Appreciative Learning and Organizational Change: Overcoming Barriers and Resistance

Success Story

WSU Extension has initiated an Appreciative Learning process that builds upon a base of organizational change, institutional systems, and community participation. Local government officials, police organizations and non-profits participate in moving the community to a place where change is embraced as a positive mechanism to enhance the community and organizations.

Conventional problem solving assumptions imply that organizations have problems to be solved. Appreciative Learning views organizations as collaborative opportunities to be explored. When organizational change processes focus on problem solving as a mechanism to ensure organizational and behavioral change, this often results in fear, denial, and resistance. Traditional improvement steps often result in conflicting groups; one fighting to maintain the status quo, the other to force change. This scenario is played out within city councils, police organizations, community non-profits, as well as volunteer systems. Appreciative Learning is a mechanism to design change, manage conflict and build team strategies, rather than focusing on the problem, which often creates images of deficit. Appreciative Learning looks for what is going right within the organizational functioning and moves the system in that direction; understanding that the greatest value comes from embracing what works, rather than using a traditional pathology oriented focus.

This workshop will explore differences between Appreciative Inquiry and traditional organizational change processes. The workshop will explain the four step process, which will be shared along with basic theory, and initial research and results from pilot Appreciative Learning sites. Participants will gain an awareness of appreciative inquiry, application skills, and organizational change models.