In life and in work, it is often easy to focus on what is going wrong than to consider what is going well. We accentuate the negative rather than the positive — and sometimes that can be the right thing to do. But focusing more on what's going well can open up avenues of advancing — in life as well as in work.
Peter Drucker, the father of modern management, considered positivity-based approaches to be powerful, both for individuals and organizations. There are choices that constantly present themselves, and how we make those choices becomes crucial for the future.
In any encounter or decision, we can choose actions that can further self-development and strengthen our organizations. Yet sometimes we are frustrated and stymied at work by perceived deficiencies, unwanted rules set by management, or unspoken laws of how things get done. In such situations, Drucker advised, ask yourself what you can do, rather what you can't. You may have more leeway or discretion than you've considered.
Appreciative Inquiry Inside and Outside the Workplace
A sense of appreciation is embodied in the theory of appreciative inquiry, originally developed in the 1980s by David Cooperrider and his colleagues at Case Western Reserve University Weatherhead School of Management. While it is primarily thought of as an organizational technique, it is well-suited to use by individuals inside or outside the workplace.
Appreciative inquiry is built on what its founders call a four-D cycle: discovery, dream, design, and destiny. The cycle involves analyzing the existing state, imagining what could be, considering how change can happen, and implementing new and different ways of doing things.
"Shortly before he died [in 2005], Peter Drucker and I discussed appreciative inquiry," Cooperrider told an interviewer in 2006. "He said: 'The task of leadership is to create an alignment of strengths in ways that make the system's weaknesses irrelevant.'"
"Just as we are conditioned to think in a causal way, we are also biased toward thinking of the world as problems to be solved," observes Emi Makino of Ritsumeikan APU in Japan, who, while getting her MBA and Ph.D. at the Drucker School of Management was a teaching assistant to Cooperrider during his tenure there. Her dissertation explored how appreciative inquiry can facilitate organizational knowledge creation, Makino reports in her book, Innovation Makers: How Campus Makerspaces Can Empower Students to Change the World. "We rarely try to carefully consider what is working."
At its most basic, appreciative inquiry emphasizes what you do well, rather than what you do poorly. This perfectly aligns with Drucker's idea of focusing on your strengths, rather than on your weaknesses, and building from there. Despite bouts of negativity, people inherently want to do good work and make positive changes, Drucker believed. We can gain power and strength by learning more about what we do well, and learning about islands of excellence that already exist within the workplace.
Positive Psychology and Powerful Questions
Appreciative inquiry is allied with positive psychology, which also focuses on what's right rather than what's wrong, as envisioned and practiced by visionaries such as Martin E. P. Seligman and the late Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, author of Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience.
Appreciative inquiry further aligns with Drucker's focus on formulating and asking powerful questions, which can then lead to innovative insights. Such inquiry can sharpen and focus our minds about what we already have, what we are doing well, and what we can learn from people who are also doing things well.
Developing Gratitude
Practicing appreciative inquiry on an ongoing basis can help us take stock of and develop gratitude for what we already have in life and at work. According to leadership advisor Lolly Daskal, "It's not that happy people are thankful but the other way around — thankful people are happy. Remember that someone desperately wishes they had the things that you take for granted. Enjoy the richness of what you have."