Images of A New Future: A Documentation on the Application of AI at Save the Children
Christopher Szecsey , Timothy Skaggs
Global Excellence in Management (GEM) and Save the Children US/ Philippines
Date 05/01/2000
Annotation: Appreciative Inquiry and Save the Children/US, Philippines Field Office
The SC/US PhFO experience with Appreciative Inquiry began in February, 1997 when Christopher Szecsey, an independent consultant, was contracted to enhance the partnership between SC/US and United NGOs of Olongapo (UNO), an umbrella NGO federation representing many NGOs and people's organizations. AI was introduced for the strategic planning of UNO's future as an organization and it's partnership with SC. In September 1997, Szecsey introduced AI to SC/US in a staff workshop on partnering and capacity building (P/CB), in which AI was used for SC's organizational and program planning. Another influential event was the use of AI in February 1998 for a workshop on partnership building and planning that included SC staff and key partner board and staff members. During the next two years in subsequent P/CB consultancies, Szecsey supported the staff's increasing interest to learn more about AI and use it for various applications such as partner NGO board and staff development, partnership planning, community development and more recently, internal capacity building of SC/US. Eventually, a customized partnership between SC/US and the GEM Initiative was established with GEM's joint design and delivery of an AI partnership workshop in September 1998.
Szecsey is an alumni participant of the GEM Certificate Program in Global Change and Social Innovations who has incorporated AI into his consulting practice with international and local NGOs. Through Szecsey, SC/US PhFO was introduced to GEM and became involved with GEM's Customized Partnership initiative. Additionally, staff member Maribeth San Miguel participated in the GEM certificate program and completed the program in January, 2000. Another current SC/US PhFO staff member, Jess Encena, participated in the GEM Executive Certificate Program in March 2000.
Operationally, SC continues to develop and implement sustainable models of partnership. AI is seen as integral to partnership and capacity building (P/CB) initiatives by fostering sustainable partnerships as well as supporting the organizational and programmatic capacity of partners. While the initial thrust for AI was fueled by the P/CB initiatives, recently the PhFO has acknowledged broader benefits and applications for AI:
Appreciation and Participation
Based on the interview data one might be led to ask, "Is Appreciative Inquiry different from any other sound participatory techniques used in development work and if so, how is it different?" Development practitioners have known for years that projects are always more successful when they involve the participation of those impacted by the decisions. We must recognize that many of the benefits spoken of in this document generically describe participatory methods. However, we posit that the data supports additional benefits realized via Appreciative Inquiry that might not be derived through deficit based approaches to development no matter how participatory.
First, participants frequently compared Appreciative Inquiry with "problem solving" in an effort to make a clear distinction between the two. However, we saw evidence that Appreciative Inquiry does solve problems. In the case of the KSP project we heard that among other things more people are utilizing community health services, practitioners are making themselves more available to the community, environments are becoming cleaner and personal hygiene is improving. It appears that people are trying to compare deficit based approaches with Appreciative Inquiry. Many of those deficit-based approaches can be and are participatory in nature. Appreciative Inquiry is paradigmatically different from problem solving because it does not start with the identification of problems but it does address problems.
Our data supports that Appreciative Inquiry is different from deficit-based participatory problem solving methodologies. Development methodologies assume a history for a community or an organization. Frequently, the first act of intervention in development work is the surfacing of the story, or history, of the community. Histories are never complete they are selectively recounted based on the questions asked. Unlike deficit based problem solving approaches which ask community or organizational members to surface problems and needs, Appreciative Inquiry surfaces peak experiences, brilliant performances, outstanding moments and makes them a crucial part of the community's history. The newly crafted history becomes the foundation for building a future that is based on strength and not inadequacy. The retelling of a generative appreciative history creates hope. Hope fuels a belief that positive change is possible and that one's actions do have consequence. This is what participants were trying to say when they compared AI to problem solving when making statements like "problem solving gets us nowhere". It isn't problem solving so much as a negative hopeless recounting of a community/organizational history that leads to despair.
A sense of hope translates into joy. Our stories were laden with the joyful affect that appreciation was bringing to their work. People are joyous because they believe that their work is actually making a difference in their own lives and in the lives of others. They are seeing it in their communities, in organizational partnerships, in the workplace and even in their homelife.
Hope and joy are translating into commitment. The people that were interviewed never once questioned whether they were up for the task. Only one of the partner organizations interviewed even discussed their difficulties with us. Renewed commitment is translating into action. One merely needs to follow the activities of the internal champions of AI to see how their belief and commitment to Appreciative Inquiry itself is resulting in an almost superhuman amount of action.
Diffusion
Appreciative Inquiry has a diffusive quality once it enters an organization. The process of AI diffusion within SC during the last three years speaks about how organizational change can occur. Initially, an external consultant introduced AI as an approach for SC's partnering and capacity building program with an NGO federation. During subsequent visits by the same consultant, AI was used for other purposes such as establishing and strengthening partnerships with local NGOs, building the partner's organizational and programmatic capacity, and for community mobilization for health. While it was introduced as far back as September 1997 as an organizational change strategy, only recently has AI been substantially utilized as a tool for internal SC organizational learning and transformation. Increasingly SC staff view AI not just as an approach for their external work but as an important methodology for staff development and organizational evolution. As staff at all levels of the organization have come into contact with AI, either through direct experience or through the stories of success by others using it, they have requested more support and assistance in learning and applying it. Through the AI advocacy efforts of senior staff and the critical mass of staff using it, AI is becoming part of the values and belief system at the core of SC/US PhFO culture.
An interesting point is that AI was not introduced as a mandate from the top, but rather, it diffused through the organization laterally as staff used it and told powerful stories of successes in using AI in different applications. Throughout this process of diffusion, the Country Director encouraged AI experimentation and adaptation as well as provided support and assistance to those staff interested in pursuing its application.
For the full 46 page document see the resource file below. It is filled with pictures, graphs and lots of great resources.
Resource Files:
Images of a New Future (pdf )
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