Putting on Your Explorer Cap: Appreciative Inquiry for the Compensation Pro

In the wake of my post last week about the law of the instrument and the ensuing discussion about embracing an explorer's mentality in our work, I had a conversation with a colleague that brought Appreciative Inquiry back to mind.

I first encountered Appreciative Inquiry a number of years ago when I was on a personal development quest, trying to supplement my technical compensation background with the soft skills necessary to deploy it most effectively.  Several people recommended AI and I decided to give it a try, to the tune of an all-day workshop, several articles and a book purchase.

A non-expert overview for the uninitiated:  Appreciative Inquiry was introduced by David Cooperrider and his associates at Case Western Reserve University in the 1990's.  At its essence, AI is an approach that focuses on discovering what an organization does well and then looking for ways to do more of that.  AI presents itself as an alternative, even a mirror image, of traditional problem solving approaches which seek to find what doesn't work and then figure out ways to do less of or fix it.

A similar philosophy of inquiry is touted in Dan and Chip Heath's Switch, my favorite change management book.  The Heath Brothers advocate a discovery process centered on finding "bright spots", a search for examples of success which has its foundation in the question "what is working and how can we do more of it?"

In Switch, this approach is illustrated with a powerful story about Jerry Sternin, an employee of Save the Children, the international organization that helps children in need.  In 1990, Jerry was asked to open a new office in Vietnam, invited in by the government to fight malnutrition.  He arrived with his family, minimal staff and almost no money, to face an overwhelming and complex set of problems and a deadline of six months to make a difference. 

Rather than taking on the enormous and intertwined set of problems - from poverty to sanitation - which contributed to malnutrition, Sternin tried a different approach.  He traveled to rural villages, enlisted teams of local mothers and sent them out to weigh and measure every child in each village.  He asked them to identify any very, very poor children who were bigger and healthier than average - the bright spots.  Then Sternin and his team of moms went into the homes of the bright-spot kids and observed the way these homes were run.  Their observations yielded insights.  There were unexpected differences in the style, frequency and content with which bright-spot mothers fed their children.

Armed with these insights, Sternin helped community members organize cooking groups where malnourished families would meet at a hut in their village each day and prepare food together, following the basic but specific practices modeled by the bright-spot mothers.  Six months after Sternin had come to Vietnam, 65% of the kids in the affected villages were better nourished - and later research shows that the practices (and the improvements) stuck.

The point of the story is the power of the positive, which is what distinguishes Appreciative Inquiry as an organizational tool. 

How does this relate to our discussion of the law of the instrument and exploration?  While those of us in the comment stream acknowledged the importance of truly understanding organizational challenges before putting a compensation fix in place, we all encounter resistance to the exploration that this demands.  Here's where a shift in mindset and approach may help us.  Leaders and line managers may be more open to our exploratory conversations and information gathering efforts if they believe we are coming from a (genuine) place of appreciation and positive regard for the good things they are doing rather than simply trying to sniff out their mistakes.

Interested in learning more?  Great information on Appreciative Inquiry can be found in The Thin Book of Appreciative Inquiry and the AI Commons at Case Western Reserve University.

Ann Bares is the Founder and Editor of the Compensation Café,  Author of Compensation Force and Managing Partner of Altura Consulting Group LLC, where she provides compensation consulting to a range of client  organizations.  Ann was recently named President Elect of the Twin Cities Compensation Network (the most awesome local reward network on the planet) and has joined the Advisory Board of the Compensation & Benefits Review, the leading journal for those who design, implement, evaluate and  communicate total rewards.  She earned her M.B.A. at Northwestern  University’s Kellogg School, is a bookhound and aspiring cook in her spare time.  Follow her on Twitter at @annbares.

Creative Commons image "Steampunk Explorer Hat" by holysmokinkitty

Comments

[Jacque Vilet]

This tends to be helpful when reviewing results of engagement surveys and employee focus groups. Identify the good things that employees appreciate and do more of those. Focusing on the good things is also more positive for executives than having a bunch of bad things laid out in front of them. Presenting all the bad news is a downer and makes it seem like things are so bad the company can't ever dig itself out of the hole.

[Dan Walter]

Thanks for the great reminder Ann. Too often companies "throw out the baby with the bath water." In an attempt to fix something bad, they destroy something good.

[Ann Bares]

Jacque and Dan:

Thanks - good points. And while an overall mindset of positive focus has its strengths in any part of our work within an organization - what my colleague reminded me about is the fact that beginning in that way can help overcome many of the obstacles and resistance to discovery that keep many of us "locked out". It is particularly in that spirit that I shared this info.

[John A Bushfield]

Appreciative Inquiry is a very powerful approach that has multiple applications for developing (improving) organizational cultures. Think performance evaluations, communication strategies, development plans, and, of course, compensation design.

Simply focusing on the good stuff reduces the bad stuff over time. Isn't that what everybody is striving for?

[Ann Bares]

John:

It sure is! And while (I think) there is surely bad stuff out there that is sufficiently bad as to require a more direct intervention, I think we do overlook the value of what a positive focus can accomplish for us!

Interesting that one of the tweets of this post noted that Compensation and Appreciative Inquiry make "strange bedfellows". To the extent that this is true, it is probably not to our credit, eh?

Thanks for the comment!