Appreciative Enquiry
Pankaj DCosta
People & Organization Effectiveness | OD Interventions | Employee Experience | Communication & Change Management | Workforce Management |
I was a witness to this some time back. An employee (lets give me a name :Abby) was moving on with his career and had a sendoff on the last day. Abby shared his experiences at organization and the team he worked with as the team listened. When he was done the boss said to the team “Share one good thing about Abby that you liked during his tenure” to which promptly “I would prefer the other way round actually, something for me to develop & work on” said Abby.
Most individuals born in an non-entrepreneur family have grown in an environment where the struggle is always to be a better human being & be liked by the society. It was only therefore obvious for Abby (our case example above) to say what he said. Abby choose to show hesitancy to welcome the ‘good’ in him and requested to highlight the non-positives to be better … more better!!!
Successful leaders consciously look at the core competencies present and leverage on that, with self as well as within their teams. The belief is simple: How can the good attributes be made great, rather than to imbibe those attributes that are minimal or not present. The journey from good to great is much faster and beneficial, than to take an attribute from absent/minimal to great.
Appreciative Inquiry is a process where the individual chooses to see only the good and give genuine words of appreciation to the other person. And if the individual were to receive words of appreciation say ‘thankyou’ accepting the same without saying ‘Oh that’s nothing’ OR…. ’please don’t mention’. There is no judging / evaluation / assessment whether the words of appreciation were authentic or not…. They are just taken… and enjoyed!!!
When one looks at social networking sites today it clearly shows how much individuals are in need of this genuine appreciation!! And yet when this appreciation does come to them.. the acceptance is so low. My need to be appreciated, to know that ‘my existence is acknowledge’ by the world outside is WOW!!
So who do you choose to give genuine appreciation today ?… its absolutely ok to say …. ‘myself’ J