23 November 2005

Positive Assignments

Mr. Yogi arrives in Dubai tonite! It is overwhelming to be able to work with such a guru of the Organization Development world. We are working as colleagues on our first client of the Middle East O1.

Getting back to the change process of O1, we are ready to conduct individual interviews of all members in the leadership team. Mr. Yogi will now have the luxury of working with each individual in person rather than through the virtual world. To prepare for team spirit, we are assigning simple tasks to the team to get their thoughts going about working with other team members. Assignment 1: List three most positive qualities of each team member including yourself. This would serve the dual purpose of documenting where leaders in the company lack interaction with others, as well as get them to think positively about their colleagues.

We only focus on the positive for deep change to occur. It is not constructive going into a recruit with negative and weak points about everyone in your head. It is indeed possible to be realistic and positive at the same time. Realism is often associated with pessimism, suffering, and impossibilities. The reality behind Appreciative Inquiry thinking is just the opposite and holds clear validity.

Appreciative Inquiry philosophy is the way of the future. Gone is the old model of Organizational 'Diagnosis' and negative problem-solving approaches, which leave the organization more drained rather than fulfilled. An organization's chances of achieving dramatic change for its desired vision are significantly greater when the following belief-system is applied by Change Agents:

"Appreciative Inquiry is about the coevolutionary search for the best in people, their organizations, and the relevant world around them. In its broadest focus, it involves systematic discovery of what gives “life” to a living system when it is most alive, most effective, and most constructively capable in economic, ecological, and human terms."
Source: A Positive Revolution in Change: Appreciative Inquiry by David L. Cooperrider and Diana Whitney.

Upon delivering the assignment to each team member personally, one particular member could not find anything positive to say. That's how frustrating it can be for people who dwell and work in an environment that forces its members to shut the positive and focus on looming problems all the time, where solutions are temporary and worked out only out of anger, ego, and a lack of committment to the organization's true state of being.

We are bringing in the positive. We intend to help O1 deal with negativity in positive ways. This is the future of successful organizations.

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