Think of all the team meetings you’ve attended in your working life. Chances are that they didn’t represent a high point in your career. Leaving aside the basic fact that managers tend to like meetings a lot more than ‘makers’…
How To Use Appreciative Inquiry Without A Formal 5D Cycle (1): Ask For Best Practice Stories
Do you want to get started using Appreciative Inquiry confidently with teams? A new Practical Appreciative Inquiry online training starts soon – click here to get the details and how to book Reading the excellent book Conversations Worth Having: Using Appreciative…
How To Stop Your Boss From Inadvertently Screwing Up Your Meeting
I wonder if you’ve found yourself in a situation like this? Recently one of my former Appreciative Inquiry students called me to get some advice. She was running an ideas generation meeting, using Appreciative Inquiry as a broad framework. Her…
Are You A Leader? Here’s The Most Important Thing You Can Do To Combat Anxiety In Uncertain Times
Here’s the most effective way you can reduce speculation and combat anxiety in your team during the coronavirus pandemic.
How To Align Your Team Members With Your Goals
How do you make sure your team members are all aligned with the team’s goals? Step one is to make sure that you are clear on your vision for the team. You need to bring it to life in your…
How To Build Things That Last – Podcast Interview
I’ve been interviewed by Judy Rees for her Collaboration Dynamics podcast. I thought I didn’t have much to say about collaboration (as I think I usually do my best work solo), until Judy reminded me that I’d created what apparently…
How To Heal ‘Us And Them’ Rivalries
Ideas for eliminating ‘us and them’ thinking and damaging rivalries between teams and divisions within the same organisation. (Note: this article does not deal with worker/management mistrust, as the power relations involved add a whole other dimension, although some of…
When to use Appreciative Inquiry – and when not to
Appreciative Inquiry (AI) is an attractive approach to change for many reasons; it generates results fast, it engages people, it liberates creativity, it moves away from ‘blame culture’, and – not least – it feels good to focus on the…
How To Engage Your Young Talent At The Start Of A New Job Or Project
While thinking about the challenges of managing ‘Generation Y’ or ‘Millennials’, I came across this excellent article on the HBR blog by Chris Resto, author of ‘Recruit or Die: How Any Business Can Beat the Big Guys in the War…
Business-friendly Appreciative Interview Format
If you’ve looked at the ‘traditional’ appreciative interview format set out in most books about Appreciative Inquiry, you might have decided it wasn’t quite something you could use in a work context. Too touchy-feely, you may have thought, or too…