Build On ‘golden Moments’ To Drive Business Success

SPECIAL REPORT

Build on ‘golden moments’ to drive business success By Loretta L. Donovan

ell me about the best day you’ve ever had in your business, and I’ll lead you to years of success. Everyone has a golden moment, a project they’re most proud of, a client success that blew out all the stops, a service achievement that demonstrated what their small business was destined to deliver. How does it feel to remember that story? If you’re like most people, recalling a high point is like reliving it. You experience the rush of excitement, the sense of accomplishment, the pride and joy of hard work, and the courage to know you can do great things against all odds. Hidden in your stories and those of your clients, employees and vendors are elements of unrealized achievement, sub-atomic particles that, when fused together, create a powerful engine of success. Let me explain how.

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About 10 years ago, I came across an approach to business planning that has literally changed my life and my work. It’s called Appreciative Inquiry (AI). Simply stated, the approach begins by examining the best of what you have already done, so you will come to understand your own patterns for high performance. This is not pop psychology; it’s research-based organization development. First identified by David Cooperrider at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Appreciative Inquiry has been applied globally over the last two decades in businesses such as Avon Mexico, Roadway Express, Green Mountain Coffee, Hunter Douglas Window Fashions and the BBC. Some of the most well known NGOs, including Girl Scouts of the USA and the United Nations, have adopted this approach as they addressed, respectively, internal-management consulting and world affairs. The backbone of Appreciative Inquiry is the 5-D process. First, Define, with the assistance of a consultant and the sponsors of a project, what it is that needs attention. Second, Discover, through one-on-one inter10 STRATEGIES DECEMBER 2006

views among stakeholders (clients, employees, vendors, etc.), their stories of exceptional moments in your company, and glean them for trends that indicate core strengths that can be replicated and reapplied. Use those trends as the starting point to express a reality-based Dream that pushes the boundaries of everyone’s imagination. Reach agreement on a set of compelling new operating principles that will be the inspiration and benchmarks for the Design and alignment of the people processes and structures, and technical systems that will bring your future to life. Finally, Deliver on that vision by embedding the process of story-sharing, trendmonitoring, benchmarking to operating principles, and adjusting the processes, structures, and systems to stay the course. Appreciative Inquiry helps teams and organizations discover and amplify the root causes of their success. It is a systematic search for what gives “life” to an organization — that which is most effective, most purposeful and which contains the most potential for mobilizing members’ energies for positive change.

The impetus behind Appreciative Inquiry is building from a position of strength. Focusing on what works within a system, the participants in an AI delve into the circumstances and elements that have brought about success in the past. They find the positive core that was previously unseen and base their aspirations for achievement upon it. Energized by confidence that they can bring about more of the excellence they have previously achieved, they design the practices, roles and parameters that ensure achievement. When reviewing the past, many companies ask questions such as, “What are the problems? What hasn’t worked?” AI asks questions such as, “Think of a time when this unit has performed superbly: What conditions were present at those moments? What organizational changes would allow more of those conditions to prevail?” This simple shift in perspective constitutes a powerful intervention in its own right that can begin nudging the organization in the direction of those questions — and toward significant innovation. AI comes out of a belief that what we ask about, we get more of. It’s a commitment to the crafting of “unconditionally positive questions” which have the power to enable members to develop visions for their organizations which surprise them in their boldness and which elicit their best energies and creativity as they design and plan ways to bring those visions to life. MOMENTUM FOR CHANGE

The momentum for changing the course of a business, and ultimately, the outcomes it achieves, begins in the Definition phase. During this pivotal moment, the topics that will SUBSCRIPTIONS • EDUCATION • CONSULTING