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Appreciative Inquiry (AI) is a way of being and seeing. It is both a worldview and a process for facilitating positive change in human systems, e.g., organizations, groups, and communities. Its assumption is simple: Every human system has something that works right--things that give it life when it is vital, effective, and successful. AI begins by identifying this positive core and connecting to it in ways that heighten energy, sharpen vision, and inspire action for change. As AI consultant Bernard J. Mohr says, "Problems get replaced with innovation as conversations increasingly shift toward uncovering the organization's (or group's, or community's) positive core."
AI was pioneered in the 1980s by David Cooperrider and Suresh Srivastva, two professors at the Weatherhead School of Management at Case Western Reserve University. AI consultants around the world are increasingly using an appreciative approach to bring about collaborative and strengths-based change in thousands of profit and nonprofit organizations and communities in more than 100 countries.
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Appreciative Inquiry provides leaders with a methodology to focus on the positive instead of the negative. Rather than focusing mainly on problems, it elicits solutions. I...hope that community college [and other] leaders realize the potential for this valuable tool
George R. Boggs, Ph.D.
President and CEO
American Association of Community Colleges, Washington, D.C.
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