Links to research evidence, books, and further resources mentioned in the Practical Coaching With Appreciative Inquiry book
Introduction
You can see the 100-item Clean Sweep Program form in The Clean Sweep Program Leaders Guide by Thomas Leonard (downloadable PDF from New Leaf Systems)
Christoph Flückiger and Martin Grosse, Focusing the therapist’s attention on the patient’s strengths: a preliminary study to foster a mechanism of change in outpatient psychotherapy (PDF download)
What Do We Mean When We Talk About Coaching?
Sir John Whitmore and Tiffany Gaskell, Coaching for Performance, 6th edition: The Principles and Practice of Coaching and Leadership: Fully Revised Edition
Open textured concepts: Joost Jacob Vecht, Open Texture Clarified, Inquiry: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Philosophy Volume 66, 2023 – Issue 6
The ‘Fixing Reflex’ (formerly known as the ‘Righting Reflex’ in Motivational Interviewing) – video by Roksana Anning
The ‘Critical Parent’ ego state subcategory – explained in this very quick overview of Transactional Analysis concepts
Behavioural reinforcement – from Wikipedia. If you’re interested in this method (widely used in animal training), Karen Pryor’s book Don’t Shoot the Dog!: The New Art of Teaching and Training is very readable.
David Clutterbuck on advice-giving in coaching: What is the difference between coaching and mentoring?
Shelle Rose Charvet, Words That Change Minds: The 14 Patterns for Mastering the Language of Influence (Third Edition)
Values affirmation – a lot of the research is summarised in this short article from Northeastern University: The Power of Affirming One’s Values
An Appreciative Approach to Coaching
NLP (Neuro-Linguistic Programming) – my own Practical NLP website and podcast is a good place to start
Solution-focused practice: there are a lot of good resources about solution focus on the BRIEF Centre for Solution Focused Practice website
David Cooperrider’s doctoral thesis, Appreciative inquiry: Toward a methodology for understanding and enhancing organizational innovation
Why We Assume That Something Is Working For Every Client
Sue Annis Hammond, The Thin Book of Appreciative Inquiry, 2nd Edition
The Neuroscience of Coaching
The Brain’s Built-in Negative Bias
Daniel Kahneman, Thinking, Fast and Slow
Negative Information Weighs More Heavily on the Brain
Ito, T. A., Larsen, J. T., Smith, N. K., & Cacioppo, J. T. (1998). Negative information weighs more heavily on the brain: The negativity bias in evaluative categorizations. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 75(4), 887–900.
Negative Bias In Decision Making (Kahnemann and Tversky’s Prospect Theory)
We believe bad news more
Baumeister, Roy F.; Finkenauer, Catrin; Vohs, Kathleen D. (2001). “Bad is stronger than good” (PDF). Review of General Psychology. 5 (4): 323–370.
More weight given to risks than opportunities in decision-making:
Ledgerwood, A., & Boydstun, A. E. (2013, March 25). Sticky Prospects: Loss Frames Are Cognitively Stickier Than Gain Frames. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General.
Negatives outweigh positives in forming an impression of a person: multiple studies
Links to more negative bias research and examples here: Why Your Brain Is Hardwired For Negativity, And What You Can Do About It
Two Opposing Networks in the Brain
Alice Isen’s experiment that enhanced physician’s clinical reasoning by giving them candy, described in Barbara Fredrickson’s article The Value of Positive Emotions
‘Coaching for compliance’ vs ‘coaching with compassion’: Richard Boyatzis and Anthony Jack, The neuroscience of coaching. Consulting Psychology Journal Practice and Research 70(1):11-27 · March 2018
Richard Boyatzis, Melvin L. Smith, and Ellen Van Oosten, Helping People Change: Coaching with Compassion for Lifelong Learning and Growth
Emotional state influences memory: State-dependent memory (Wikipedia entry)
Self-efficacy (Wikipedia entry)
Emotional states affect self-efficacy (1): Wu-jing He, Wan-chi Wong, Affective state contributes to creative self-efficacy: Evidence from an experimental study of emotion induction, Thinking Skills and Creativity Volume 45, September 2022, 101061
Emotional states affect self-efficacy (2): Irena Burić, Ana Slišković, Izabela Sorić, Teachers’ Emotions and Self-Efficacy: A Test of Reciprocal Relations, Frontiers in Psychology, Volume 11, 2020
Five Principles of Appreciative Inquiry (and what they mean in practice for coaching)
The Constructionist Principle
Social Constructionism: an academic explanation here, and my own non-academic overview of it (video and transcript) here
Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (from Wikipedia)
You’re influenced by more than just the 5 people you surround yourself with (research)
“We live in worlds our questions create” – David Cooperrider, quoted in Michelle McQuaid’s article Can We Create a Flourishing World? (the quote apparently comes from a podcast interview, but the link to it in the article no longer works).
The Anticipatory Principle
The ‘Law of Attraction’ – my own take on it, anyway
SMART goals (from Wikipedia)
Martin Seligman et. al., Navigating Into the Future or Driven by the Past (Perspectives on Psychological Science 8(2) 119–141) (PDF download)
Feeling good improves our cognitive capabilities: Barbara Fredrickson’s article The Value of Positive Emotions
The Poetic Principle
Confirmation bias – with an idea for how to reduce it
The Positive Principle
VUCA – from Wikipedia
Positive emotions improve our cognitive capabilities, Alice Isen’s experiment improving the clinical reasoning of physicians by giving them candy, and Barbara Fredrickson’s ‘article ‘Broaden and Build’ theory The Value of Positive Emotions
The Simultaneity Principle
David Cooperrider and Diana Whitney, Appreciative Inquiry: A Positive Revolution in Change
Three ‘Emergent’ Principles of Appreciative Inquiry (and how they work in coaching)
The Wholeness Principle
Diana Whitney and Amanda Trosten-Bloom, The Power of Appreciative Inquiry: A Practical Guide to Positive Change
‘Serial incongruity’, along with other forms of incongruity or ‘incongruence’
State dependent memory – from Wikipedia
The Enactment Principle
Steve Andreas, Transforming Your Self: Becoming who you want to be
Robert Cialdini’s Consistency Principle
The Free Choice Principle
ICF Core Competencies – old list (2021) and current list (2025)
The ‘5-D Format’
Jackie Stavros and Cheri Torres, Conversations Worth Having, Second Edition: Using Appreciative Inquiry to Fuel Productive and Meaningful Engagement
Sir John Whitmore and Tiffany Gaskell, Coaching for Performance, 6th edition: The Principles and Practice of Coaching and Leadership: Fully Revised Edition
SMART goals (from Wikipedia)
The Definition Stage
Jackie Stavros and Cheri Torres, Conversations Worth Having, Second Edition: Using Appreciative Inquiry to Fuel Productive and Meaningful Engagement
The Discovery Stage
Values (and how to clarify them)
The Dream Stage
The Miracle Question by Steve de Shazer (PDF download)
The Design Stage
What Happens in the Design Stage?
Mind Mapping (from Wikipedia)
Edward de Bono’s Six Thinking Hats
A Structured Idea-Generation Technique: the ‘Disney Strategy for Creativity’
In-depth explanation about the Disney Strategy and its origins by Robert Dilts and Judith DeLozier, from the Encyclopedia of Systemic Neuro-Linguistic Programming and NLP New Coding
The ‘inner critic’ (and how to disarm it)
Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP) – my own ‘Practical NLP’ website and podcast is a good place to start
Robert Dilts, Strategies of Genius: Volume I
Practical Appreciative Inquiry facilitator training with Andy Smith
Robert Dilts and Judith DeLozier, Encyclopedia of Systemic Neuro-Linguistic Programming and NLP New Coding
The Delivery Stage
‘Congruence’ – an explanation from an NLP point of view, and in the context of leadership
If the Client Doesn’t Know Where to Start
Inertia – some thoughts about overcoming it
Jonathan Altfeld’s ‘Genius Mapping’
How to Help Your Client Evaluate Their Chosen Actions
Research on ‘If-Then’ rules – Peter M. Gollwitzer and Paschal Sheeran, Implementation Intentions and Goal Achievement: A Meta-Analysis of Effects and Processes (December 2006), Advances in Experimental Social Psychology 38(6)
Other Useful Tools for Appreciative Coaching
Jackie Stavros and Cheri Torres, Conversations Worth Having, Second Edition: Using Appreciative Inquiry to Fuel Productive and Meaningful Engagement
‘Problem to Opportunity’ Exercise
The original ‘Problem to Opportunity’ exercise by Mac Odell (PDF download)
Tree vector illustration from pixabay.com
Coaching With the ‘Experience Cube’
‘Reality Tunnel’ – from Wikipedia
Gervase Bushe’s website – which has many useful articles on Appreciative Inquiry, Generative Leadership, and Dialogic Organisational Development
‘Mental maps’ and confirmation bias
Can observations be unconscious? It turns out they can, sometimes; see for example this Science Direct article on unconscious perception, or the neurological phenomenon of ‘blindsight’ (Wikipedia article)
‘Meta Model’ questions (from NLP)
Three downsides of the question ‘Why?’
No scientific consensus on a definition of emotion – various definitions from the Wikipedia page on ‘Emotion’
Without emotion, we can’t establish priorities and so can’t make decisions
Feelings also give us information – emotions as messages
State dependent memory – from Wikipedia
Reference experiences strengthen our beliefs and self-image
Emotional baggage – this article looks at different methods of dealing with it
‘Towards’ vs ‘Away-from’ motivation
Connirae and Tamara Andreas, Core Transformation: Reaching the Wellspring Within
‘Logical Levels of Change’
Robert Dilts on Logical Levels
Values affirmation – a lot of the research is summarised in this short article from Northeastern University: The Power of Affirming One’s Values
Preparing for Situations With the EQ Framework
An EI-based Theory of Performance: Daniel Goleman’s article explaining the ESCI model
Self-help methods to change emotional states
Naive realism (from Wikipedia)
Chuck Wolfe (LinkedIn profile)
The Mayer-Salovey-Caruso MSCEIT model of emotional intelligence
Scaling Questions: a Summary
I first came across scaling questions in Words Were Originally Magic by Steve de Shazer.
I also learned a lot about scaling from The Solutions Focus: Transforming change for coaches, leaders and consultants by Paul Z Jackson and Mark McKergow
There are some good resources about scaling questions on the BRIEF Centre for Solution Focused Practice website
The celebrated ‘one louder’ scene from This is Spinal Tap
What Next?
Listen and subscribe to the Positive Change Methods Podcast
The Positive Change Methods communities on Facebook and LinkedIn
My Appreciative Inquiry book recommendations
A list of Appreciative Inquiry resources
Subscribe to the Coaching Leaders Secrets newsletter
Take the Practical Appreciative Inquiry facilitator training