Probing Into the Journey of Appreciative Inquiry Towards Organizational Development: Challenges and Solution

Introduction

The simple assumption of Appreciative Inquiry is that organizations all around the globe has something that works well, which becomes their point of initiation for generating positive vibrations. Appreciative Inquiry promotes learning, innovation and understanding in organization arrangement and process. Appreciative Inquiry refers to:-

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  Finding a holistic knowledge base

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  Team building actions designed to achieve the vision of the organization and society as a whole

Appreciating is an art of valuing those elements that generate positive environment in a group or organization. The process involved in AI includes storytelling and interviewing to dig the best of the past and discovering what one wants.

Appreciative Inquiry works on following propositions:-

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  Begin with appreciation: - The main focus of the organization should be that they should begin with appreciation which gives life to the system.

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  AI should result in plethora of knowledge: - The ultimate goal of the organization should be to yield information that is applicable.

In early nineties, the approach which organizations had used for solving problems was deficit-based approach which works on the philosophy of finding the weak link in the system; AI, on the other hand, follows affirmative approach changing the organizational challenges in positive light by identifying good in organization as described in table. Paradigm shift in organizations dealing with challenges with AI approach: