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This government department was experiencing extremely low morale. They had been through many changes in the past two years, and more changes were expected to come. The Director of the department wanted to increase the morale of his employees and at the same time, prepare them for further changes. In addition, this department was chosen as a pilot by a group who were interested in seeing how an Appreciative Inquiry model for promoting diversity might work in government. We initially met with the Director and a participant of the working group on diversity. Part of the purpose of this meeting was to familiarize both of them with the 5-D Process of Appreciative Inquiry and to get clear on the focus/purpose of the inquiry. It was decided that the mere process of Appreciative Inquiry was participative and promoted diversity through actively engaging the voices of everyone. We therefore chose to keep the focus of the Inquiry to 'morale and preparedness for change'.
A core team was created which was representative of their department-it included as much of a diverse group as possible representing a cross section of their department. This core group worked with us for two days to learn a little bit of what Appreciative Inquiry was, help us get clear on the focus of the inquiry, create the customized interview guide that would be used at the two day summit and help us plan the summit (the work of Definition). This core team was vital in helping us co-create a process that was suited for their particular environment. After much deliberation, it was decided that the focus of the inquiry would be "Coming to Work and Enjoying it". We were cautioned that there would be much skepticism from the employees and in fact, only half of the department showed up for the two day summit. We finalized the interview guide, created a 'summit workbook' and made final preparations for the summit. At the kick-off of the event, a lot of sentiment was expressed around the futility of this summit and the fact that only half of the group showed up. The Director assured the group that we would focus our attention on what was within our scope of control/influence and create a process that would bring in the others who chose not to participate. With much reluctance, the group agreed to give it a try and paired up for the 40 minute interviews. When they returned, we struggled to regain their attention because the room was full of energy, enthusiasm and chatter. We declared the first part of the summit a success for at least having engaged the skeptics. The rest of the two days were spent identifying what the core strengths were for their department and understanding what gave them life-what were their root causes for success when they were at their very best. We termed this the 'Positive Core' (the work of Discovery). We then spent some time dreaming-creating images of our most desired future based on what we learned about our core strengths and values and what we hoped for our future. The output of this were colourful pictures, collages and a skit of what were the department's greatest aspirations (the work of Dream). The second day was spent in Design and Destiny. After creating a systems map of their department, the group prioritized about where they wanted to spend their energy and created teams to craft 'Bold Idea Statements'-mini vision statements that described how their certain elements of their department/system would look if it was fully functioning and aligned to support their Dream and fully utilizing their core strengths. These teams then created action plans for how to achieve their Bold Idea Statements. The energy in the room had definitely shifted-it went from skeptical to hopeful and people left excited about the new possibilities. One participant wrote "We came as a Division divided and left as a team united". Two weeks following the summit, we met again with the core team to assess how things had gone and to plan for the path forward. The consensus was that the event had been a great success and many who had not participated in the event were disappointed and curious about what had happened. A plan was formulated for creating a new Leadership team who would continue from where the core team left off. This Leadership team would coordinate the efforts of the Project teams that had been created at the summit. They also created a plan for how they would engage those who had not attended the summit. The core team was pleasantly surprised with the process and highly recommended it to other departments. |
