Management guru Peter Drucker wrote repeatedly that a manager's task is to make the strengths of people effective and their weakness irrelevant. When employees’ strengths are understood and well aligned, he said, weaknesses won’t matter so much.

Research demonstrates that on this point – as on so many others -- Drucker was absolutely right. Managers can often improve productivity by worrying less about how to correct weaknesses and thinking more about moments of high performance. By studying what is working well, they can identify team and employee strengths and build from there.

In an early study, for example, researchers videotaped two bowling teams and then gave the teams a chance to study the tapes in order to improve their skills. One team watched a video showing only their mistakes, and the other watched only times when they performed well. While both teams improved, the team that studied its successes improved twice as much as the team that studied its mistakes.

In his classic study of management, "The Fifth Discipline," Peter Senge emphasized that it’s more effective to focus on a positive vision than on a projection of what the organization hopes to avoid. He said that dwelling on negative visions is limiting because:

• Energy that could build something new is diverted to preventing something that we don’t want to happen;
  
• Negative visions carry an unmistakable message of powerlessness; and
  
• Fear can create short term change, but only a positive vision can continue as a source of learning and growth.

“Appreciate Inquiry,” or “AI,” is one of the new “change management” techniques that is grounded in positive psychology. AI fosters increased productivity by using questions to focus an organization’s attention on what it does best. The approach is based in part on the notion that human systems grow and change in the direction of what they study.

AI began in the early ‘80s when graduate student David Cooperrider was hired to study operations at the Cleveland Clinic. He noticed that parts of the Clinic performed very well, and he focused his study on these centers of excellence. He found that his “appreciative” approach created a considerable stir, and that his positive questions actually led to positive change. From there he developed the AI process.

In AI, a series of questions is used to define the group’s “positive core.” That’s the term that AI practitioners use to describe “the essential nature of the organization at its best.” In other words, AI poses questions to many stakeholders in order to elicit stories about what works best, and to compile a collective view of the organization’s strengths, capabilities and assets.

The approach begins with the identification of the topics to be studied. Since we tend to move in the direction of what we study, the choice of where to focus organizational attention is both essential and strategic. Once selected, the topics -- like "inspired leadership" or "optimal margins" -- are used to launch a 4-step process known in AI as the “4-D Cycle”:

• Discovery: This first phase is a search to understand the organization’s strengths. It begins with the creation of stakeholder interview questions intended to generate stories that bring the “positive core” into focus. The process of posing questions can actually stimulate substantial change, like new stakeholder attitudes, a broader understanding of how the organization works, and the formation of new relationships that cut across traditional barriers.
  
  
• Dream: Once questions have been used to elicit an understanding of what exists now, it is time to explore "what might be." Groups of people from across the organization engage in putting together a new strategic vision.
  
  
• Design: In this phase, specific choices are made about key systems, structures and strategies.
  
  
• Destiny: This final phase focuses on personal and organizational commitments and paths forward. The result may be an extensive array of changes throughout the organization in areas such as management, HR, and customer service practices.

The AI process can be lengthy, but if you want to explore affirmative inquiry as a way to foster change, you can begin with a simple conversation. For example, if a member of your staff seems disengaged you might ask a few positively worded questions like:

• What tasks or activities do you like the best?
  
• What projects do you find most gratifying?
  
• What achievements make you most proud? Or
  
• What are your special talents?