Who owns the gap? (Part one): Appreciative Inquiry as a diagnostic tool

Abstract

Purpose - The purpose of this paper is to report on the impact of Appreciative Inquiry on the diagnostic phase of a management development programme. A case study of an organisation delivering both further and higher education will be used to illustrate how the involvement of a management population in the diagnosis and design of the programme resulted in individual, team and organisational learning. The use of Appreciative Inquiry challenges conventional methods of diagnosis and evaluation. One year later a second Appreciative Inquiry was adapted to become an evaluation tool. The outcomes of this work will be reported in part two of this article. Design/methodology/approach - Appreciative Inquiry workshops involving 72 managers were used to encourage a collaborative approach to diagnostics prior to the launch of a management development programme. The workshops followed a four-stage structure. Small self-managed teams, with representation from different departments and levels of management, engaged in a diagnostic process with support from Lancaster facilitators. Findings - Participants discovered new working practices for exploring and solving organisational issues and challenges. Individuals learned from the teamwork and established new networks and sources of innovation. The benefits of a collaborative approach included greater clarity on strategies, priorities and rigorous alignment of management development needs to the mission of achieving outstanding status. Research limitations/implications - Participants of the management development programme were actively engaged in the diagnosis of learning and development needs. The diagnostic phase accelerated engagement with learning across a broad spectrum of managers and key organisational stakeholders. Practical implications - The use of Appreciative Inquiry as a diagnostic tool ensures that management development is firmly rooted in strategic priorities of the organisation. The approach ensures that all contributions are respected and this results in a higher quality dialogue across different parts of the organisation. Originality/value - The paper is original in presenting a management development programme diagnosed and evaluated by organisational members. The result was practical, cost effective and sustainable development which transferred capability to the organisation. Part two of this article will report on Appreciative Inquiry as an evaluation tool and provide evidence of the sustainability of individual, team and organisational learning.

Introduction and background

This paper presents evidence of the value of Appreciative Inquiry to individual and organisational development. A collaborative approach to diagnostics was taken with the top 72 managers in a college of Further and Higher Education in UK. The data generated by this management population resulted in a one-year management development programme between 2011-2012. An Appreciative Inquiry approach was used to structure the diagnostic process and engage managers in decisions about their own development and to ensure that development priorities were aligned to the strategic priorities of the college.

A second Appreciative Inquiry was carried out, one year later, with the original management population to evaluate the personal and organisational impact of the programme. This process generated powerful impact stories and significant evidence that the management development programme had been instrumental in creating a more collaborative culture across the organisation. There was evidence of improved performance at team and departmental level where the application of learning had resulted in more effective working relationships and practices. This evidence has subsequently been used to support a bid for outstanding status. The evaluation evidence from the second Appreciative Inquiry will be covered in part two of the article.

The key to success was the collaborative effort of 72 managers in diagnosing the development needs for both themselves and the organisation. Appreciative Inquiry brought a high level of engagement across the management population and accelerated the development of relationships, motivation and innovative problem solving.

Rationale for an Appreciative Inquiry approach

[1] Ready and Conger (2003) define three pathologies that impact an organisation's ability to achieve measurable returns on investment from development programmes; "ownership is power" mindset, productization of leadership development and make believe metrics. The practical implications of this research have been shaping our approach to learning design for some years. When we discussed diagnosis and design with key college stakeholders, we were confident that an Appreciative Inquiry approach would give us a wider level of engagement with management development before the programme started. Appreciative Inquiry stimulated a collaborative ethos from the onset and delivered an evaluation framework that ensured quality impact data charting individual, team and organisational performance.

Appreciative Inquiry delivered a means to avoid all three of Conger's pathologies. The management population conducted the diagnosis, contributed to programme design, engaged with sustainable learning processes and took ownership for delivering tangible outcomes.

What was the role of the facilitators?

Traditional methods of diagnosis tend to start and finish with a gap. The role of the consultant/development professional is to establish a performance gap and related development needs. This may involve interviews, focus groups, questionnaires and consultation with key organisational stakeholders etc. Traditionally, one of the benefits of employing an external has been seen as neutrality. In practice the external is not neutral and their expert power has an impact on the ownership of subsequent development initiatives. Groups of managers view learning and development as an additional burden in an over stretched work load. Or worse still, develop distrust and cynicism for the consultants intervening in their world.

Consider the issue from a manager's perspective. The external has found fault in the form of a gap. This gap is not necessarily owned by the managers. This gap forms a design specification which is used to recruit more externals to deliver development initiatives. The original "performance" gap is now morphing into a gap between the managers and their own learning and development. The role of the facilitators in this case study was to support the management population in the work of diagnosing the management development priorities that would deliver the college mission of outstanding status.

Facilitation involved creating a clear workshop purpose and structure, demonstrating behaviours needed for self-managed team work and guiding discussions. The power of Appreciative Inquiry is that it generates a climate where participants realise that they can "appreciate" themselves and their organisation. College managers responded well to the workshop process and started to appreciate their role in the cultural norms and assumptions that were hindering individual and team performance.

Our work as externals was focussed on facilitating a learning process that resulted in managers diagnosing individual, team and organisational development needs. The result was a coherent and strategically sound learning design framework.

Who owns the gap?

The case study illustrates a paradigm shift in diagnosis and learning design from development providers to participants. The design outcome is an integrated organisational development programme that addresses individual and team needs. The practical outcomes of our approach mirrors the contribution of [2] Tate (2009) who maps a critical shift from development programmes that focus on individuals to interventions which develop the organisation and the business its members are engaged in.

The 72 participants of the first Appreciative Inquiry had a collective voice about the style, content and process of their development. The learning and development gap was established as a positive outcome of structured discussions about organisational vision, mission and strategy. The process of the Appreciative Inquiry ensured that managers talked to colleagues across the organisation and worked through the implication of strategic priorities on their operational performance. Learning and development was tightly aligned to a tangible return on investment and a process for sustainability

Appreciative Inquiry as a diagnostic tool

In 2011, three workshops, on different days, were delivered to accommodate the operational realities of running a large educational establishment. The population of 72 managers were allocated to a core team of between six to eight members. Each workshop ran over a day and involved a series of practical exercises conducted in the core teams. The first exercises involved practising dialogue skills as a practical method to promote collaborative working. All members of the teams were encouraged to have a voice and the facilitators modelled the skills and behaviours required by the groups to conduct the Appreciative Inquiry.

The four stage structure of Appreciative Inquiry was briefed and core teams embarked on stage one. Each team had a spokesperson for plenary sessions but collating ideas and information was the joint responsibility of all team members. There were different level s of management in the core teams and we addressed the issue of hierarchy by promoting dialogue skills. The more senior team members were able to share their strategic view of the organisation. More junior members were able to ground the team in day to day realities. All team members were operating outside their normal working culture. The climate created in the workshops allowed them to explore old topics in new ways. Collaboration brought insights into new working practices. Some old patterns of interaction were challenged during these workshops.

For some team members working alongside their senior leaders was initially challenging and we devised exercises that promoted openness and appreciation of different contributions. Participant started to focus on the common goal which was to share views on the priorities for development. The atmosphere was fun, business like and practical. The quality of listening developed significantly over the day.

The teams decided that it was very important for all members, irrespective of style, power or role, to have a voice. Voice became a strong value in the early part of the programme and evolved into a key mantra throughout the subsequent management development programme.

Tangible outcomes

The Appreciative Inquiry outcomes from, all teams, were mapped against strategic priorities. This ensured that content and approach of the management development programme was fit for purpose. This alignment mapping also delivered a clear evaluation framework. The alignment process was later communicated back to the core teams and this consolidated the level of engagement in individual, team and organisational development. The key outcomes were:

- Management population acknowledged previous successes, learning and good working practice. The later management development programme was founded on positive values and behaviours rather than a solution created by an expert to solve a gap.

- Challenges and issues emerging from the workshops shaped team projects which later became a key structure in the management development programme. The use of project work as an aid to learning was therefore owned by the core teams and linked to organisational strategy.

- An evaluation framework was aligned to strategic priorities and learning and development outcomes. A year later the evaluation study was conducted by the core teams. Lancaster facilitated the events and collated the findings (see Part Two article).

- Cross departmental collaboration became a driver for working towards outstanding status. The diversity in the teams brought innovative and workable solutions.

- There emerged greater recognition from senior managers that their leadership role and style had a significant impact on the development of the organisation as well as the performance.

- Across all teams there was a growing realisation that all managers were responsible for cultural norms and behaviours.

- Coaching was agreed as a key tool for the management development programme. This resulted in the development of a pool of internal coaches trained and supervised by Lancaster.

- An unplanned outcome was noticed in the form of some collaborative solutions to operational issues. The process of dialogue and the structure of Appreciative Inquiry created climate in the workshops where a few quick wins to some day to day challenges.

Reflections and lessons learned

The quality of involvement of all managers during the workshops was very good. Participants enjoyed working in teams and sharing their ideas. The participants responded well to a process that appreciated them and their organisation. Our style was facilitative and reflective to avoid the trap of "telling" from an expert position. Appreciative Inquiry gave us the structure to stay back from advising on development needs or highlighting gaps in performance.

The decision to ask for multi-level and cross-functional teams paid off but required clear guidance from the facilitators on team process.

Conclusions

The application of Appreciative Inquiry to the diagnostic phase of a management development programme generates motivation and interest across a broad set of organisational stakeholders and reduces later cynicism to management development. The outcomes brought confidence in the programme design both for us as providers and the participants involved.

The management development programme delivered performance improvement, changes in working practices and an observable shift to a more collaborative culture. The Appreciative Inquiry approach delivered a quality diagnosis that resulted in a sustainable management development programme, the development of internal coaching capability and evaluation data for an OFSTED report.

Limitations

We have been challenged on the time and cost of adopting a collaborative approach to diagnosis with a substantial group of managers. The evidence indicates that Appreciative Inquiry is a more cost effective use of time and resource and ensures that the investment in development is wisely planned.

A collaborative approach is more challenging and the process requires trained and experienced facilitators. The evaluation data shared in the next article indicated that the benefits of the Appreciative Inquiry approach have been sustainable through the commitment to learning of the 72 managers involved.

References

1. Ready, D.A. and Conger, J.A. (2003), "Why leadership development efforts fail", MIT Sloan Management Review, Vol. 44 No. 3, pp. 83-88.

2. Tate, W. (2009), The Search for Leadership: An Organisational Perspective, Triarchy Press, Axminster.

Appendix

About the author

Dr Sally Watson is Director of Executive Education at Lancaster University Management School and specialises in the development of organisations and people to face the challenges of their operating environment. Sally Watson can be contacted at: [email protected]