, with Save the Children,
that the 3-Ds were transformed and elaborated into the "4-D" cycle.
|
| 1992 |
Imagine Chicago is created. This is a
major community development effort based heavily on AI principles and practice.
Here Bliss Browne invents an intergenerational way of doing AI, with children
doing hundreds of AI interviews with adults and elders. |
| 1993 |
NTL Institute for Applied Behavioral Science
initiates an internal Appreciative Inquiry based diversity project to discover
and promulgate the innovative and effective lessons that NTL learned from
nearly 20 years of work with organizations on ways to value diversity. Cathy
Royal is the lead consultant for the project. In preparation for the year
long diversity study project, Jane Watkins, Cathy Royal, David Cooperrider
and John Carter offer a three day AI lab for NTL members. |
| 1994 |
NTL's Professional Development Workshop in
Appreciative Inquiry is offered for the first time, trained by Jane
Watkins and Cathy Royal. Subsequently, the team of Watkins, Royal, Bernard
Mohr and Barbara Sloan staff yearly workshops in basic AI, and AI practicum
workshop. |
| 1995 |
Cooperrider is elected as president of National
Academy of Management (OD Division). |
| 1996 |
The Organization Development Practitioner
publishes two issues devoted completely to AI. |
| 1996 |
The Thin Book of Appreciative Inquiry is published
by Sue Annis Hammond, providing the first widely available, basic introduction
to AI as a philosophy and methodology of change. |
| 1996 |
AI is successfully applied to Diversity Work
In a continuing expansion of AI to new applications (in this case Diversity)
Cathy Royal and Alexsandra Stewart lead the first and only statewide Citizen's
Summit and Public Dialogue on Building Communities that Work, Emerging from
this success in 1997, Imagine South Carolina, becomes recognized (in two
publications, Interracial Dialogue Groups Across America and Bridging the
Racial Divide, DuBois and Hutson) as one of the nations most effective programs
on improving racial dialogue. |
| 1997 |
AI list Serv is established by Jack Brittain
at University of Texas, Dallas. It serves as a forum for practitioners at
all levels to share and learn from each other. |
| 1997 |
GTE corporation recieves the ASTD "Best
Organization Change Program" in the country for the work done for two
years with AI guided by David Cooperrider and Diana Whitney. |
| 1998 |
Lessons from the Field, edited by Sue
Hammond and Cathy Royal, is published. It is the first widely available
book of case histories of organizational development projects done from
an appreciative perspective. |
| 1998 |
The electronic AI Newsletter is established
by Anne Radford in London. |
| 1999 |
Appreciative Inquiry: Toward a Positive Theory
of Human Organization and Change, is published by David Cooperrider,
Peter Sorensen, Diana Whitney, and Therese Yaeger |
| 1999 |
Locating the Energy for Change: An Introduction
To Appreciative Inquiry, written by Dr. Charles Elliott, Dean of Trinity
Hall, Cambridge, is published . |
| 1999 |
Work with the Dalai Lama: David Cooperrider
is asked to facilitate and to bring Appreciative Inquiry into a program
started by His Holiness the Dalai Lama in an effort to have religious leaders,
across the world's great religions, create new levels of cooperation and
peace. This effort highlights the essence of AI practice-the crafting of
"the unconditional positive question". An article is written called
"The Surprise of Friendship". |
| 1999 |
Ed Schien and Richard Beckhard invite
David Cooperrider to join them at the Academy of Management on symposium
titled "The Past, Present, and Future of Organization Development".
As it turns out it was Beckhard's last major talk at the Academy before
his death later in that year. Beckhard said this of AI: "appreciative
inquiry is creating a powerful and enduring change in the way OD will be
conceptualized and practiced now and in the future…it is changing the
way we think about change itself." |
| 2000 |
The OD Practitioner does their millenium
special issue on AI. Peter Sorensen of Benedictine University argues, as
editor, that AI is more than a method; it is a paradigm change uniquely
created for the opportunities of the 21st Century while at the same time
extending the deepest and most important early values of the field. |
