Page 107 - Appreciative Leadership

80 Appreciative Leadership

Through the illumination of strengths, best practices, hopes, and

dreams, people recognize untapped potential and learn how to become
more positively powerful, personally and collectively. A root cause-of-
success analysis is a valuable process for learning and strengths-based
innovation.
All you need to lead the process is a group of people and two
questions. First: “Tell me about a time when you experienced us at
our best.” Listen to the story, and probe to learn who, what, when,
and how it happened. Second: “What caused us to be our best in this
situation?” Analyze the story and repeatedly ask, “Why did it work so
well?” and “How did we do it?” until you have fully illuminated all the
strengths, capacities, and positive enablers in the story. Go around the

group and ask everyone to share a story. After hearing the story, ask
the whole group to analyze it. As you make the analysis, make notes
on a fishbone chart like the one in Figure 4-2 or in any way that works

for you and the group.

Take the case of Jim and his staff. Over a course of weeks, they
explored their successes—times when they had performed at excep-
tional levels, in a variety of circumstances. Together, using a fi shbone
diagram, they conducted a rigorous analysis of their achievements. Just
as Jim had learned from his total quality class, he asked how or why fi ve
times with respect to each and every skill, strength, or enabler cited in

one of the staff member’s stories. The conversation went like this:

Jim: Sally, your story illustrates terrific follow-through on the proj-
ect you just described. How did you do that? [1]
Sally: By meeting one-on-one with all the team members, I helped
them to follow through more eff ectively.

Jim: Why did you hold these one-on-one meetings? [2]
Sally: Because I knew it was crucial that I keep everyone informed.
Jim: Why? [3]
Sally: I’d gathered the team together early on, and we’d made agree-
ments with one another regarding how we would ensure
mutual accountability.