Appalachia from an Assets Perspectives Conference Shawnee State University, Portsmouth, Ohio November 8, 2010

Anne Shelby (1999) writes, “Being Appalachian means being presented throughout one’s life with images of Appalachia that bear little or no resemblance to one’s own experience. The difference between the image and the reality creates dissonance, a contradiction to be resolved, and people try to do that in different ways” (p ).

Jack Weller: “Clannish” Laurel Jones: “Values Family”

History Organizational Change Research Methodology

We are in continuous conversation with each other and with ourselves. Through conversation we form and reform our life experiences and events; we create and recreate our meanings and understandings; and we construct and reconstruct our realities and our selves. Some conversations enhance possibility ; others diminish it” (Anderson, 2005, as quoted by Kelm, p. 10)

The Constructionist Principle: “As we talk so we make.” The Poetic Principle: “As we choose topics of inquiry, so we open new horizons of action” The Principle of Simultaneity: “As we Ask questions, so we become transformed (and in turn, transform what we ask about)” ( Barrett & Frye, 2000, pp )

The Anticipatory Principle: “As we anticipate so we create” Positive Principle: “As we discover moments of hope, joy, and caring, so we enjoy generative experiences” The Narrative Principle: As we weave stories, so we create lasting bonds” (Barrett & Frye, 2000, pp )

Life Centric Positive Perspective: Positive Core What is Best in People Sacred Stories Carry Important Meanings Questions Guide Insights and Change

Discovery: “What is the best of what is?” (Appreciating) Dream: “What might be?” (Envisioning Results) Design: “What should be the ideal?” (Constructing the Future) Destiny: “How to empower, learn and adjust/improvise?” (Sustaining the Change)

Describe a high-point in your organization—a time when you were most alive and engaged. Without being modest, what is it that you most value about yourself, your work, and your organization. What are the core factors that give life to your organization, without which the organization would cease to exist? What three wishes do you have to enhance the health and vitality of your organization?

Discovery: “What is the best of what is?” “Describe a high-point in your organization—a time when you were most alive and engaged.” Dream: “What might be?” “What three wishes do you have to enhance the health and vitality of your organization?”

Report Findings Discussion

“The velocity and largely informal spread of appreciative learning suggests a growing disenchantment with exhausted theories of change, especially those wedded to vocabularies of human deficit, and a corresponding urge to work with people, groups, and organizations in more constructivist, positive, life affirming and even spiritual ways. Appreciative Inquiry is more than a simple 4-D cycle of discovery, dream, design and destiny; what is being introduced is something deeper at the core” (Cooperrider & Whitney, 2005, p. 61).