Page 62 - Appreciative Leadership

The Wisdom of Inquiry 35

and guide people’s thinking, dialogue, and performance by asking
value-based questions.
In the language of Appreciative Inquiry, your core leadership val-
ues are the best topics for your questions. If you value cost savings, ask
people to tell you and each other about times when they saved money.
Ask them how they did it, why they did it, and how it felt to do so.
If you value collaboration, ask people about times of unprecedented
collaboration, times when they were surprised by the goodness in
people and their capacity to collaborate. If you value hospitality in cus-
tomer service, ask about it. Seek to understand what hospitality means
to people of diff erent cultures. The more you ask questions based on

your core leadership values, the more clearly others will know what
you stand for as a leader and the more you and others will learn how
to bring those values to life.
Remember: the best way to convey your values is to put them into

your questions. The Appreciative Leadership mantra is, “Ask more,
tell less.”

The Flip

The best leaders ask questions that others aren’t asking.

Appreciative leaders are highly skilled at turning negative issues into
positive questions. In other words, they know how to do Th e Flip.
The Appreciative Inquiry Positive Principle suggests that the more

positive the questions we ask, the more positive and enduring the
1
change. Very oft en when change is needed, people describe that
need as a problem, something they do not want, or something that
has undesired consequences. When people feel stuck in the midst of
an unsatisfactory situation over a period of time, all they know how
to do is complain about it. Appreciative leaders, however, have what

Thatchenkery and Metzker call “Appreciative Intelligence”: the capac-
2
ity to see the implicit positive potential in a situation. Th ey are able
to see positive potential, and they invite it to come to life by asking

positive questions. The following example shows The Flip in action.