Making Strengths Productive Roadmap Frameworks, tools and technologies Philosophy, process, principles and practice; Role of language, questions and stories in moving to strength- based cultures; Amplify and magnify strengths for long-term sustainability. Frameworks, tools and technologies Philosophy, process, principles and practice; Role of language, questions and stories in moving to strength- based cultures; Amplify and magnify strengths for long-term sustainability. Impacts and Results Simple, cost-effective way to begin transformational and cultural change, producing results through heightened engagement, elevated imagination, and sustained mobilized action. Impacts and Results Simple, cost-effective way to begin transformational and cultural change, producing results through heightened engagement, elevated imagination, and sustained mobilized action.

Peter Drucker and Strengths “The task of leadership is to create an alignment of strengths, making our weaknesses irrelevant.”

Dr David Cooperrider and Strengths “What if strengths connected to strengths had the power to help us not merely perform but transform.”

Strengths are “themes of talent…the ability is a strength if you can fathom yourself doing it happily and successfully.” Strengths in Management and Character Strengths are character traits, virtues that are “about discovery, creation and ownership… producing authentic positive emotion in the doer: pride satisfaction, joy, fulfillment..

Poll 1 What % of your Day are you working to your strengths?

Appreciative Inquiry for Collaborative Solutions: 21 Strength-based Workshops “ Appreciative Inquiry as a change method…channels the collective strengths toward discovering, dreaming, designing organizations that not only perform but transform.”

21 Strength-based Workshops Creating Change Positively Shared Leadership Appreciating Collaborations Valuing Technology Unleashing Creativity for Continuous Innovation High-Performing Teams Compassionate Connections Strength-Based Coaching Respectful Relationships Business As a Positive Agent for Change—Leaving a Legacy Nurturing Diversity Flourishing Communities Peak Performance—Being in Flow Caring for Our Environment Learning at a New Level Working with Integrity Purpose-Driven Selling Global Interconnectivity Generations Working Together Juggling It All! Building Capacity Through Strengths

What do Strengths Produce ? Energized, unified workforce Creating a culture of 25,000 employees thinking and acting like owners of the business Reduced grievances from 300 to zero; eliminated need for formal grievance process. Increased throughput from 47 to 64% Reduced average transit speed: 2.3 to 2.1 days Stock Prices rise--$14 to $41 per share Powerful Learning Partnerships: Alcoa, Boeing, Cisco, Harley-Davidson, US Navy. Recently Featured in Fast Company and Forbes. Roadway Express 65 AI Summits, 10,000 people engaged

What do Strengths Produce ? Leadership at all Levels US Navy Created a shared vision for the kind of leadership the Navy is calling for among participants Provided spark for Task Force EXCEL’s leadership vector Established a method to collect examples of exemplary leadership stories Focused on the importance of positive “self-talk” and AI as a change management tool for leaders

What do Strengths Produce? Reduced Turnover Leading manufacturer of energy efficient window coverings in America used Appreciative Inquiry to engage employees, customers, suppliers and community in generating a new corporate vision and culture changes to increase productivity, employee commitment and ownership. Hunter Douglas Window, Denver Co

Nutrimental Foods, Brazil Surviving the onslaught of globalization where 80% of manufacturers failed to make it. 200% increase in profitability after 6 months 66% increase in sales 42% improvement in productivity 95% customer satisfaction What does it produce? Increased Profitability

Coaching in Professional Services Firm The appreciative/strength-based lens had immediate impact Focus on the positive and high points became easy and satisfying Playing to strengths to build self confidence was uplifting It isn’t hard to find strengths in others Modeling AI from the coach became integrated into daily practice Increased satisfaction all round Target achieved. What do Strengths Produce? Heightened Employee Commitment

Special invitation and call to people to be change leaders Reduce cycle time of change--change ready for any agenda A positive culture and willingness to see the positive side of change Self-organizing around positive energy and desire to change Potential Impacts

Collective awareness of strategic business opportunities Reframing deficit-based narrative to hope and possibility Rapid whole-system mobilization capability for strategic planning and innovation Connected in knowledge sharing and knowledge creation Cost efficient leadership education and training The power of storytelling to spread success stories Potential Impacts

Poll 2 When you are working to your strengths, what are most accurate descriptions?

“ No problem can be solved from the same level of consciousness that created it. We must learn to see the world anew. ” Shifting Consciousness Albert Einstein

Traditional Analysis Classic Problem Solving Approach –Identify problem –Conduct root cause analysis –Brainstorm solutions and analyze –Develop action plans/interventions Most families, schools, organizations function on an unwritten rule… –L–Let’s fix what’s wrong and let the strengths take care of themselves Metaphor: Organizations are problems to be solved

Appreciative Inquiry Focus on Possibilities –Appreciate “What is” –Imagine “What Might Be” –Determine “What Should Be” –Create “What Will Be” What Gives Life to human and organizational systems when they function at their best? – When you focus on strengths, weaknesses become irrelevant Metaphor: Organizations are a solution/mystery to be embraced

Inspiring Topics Deficit IssuesAffirmative Topic Sexual HarassmentPositive Cross Gender Relationships Customer ComplaintsMagnetic Customer Connections Lost Baggage Complaints Exceptional Arrival Experience Low MoraleStories of Passionate Enthusiasm

What is Appreciative Inquiry? It is the search for the best in people, their organizations, and the relevant world around them. It is an art and practice of asking the unconditional positive questions that strengthen a system’s capacity to apprehend, anticipate and heighten positive potential. Instead of negation, criticism and spiraling diagnosis, there is discovery, dream, design and destiny. It works from accounts of the “positive change core”. AI links the energy of the positive core directly to any change agenda and changes never thought possible are suddenly and democratically mobilized.

Discovery “ What gives life?” (The best of what is ) AppreciatingDiscovery “ What gives life?” (The best of what is ) Appreciating Dream “What might be?” (What is the world calling for) Envisioning ResultsDream “What might be?” (What is the world calling for) Envisioning Results Design “What should be--the ideal?” Co-constructingDesign “What should be--the ideal?” Co-constructing Destiny “How to empower, learn, and adjust/improvise?” SustainingDestiny “How to empower, learn, and adjust/improvise?” Sustaining 4 – D Cycle Affirmative Topic Choice Affirmative Topic Choice

Positive Core

Topic of Inquiry and the Questions we Ask A Fateful Act Questions we ask determine what we find… Human systems move in the direction of what they most frequently and persistently ask questions about. Organizations move in the direction of what they study. What you study, GROWS!

26New York AI Partners

Appreciative Interview 4 Foundational Questions Q1: Peak experience or high point? Q2: Things valued most about … –yourself? –the nature of your work? –your organization? Q3: What are the core factors that give “life” to organizing? Q4: What are three wishes to heighten vitality and health?

Poll 3 Does your organization have a strategic objective to identify and develop strengths?

Broaden and Build Theory of Positive Emotions “………..positive emotions broaden people’s modes of thinking and action, which overtime builds their enduring personal and social resources.” Barbara Fredrickson University of North Carolina

What’s going on? Good feelings alter people’s mindsets Induced positive affect widens the scope of attention broadens behavioral repertoires increases intuition and creativity facilitates generativity produces greater cognitive flexibility leading to increased flexible perspectives broadens one’s sense of self to include others resulting in greater feelings of connectivity and sense of “oneness” brings people closer to be more sociable

Poll 4 How interested are you to continually develop your strengths?

An Open Moment We Are “In It” Now “We are at the very point in time when a 400-year old age is dying and another is struggling to be born, a shifting of culture, science, society, and institutions enormously greater than the world has ever experienced. Ahead, the possibility of the regeneration of relationships, liberty, community, and ethics such as the world has never known, and a harmony with nature, with one another, and with the divine intelligence such as the world has never dreamed.” --Dee Hock, Founder & CEO--Visa

Appreciative Inquiry is Transformational

Robyn Stratton-Berkessel – Phone Mobile Twitter: LinkedIn: Facebook: Robyn Stratton-Berkessel Book: Appreciative Inquiry for Collaborative Solutions: 21 Strength-based Workshops. (2010) Pfeiffer, San Francisco For more information, please contact me