Companies turning to appreciative inquiry to ask staff what’s right?

BROOMFIELD — Two years ago, if window blind manufacturer Hunter Douglas had a production line problem, workers would discuss it, propose solutions, then fix it.

But solving problems that way, as Hunter Douglas leaders saw it, focused too much on the problem. The company has 18 production lines running 24 hours a day.

“Historically, American businesses look at problem-solving with a mind set of what’s wrong’,´ said Michael Burns, vice president of human resources at Hunter Douglas. “If you look at everything else that’s right, 17 production lines are working well.”

In spring 1997 the company began a major shift to this glass half full’ philosophy. In a workplace method known as appreciative inquiry, or AI, a consultant did a series of very special interviews with key personnel.

Doing the interviews, and other pieces of the appreciative inquiry method, led to increased communication and higher productivity, Burns said.

“It works on the theory that human beings want to do things that feel good,´ said Amanda Trosten-Bloom, principal consultant with Clearview Consultants of Golden. Trosten-Bloom is helping Hunter Douglas learn how to use appreciative inquiry.

In the course of an appreciative inquiry “intervention,” employees and managers are asked carefully worded interview questions that lead them to answer in the affirmative. Interviewers ask employees and managers to remember everything about their peak experiences at work, then ask how those events happened.

An important idea of appreciative inquiry is that change begins in corporate culture in the course of the interview. Creating change right away creates more immediate payback, said Trosten-Bloom.

Hunter Douglas starting learning about AI in 1996. Company officials initially contacted Trosten-Bloom and asked if she’d help them with a little team building. Once she saw that the company wanted to avoid old baggage in the course of their team building exercises, AI came up as a better way to accomplish their goal, she said.

Mandatory overtime during the Christmas holiday season was a pressing issue for the company at the time of the change. Additional work is necessary throughout the season, but employees weren’t happy that it was required during the holiday season. AI training sessions, including one that involved several hundred employees, helped Hunter Douglas solve the problem.

“The issue (mandatory overtime) was worked on by a special group. This year we had no mandatory overtime. We built a new schedule and let people sign up. Productivity was up, and work quality was up,” Burns said.

AI was developed in the 1970s at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland. Today, adherents range from national corporation GTE and the Institute for Global Excellence and Management, which worked in South Africa for organizations that worked against apartheid, to Colorado-based Front Range Community College, which has campuses in Longmont, Fort Collins and Westminster.

At the rapidly growing Front Range Community College, AI is being used to create a process of organizational renewal to focus on what employees have and expanding it, said John Chin, assistant vice president for advanced planning and effectiveness.

“You grow from one small campus to five sites, a handful of people to over 1,000. With such huge growth you need a shared vision and focus of direction so you all know where you are going,” he said.

In December, the college hosted a reception to bring the method to those businesses the college helps with organizational training.

on Facebook on LinkedIn