Building Resilience with Appreciative Inquiry A Leadership Journey through Hope Despair & Forgiveness

Since the 1980s, Appreciative Inquiry has proven to be one of the most powerful and effective methods for organizational change. Now two top consultants show how leaders can adapt its principles to become more personally and professionally resilient

Appreciative Inquiry is a venerable and widely used organizational change method that emphasizes identifying what's working and building on those strengths. It is the focus on the best of what is and using that to generate the future that makes it so powerful. In answer to numerous requests from their clients, consultants and scholars McArthur-Blair and Cockell show how to apply the lessons of AI to build resilience in leaders. Every leader has moments of despair, that "dark night of the soul" where there seems to be no clear path forward. The authors' ALIVE process (Appreciate, Love and Inquire in order to Venture and Evolve) helps leaders forgive themselves for their own failures and those of others, focus on their strengths in times of despair, and amplify and grow those strengths so that they are better able to build hope in themselves and throughout their organizations. In times of rapid change like ours, building resilience is a vital leadership skill.

As a leader, you have work that is complex, full of ups and downs. Your ability to be resilient--to pick yourself up after setbacks and keep on going no matter the challenges--is critical not only to successful leadership but also to fostering teams, generating collaboration, and igniting your organization. In this breakthrough book, veteran consultants Joan McArthur-Blair and Jeanie Cockell show that Appreciative Inquiry can be an invaluable tool to build that resilience.

Appreciative Inquiry is a time-tested, highly effective, and widely used change method that emphasizes identifying what's working well in a system and building on those strengths. Originating in the 1980s, it's been responsible for dramatic results in every conceivable type of organization.

Using the authors' Appreciative Resilience model, leaders can use AI to increase their ability to weather the storms they'll inevitably face and come out stronger. A profoundly practical guide, this book features first-person accounts from leaders in all kinds of settings and situations describing how they've used AI concepts to increase their resilience, as well as a detailed description of the exercises and practices the authors use in their Appreciative Resilience Workshop.

McArthur-Blair and Cockell believe that the core of resilience is the interplay among despair, hope, and forgiveness. Every leader experiences despair in those moments when there is no clear path forward. Maintaining hope that a better future is possible enables leaders to keep going. And forgiveness, of one's own shortcomings and those of others, helps leaders move from despair to hope. AI's focus on the best of what is and using that to generate the future makes it a particularly powerful aid and ally on this journey.

Journey through hope, despair, and forgiveness

Leaders cannot predict the complex challenges they are called on to face. Veteran consultants Joan McArthur-Blair and Jeanie Cockell show that Appreciative Inquiry (AI) is an invaluable tool to build resilience.

AI is a widely used change approach that emphasizes identifying what's working well in a system. Leaders can use AI to increase their ability to weather the storms they'll inevitably encounter and be resilient. A profound guide, this book features personal accounts from leaders across a variety of settings describing how they've practiced appreciative resilience in the ongoing cycle of hope, despair, and forgiveness.