Appreciative Principles: the DNA of Appreciative Practice

Finally, beloved, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is pleasing, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence and if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things.––Philippians 4:8

A principle is a "basic truth, law, or assumption," my dictionary says. According to Whitney and Trosten-Bloom, eight principles¹² represent the essential values and assumptions made in appreciative inquiry, defining notions without which AI would be mischaracterized. Like any self-respecting product of American higher education, I approached these principles analytically at first, inspired by them but having lots of questions.

Living with the principles for several years has been instructive. Each one offers a particular insight into knowing, individually and in relationship. In this short space the principles can only be summarized and set next to what Watkins and Mohr identify as "generic processes" characterizing appreciative projects. They devote a chapter to bringing these principles and processes together in what they call the discipline’s DNA.

The Constructionist Principle. From social constructionism comes the assumption that what we know about ourselves and how we know it is fateful because it so influences how we understand and relate to God, ourselves, our personal past, and our potential future. Being offered safe ways to relate personally to people who were strangers, for instance, is not only a pleasure—it enriches us and opens new possibilities for the future. Taking personal as well as corporate responsibility for what we know and how we know is the implicit suggestion of the constructionist principle, and doing so opens up new universes.

The Simultaneity Principle. This principle suggests that inquiry and change, learning and formation, happen simultaneously. When the first question is asked in any inquiry, change begins; the nature of that initial query, its assumptions, even its tone and overtones, will significantly shape and influence the outcome. Start any organizational study with a deficit analysis, detailing how failure has spread its ugly stain, and at the end of the day you are liable to have even less trust in the room and a magnified sense of breakdown. Start the same inquiry with an asset analysis, discovering what works well even during bad times, and you are liable to get to the end of the day with a sense of blessing, renewed trust, and unexpected enrichment.

The Anticipatory Principle. This principle acknowledges how much the images and notions we put forward act as self-fulfilling prophesies. The athlete visually imagines crossing the finish line in front and does. Teacher expectations of students, redundant research attests, exceed intelligence or parental support as the most important predictor of a student’s success. Expectation, in other words, is yeasty, an actual creative force influencing what is to come. It should not go unexamined or underutilized.

Attending to the complex relationships between the best of what was, what is, what can be, and what will be—bridging memory’s treasures with high visions of the future—is inspiring and remarkably generative. And, as they say in an appreciative Nepalese rural development project involving tens of thousands of villagers, "What you look for is what you find," and "Where you think you are going is where you are going."¹³

The Poetic Principle. Great poems, like people, cannot be captured by a single explanation. The poetic principle assumes that, as a poem can be read and interpreted in multiple ways, so relationship and community can be generated and understood in endlessly valuable and authentic ways. The principle gives us "permission" to understand the past and influence the future in terms of our own languages and experience, our deepest passions and commitment—and to become co-creators of this many-faceted world. Collaborating with fellow travelers at this level is a measure of a life well lived.

Wrapped implicitly within the poetic principle is a spiritually grounded respect for every human being, an assumption that, given the opportunity and the context, every person is a poet and an embodied poem, capable of unique discoveries, novel syntheses, and gifts for enriching relationships with other human beings.

The Positive Principle. This principle extends Cooperrider’s discovery in the early eighties and should not be confused with "the power of positive thinking." The "positive core" AI practitioners ask about is the essential goodness or value in a person, relationship, community, project, or goal. In the appreciative journey from fishing for best memories to embodying best visions, the positive core is the life-giving source of energy, the container holding everything together and making it significant to us. Identifying and supporting that positive core in asset-based language, exploring it with all the epistemological tools at our disposal—personal dialogue, history, dreams, imagination, reflection, analysis, and artistic expression—lends appreciative work its passion and excitement.

At first read, these principles may seem unrelated, lacking symmetry or an integral logic. Theorists have begun considering such symmetry, and the spiritual implications of the discipline are inspiring discussion.¹⁴ Perhaps a unified appreciative theory will emerge.

However, organization development consultants who have mastered AI 101 and are committed to the approach tell different stories about AI’s intellectual root structure than do therapists with similar experience and commitments. The poetic principle suggests that these stories may all be true and useful, mutually inclusive in the development of a new discipline. The principles themselves remain open-ended, available for thousands of different environments and applications, though more comfortably set within Wheatley’s world than Newton’s.

The Power of Appreciative Inquiry by Whitney and Trosten-Bloom exemplifies this sense of an alive, still developing discipline by proposing three additional principles (listed below), all based on the authors’ work as practitioners.¹⁵

The Wholeness Principle. This principle claims that "the experience of wholeness brings out the best in people, relationships, communities, and organizations." Wholeness, related etymologically to healing, is never a "singular story" but "a compilation of multiple stories, shared and woven together by the many people involved." Rather than focusing on commonalities, we learn to enjoy our differences, which leads to "higher ground rather than common ground."

The Enactment Principle. This principle observes that "acting 'as if' is self-fulfilling," pointing to visionaries like Gandhi, Martin Luther King, Jr., Martha Graham, and Franklin D. Roosevelt, whose strength came from living their dreams in their daily lives. The claim is that "transformation occurs by living in the present what we most desire in the future" or, "more simply, positive change comes about as images and visions of a more desired future are enacted in the present."

The Free Choice Principle. According to this principle, "people and organizations thrive when people are free to choose the nature and extent of their contribution." Allowing people to self-select their engagement and focus on their own interests as they get involved, "liberates both personal and organizational power."

12. The first five of these principles, say Whitney and Trosten-Bloom on page 53 of The Power of Appreciative Inquiry: A Practical Guide to Positive Change, are derived directly from the early writing of Cooperrider and Srivastva (Appreciative Management and Leadership, 1990). The other three were added by Whitney and Trosten-Bloom themselves and are presented in their book The Power of Appreciative Inquiry: A Practical Guide to Positive Change (San Francisco: Berrett-Koehler, 2003).
13. Mac Odell’s "Appreciative Planning and Action: Experience from the Field," a chapter in Lessons from the Field, tells the story of working in hundreds of Nepalese villages. The account is a particularly moving and instructive example of AI at work.
14. "Spirituality at Work" by Diana Whitney is an essay about taking your spirituality to work in ways that challenge and inspire your colleagues rather than make them wary. It was published in the online Appreciative Inquiry Newsletter (No. 7, November 1999). www.aradford.co.uk/Pagefiles/07newsletter.htm.
15. Diana Whitney and Amanda Trosten-Bloom, The Power of Appreciative Inquiry: A Practical Guide to Positive Change (San Francisco: Berrett-Koehler, 2003), 69–79.