According to Wikipedia: "Appreciative Inquiry (AI) is an organizational development process or philosophy that engages individuals within an organizational system in its renewal, change and focused performance.

Appreciative Inquiry was adopted from work done by earlier theorists and practitioners and further developed by David Cooperrider of Case Western Reserve University. It is now a commonly accepted practice in the evaluation of organizational development strategy and implementation of organizational effectiveness tactics.

Appreciative Inquiry is a particular way of asking questions and envisioning the future that fosters positive relationships and builds on the basic goodness in a person, a situation, or an organization. In so doing, it enhances a system's capacity for collaboration and change.^[1] Appreciative Inquiry utilizes a 4-stage process focusing on:

1. DISCOVER: The identification of organizational processes that work well.
2. DREAM: The envisioning of processes that would work well in the future.
3. DESIGN: Planning and prioritizing processes that would work well.
4. DESTINY (or DELIVER): The implementation (execution) of the proposed design.^[2] [3]

The basic idea is to build organizations around what works, rather than trying to fix what doesn't. It is the opposite of problem solving. Instead of focusing on fixing what's wrong, AI focuses on how to create more of what's already working. The approach acknowledges the contribution of individuals, in order to increase trust and organizational alignment. The method aims to create meaning by drawing from stories of concrete successes and lends itself to cross-industrial social activities. It can be enjoyable and natural to many managers, who are often sociable people.

There are a variety of approaches to implementing Appreciative Inquiry, including mass-mobilized interviews and a large, diverse gathering called an Appreciative Inquiry Summit (Ludema, Whitney, Mohr and Griffin, 2003). Both approaches involve bringing very large, diverse groups of people together to study and build upon the best in an organization or community.

AI has been used extensively to foster change in businesses (a variety of sectors), health care systems, social profit organizations, educational institutions, communities, local governments, and religious institutions.

Yes! Sometimes, however, the other factors mentioned in the research are overlooked, thereby diluting the effect of the structural change on them, which, then,renders the effort of the structural change as useless.

In many cases of structural changes, egos and politics play a major role, and no one seems to take the other factors seriously.

If I want to apply the findings of this research to entities other than companies (non-profit-based), especially Arab parties, you'll be amazed how much the above analysis was right.

In companies, and in discussions regarding strategy and its execution, many good points related to factors other than structural changes do become clear. Unfortunately, they soon are expelled from the conclusions due to the common belief that they will be worked out when the structural changes happen.