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Product Description
Review
"This book is a gift to organization development practitioners. It takes us forward both professionally and personally. It challenges us to shift our perspectives, and deepens our understanding of organizations as organic systems. The book provides practical guidance--and encouragement--to creating sustainable change in large complex systems. Jane Watkins and Bernard Mohr are generous in sharing their wisdom and experience. In doing so they place on us tremendous responsibility for the fate of change efforts through our choice of approach to inquiry."--Cynthia Haddock, senior change advisor, The World Bank Group
Book Description
Tap into the rich and inspiring "high point" accounts of personal or collective capacity and link this "positive core" to any change agenda. Once you have have determined what is really working, transformations never thought possible are rapidly and democratically mobilized.
"This is a book about the future of organization development. It is a practical guide to appreciative inquiry for organization leaders and organization development professionals and it is a comprehensive explanation at the speed of imagination." --Peter Sorensen, professor and director of the Ph.D. program in organization development and master of science program in management and organization behavior, Benedictine University
"AS WE ENTER THE 21st CENTURY, there has been a fundamental shift in how we see and experience the world." Read the first page
Concordance
Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Index | Back Cover
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Most helpful customer reviews
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful
3.0 out of 5 stars
AI is a technique, enveloped by a theory...,
By
This review is from: Appreciative Inquiry: Change at the Speed of Imagination (Paperback)
Appreciative Inquiry is a method for getting the best, most positive, upbeat, and energizing images of your organization to the fore. AI contrasts to problem-focused inquiry, which usually provokes blame and evasion. A large cadre of Organizational Development and Human Resources types has developed AI, and they swear by its positive effects. The book contains nearly two dozen case examples of AI interventions, ranging from small organization to large multi-national corporations. The authors present a coherent theory (social constructionism) and method to bolster AI's techniques. It has much in common with post-modern psychotherapy, the construction of "magic solutions" ("best practices" in their terms), and centering on the individuals' perspectives (rather than some larger, "objective" truth) about an organization. It is clear that you have to be sophisticated to do AI interventions. One imagines that you should belong to an AI network, be thoroughly trained, and be supervised. The AI intervention probably does not work without the requisite OD/HR training and perspective. If you are interested, this is your textbook. I found the book moderately difficult to read and digest, partly because the authors have created such an elaborate theory behind the intervention. The authors are less than candid about "failed" interventions (p. 206), and terms like "co-creating" and "sociotechnical" (what?). I came away from this book believing that AI is something like Public Discourse applied to businesses. If you want to use this book, plan on studying it in detail and enrolling in AI workshops.
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
3.0 out of 5 stars
Elegant but with some limitations...,
By
This review is from: Appreciative Inquiry: Change at the Speed of Imagination (Paperback)
Appreciative Inquiry fits within recent "modern mediation theory" and Public Discourse techniques. I cannot add more to what previous reviewers have said (above), but note only that the techniques are more difficult to apply than the authors indicate and require all parties in the discussion to be committed to the end-result. AI techniques cannot work in groups where there are power vacuums or undisclosed power grabbing and coaltion-formation.
5.0 out of 5 stars
Combining theory and practice with great art,
By Robert Legris, Ph.D. (Wakefield, Quebec, Canada) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Appreciative Inquiry: Change at the Speed of Imagination (Paperback)
With a growing literature that deals with Appreciative Inquiry (AI), a truly revolutionary way of moving our organization, in their book Magruder Watkins and Mohr have accomplished more to help organization development consultants and managers to understand the potential of AI than any other book currently in print.Appreciative Inquiry: Change at the Speed of Imagination covers the subject by alligning both the theoretical concepts to practical applications. It is very well written and presented with a great flow. To the novice to AI it gives all the key elements to get started, for the more seasoned consultant and manager in the field of AI, it gives new ideas and opens up possibilities for further exploration. It is not be the only book on Appreciative Inquiry but it is at the very top of my reading list on this dynamic subject. When I recommend readings to students of AI, Appreciative Inquiry: Change at the speed of imagination, is the only book they need to read. Congratulations to Jane Magruder Watkins and Bernard Mohr, they have produced the best book on AI that is available today.
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