Chapter 1: The Theoretical Basis of Appreciative Inquiry 3

AI: A Brief Introduction

AI has been described in many ways. Here is a practitioner-oriented definition:

Appreciative Inquiry is the cooperative co-evolutionary search for

the best in people, their organizations, and the world around them.
It involves the discovery of what gives “life” to a living system when
it is most effective, alive, and constructively capable in economic,
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ecological, and human terms. AI involves the art and practice of ask-
ing questions that strengthen a system’s capacity to apprehend,
anticipate, and heighten positive potential. The inquiry is mobilized
through the crafting of the “unconditional positive question,” often
involving hundreds or thousands of people. AI interventions focus
on the speed of imagination and innovation instead of the negative,
critical, and spiraling diagnoses commonly used in organizations.
The discovery, dream, design, and destiny model links the energy of
the positive core to changes never thought possible.

AI is based on the simple assumption that every organization has some-

thing that works well, and those strengths can be the starting point for creat-
ing positive change. Inviting people to participate in dialogues and share stories
about their past and present achievements, assets, unexplored potentials, inno-
vations, strengths, elevated thoughts, opportunities, benchmarks, high-point
moments, lived values, traditions, core and distinctive competencies, expres-
sions of wisdom, insights into the deeper corporate spirit and soul, and visions
of valued and possible futures can identify a “positive core.” From this, AI links
the energy of the positive core directly to any change agenda. This link creates
energy and excitement and a desire to move toward a shared dream.
AI, an approach to organizational analysis and learning, is also intended
for discovering, understanding, and fostering innovations in social organiza-
tional arrangements and processes. In this context, AI refers to:

• A search for knowledge.

• A theory of collective action designed to evolve the vision and will
of a group, an organization, or a society as a whole.
Copyright 2008. Berrett-Koehler Publishers.

AI is deliberate in its life-centric search. Carefully constructed inquiries

allow the practitioner to affirm the symbolic capacities of imagination and mind
as well as the social capacity for conscious choice and cultural evolution. The
art of “appreciation” is the art of discovering and valuing those factors that give
life to a group or an organization. The process involves interviewing and sto-

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 4 Appreciative Inquiry Handbook

rytelling to draw out the best of the past, to understand what one wants more
of, and to set the stage for effective visualization of the future.
The following propositions underlie the practice of AI:

1. Inquiry into “the art of the possible” in organizational life should

begin with appreciation. Every system works to some degree.
Therefore, a primary task of management and organizational analy-
sis is to discover, describe, and explain those “exceptional moments”
that give life to the system and activate members’ competencies and
energies. The appreciative approach takes its inspiration from “what
is.” This is the first step of the process in the 4-D Cycle: Discovery.
Valuing, learning, and inspired understanding are the aims of the
appreciative spirit.

2. Inquiry into what is possible should yield information that is

applicable. Organizational study should lead to the generation of
knowledge that can be used, applied, and validated in action.

3. Inquiry into what is possible should be provocative. An organ-

ization is an open-ended, indeterminate system capable of becom-
ing more than it is at any given moment and learning how to
actively take part in guiding its own evolution. Appreciative
knowledge of “what is” becomes provocative to the extent that the
learning stirs members to action. In this way, AI allows use of sys-
tematic management analysis to help an organization’s members
shape an effective future according to their imaginative and moral
purposes.

4. Inquiry into the human potential of organizational life should

be collaborative. This principle assumes an immutable relation-
ship between the process of inquiry and its content. A unilateral
approach to the study of social innovation is a direct negation of
the phenomenon itself.

In its most practical construction, AI is a form of organizational study that

selectively seeks to locate, highlight, and illuminate what are referred to as the
life-giving forces of the organization’s existence, its positive core.
In this sense, two basic questions are behind any AI initiative:

1. What, in this particular setting and context, gives life to this sys-
tem—when it is most alive, healthy, and symbiotically related to
its various communities?

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 Chapter 1: The Theoretical Basis of Appreciative Inquiry 5

2. What are the possibilities—expressed and latent—to provide

opportunities for more effective (value-congruent) forms of organ-
izing?
AI seeks out the exceptional best of “what is” (Discovery) to help ignite the
collective imagination of “what might be” (Dream). The aim is to generate new
knowledge of a collectively desired future. It carries forth the vision in ways
that successfully translate images into possibilities, intentions into reality, and
beliefs into practice.
As a method of organizational analysis, AI differs from conventional man-
agerial problem solving. The basic assumption of problem solving is that “orga-
nizing is a problem to be solved.” The task of improvement traditionally
involves removing deficits by (1) identifying the key problems or deficiencies,
(2) analyzing the causes, (3) analyzing solutions, and (4) developing an action
plan.
In contrast, the underlying assumption of AI is that an organization is a
“solution to be embraced” rather than a “problem to be solved.” The phases
are shown in Figure 1.1, Appreciative Inquiry 4-D Cycle. It starts with select-
ing a topic: affirmative topic choice. What follows are Discovery (appreciating
and valuing), Dream (envisioning), Design (coconstructing the future), and Des-
tiny (learning, empowering, and improvising to sustain the future). These are
the essence of dialogue woven through each step of the process.

Figure 1.1: Appreciative Inquiry “4-D” Cycle

Discovery
“What gives life?”
(the best of what is)
Appreciating

Destiny Dream
“What will be?” “What might be?”
(how to empower, learn Affirmative (imagine what the world is
and adjust/improvise) Topic Choice calling for)
Sustaining Envisioning

Design
“How can it be?”
(determining the ideal)
Coconstructing

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 6 Appreciative Inquiry Handbook

The first step in this process is to discover and value those factors that give
life to the organization. For example, the organization might discover and value
its commitment and identify when that commitment was at its highest (affir-
mative topic choice: highest commitment). Regardless of how few or infrequent
the moments of highest commitment were, the organization’s task is to focus
on them and discuss the factors and forces that served as fertile ground for
that exceptional level of commitment.

The First D is Discovery

The list of positive or affirmative topics for Discovery is endless: high quality,
integrity, empowerment, innovation, customer responsiveness, technological
innovation, team spirit, best in class, and so on. In each case, the task is to dis-
cover the positive exceptions, successes, and most vital or alive moments. Dis-
covery involves valuing those things that are worth valuing. It can be done
within and across organizations (in a benchmarking sense) and across time
(organizational history as positive possibility).
As part of the Discovery process, individuals engage in dialogue and mean-
ing-making. This is simply the open sharing of discoveries and possibilities.
Through dialogue, a consensus begins to emerge whereby individuals in the
organization say, “Yes, this is an ideal or a vision that we value and should
aspire to.” Through conversation and dialogue, individual appreciation
becomes collective appreciation, individual will evolves into group will, and
individual vision becomes a cooperative or shared vision for the organization.
AI helps create a deliberately supportive context for dialogue. It is through
the sharing of ideals that social bonding occurs. What makes AI different from
other OD methodologies at this phase is that every question is positive.

From Discovery to Dream

Second, participants Dream, or envision what might be. It occurs when the best
of “what is” has been identified; the mind naturally begins to search further
and to envision new possibilities. Valuing the best of “what is” leads to envi-
sioning what might be. Envisioning involves passionate thinking, creating a
positive image of a desired and preferred future. The Dream step uses the inter-
view stories from the Discovery step to elicit the key themes that underlie the
times when the organization was most alive and at its best.

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 Chapter 1: The Theoretical Basis of Appreciative Inquiry 7

Articulated Dream(s) to Design

Third, participants coconstruct the future by the Design of an organizational
architecture in which the exceptional becomes everyday and ordinary. This
design is more than a vision. It is a provocative and inspiring statement of
intention that is grounded in the realities of what has worked in the past com-
bined with what new ideas are envisioned for the future. It enhances the organ-
ization by leveraging its own past successes and successes that have been
experienced elsewhere with a “strategic intent.” Strategic intent signals what
the organizations wants more of and recognizes that the future is built around
what can be and what is.1

Design to Destiny
Fourth, the Design delivers the organization to its Destiny through innovation
and action. AI establishes a momentum of its own. Once guided by a shared
image of what might be, members of the organization find innovative ways to
help move the organization closer to the ideal. Again, because the ideals are
grounded in realities, the organization is empowered to make things happen.
This is important because it is precisely through the juxtaposition of visionary
content with grounded examples of the extraordinary that AI opens the status
quo to transformations via collective action. By seeking an imaginative and
fresh perception of organizations (as if seen for the very first time), the appre-
ciative eye takes nothing for granted, seeking to apprehend the basis of orga-
nizational life and working to articulate the possibilities for a better existence.

Part 2 of the book covers the 4-D Cycle of AI in detail.

The principles that underlie AI are deeply grounded in scientific research

(refer to “Positive Image, Positive Action: The Affirmative Basis of Organiz-
ing” in Chapter 11) and are highlighted in the remainder of this section in Mini-
lectures I–IX. While the practitioner need not have a thorough understanding
of these principles, it is often helpful when introducing AI to an organization
to provide some of the supporting theory and research. The following presen-
tation ideas are organized into nine brief mini-lectures. Each one refers to the
theoretical constructs on which AI is based. Practitioners can successfully intro-
duce AI by introducing and adapting these key concepts to the language and
culture of the organization.

1 deKluyver, C., & Pearce, J. A. (2006). Strategy: A view from the top. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall.

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