Currently I’m in the middle of reviewing an excellent book by Sarah Lewis – Practical Appreciative Inquiry: A Toolkit for Applying Appreciative Inquiry to Organisational Challenges, Opportunities, and Aspirations.
(Astute readers will have noticed that it has the same main title as my own book. Apparently the publishers decided on the title before mine came out in 2023, but because of the glacial speed that the old-school publishing industry moves at, it’s only just been released).
As it turns out, the books are complimentary, as they deal with different applications of Appreciative Inquiry – mine is about working with teams and small groups, while Sarah’s is about larger-scale organisational development. I’ll do a full review of it soon, but in the meantime I’ll just say that if you’re involved in OD, you will definitely benefit from buying it.
The Nature of Conversations
One very useful idea I’ve got from Sarah’s book already is actually a reminder of an idea from Conversations Worth Having, by Jackie Stavros and Cheri Torres – but presented as a diagram that makes it easy to remember, rather than as a table.
Inquiry versus Statement-based Conversations
We can classify different types of conversation along two axes: Inquiry versus Statement, and Appreciative versus Depreciative.
Inquiry is motivated by curiosity – we ask questions to find out information or to learn. This could be about to learn about how the other person sees the world, or just to get information about what has happened or what’s going on.
Statements, on the other hand, are about imparting information, whether these are facts we want the other person to know, or more subjective: how we feel, our value judgements on the subject under discussion, or our guesses about what’s going on.
Appreciative versus Depreciative Conversations
The other axis runs from Appreciative versus Depreciative. ‘Appreciative’ conversations will have a positive effect on the other person, helping to build their confidence and strengthen relationships. This could be by imparting useful information, giving them an affirming ‘pat on the back’, or sharing helpful new perspectives.
‘Depreciative’ conversations have the opposite effect. Examples include criticism (even if it’s framed as ‘constructive criticism’), sarcasm, hostile interrogation, and even insults.
Which type of conversation would you rather be participating in? It may seem like the answer is obvious (“The Appreciative kind!”) but let’s tease out some nuances.
On the ‘Depreciative’ side, how damaging or demotivating the effect of being on the receiving end would be depends partly on how you feel about the person making the destructive statements or asking the critical questions. If you don’t have much respect for them, you could even take it as feedback that you’re on the right track (“Good, I’m annoying the right people!”).
But if you care what they think – if the Depreciative questions or statements come from someone you like, or someone in a position of power over you, it can be a very unpleasant experience. In the case of statements, negative value judgements from someone whose opinion you care about feel bad enough, while statements of inconvenient facts that you’d missed, or were hoping wouldn’t be discovered, can feel even worse, especially if they come as a surprise. Even setting out the evidence against an idea or belief of yours can feel like an attack, especially if you take it personally.
‘Depreciative Inquiry’ can feel like an interrogation – still more so if it leads you to uncomfortable realisations on your part. Nobody likes to discover that they have been wrong about something, especially something they care about (which is why it’s hard to change minds by rational argument). If you’ve made a mistake or ethical mis-step that you were hoping wouldn’t come to light, you will most likely be strongly motivated to avoid being questioned about it, and to bring the conversation to an end as soon as possible.
At the ‘Appreciative’ end of the scale, statements and inquiry have different effects. Receiving compliments or affirmation feels good -although they can easily be shrugged off if you don’t value the opinion of the person giving them. In any case, our brains usually register negatives more strongly than positives, so in a 50-50 mix of affirmative and critical comments, it’s the critical ones that will stand out.
Inquiry-based appreciative conversations have more impact. If we’re asked about how we did something well, or for stories about how we applied an ability, it forces us to think about our strengths and take them them more seriously. Normally we take the things we’re good at for granted; being asked about them in detail may help us recognise patterns or even lead to new ideas, so the conversation has a generative effect. As Marcus Buckingham and Ashley Goodall point out in their bestseller Nine Lies About Work: A Freethinking Leader’s Guide to the Real World, a “Good job!” from your manager (a ‘Statement’, of course) is usually the entirety, whereas it should be just the start of the conversation.
Jackie Stavros and Cheri Torres characterise the top left quadrant of the diagram – appreciative questions and dialogue – as ‘conversations worth having’ (the title of their book). They also say that critical inquiry and affirmative statements can sometimes be conversations worth having up to a point, while they dismiss conversations that consist of critical statements and comments as ‘not worth having’.
Questions for You to Consider
- Think about the conversations you have – in work or outside work. When do you have each type of conversation? How could you make more of your conversations appreciative and inquiry based?
- When are affirmative (appreciative/statement-based) conversations worth having? What is the point at which they stop being useful?
- When are critical (depreciative/inquiry based) conversations worth having? What is the point beyond which they stop being useful?
