Appreciative Inquiry is now a commonly accepted practice in the evaluation of organizational development strategy and implementation of organizational effectiveness tactics. It is also used extensively as a basis for Leadership and Executive Coaching and for Leadership Team Development in major companies, SMEs and government.
What is Appreciative Inquiry?
Appreciative Inquiry as it relates to executive coaching is a particular way of asking questions and envisioning the future that builds on the basic strengths in an executive or leader. In so doing, it enhances a leader’s capacity for growth, development and success. Appreciative Inquiry utilizes a 4-stage process focusing on:
1. DISCOVER: The identification of thinking, emotions, and behaviours that lead to outstanding results currently.
2. DREAM: Creating a vision using the leadership strengths identified that would work well in the future.
3. DESIGN: Planning and prioritizing actions that would deliver exceptional outcomes for the executive and the organisation.
4. DELIVERY The implementation (execution) of the actions proposed.
The basic idea is to develop executives and leaders around what works, rather than trying to fix what doesn’t. It is the opposite of problem solving. Instead of focusing on fixing what’s wrong. AIl leadership development focuses on how to create more of what’s already working. The approach acknowledges the unique contribution and skills of individuals, encourages the leader to fully exploit their distinctive abilities.
Appreciative Inquiry is one of several coaching tools and approaches that Blue Chip Coaching uses.
Using executive mentors in New Zealand business has a long history and more recently has changed in form.
Historically some business people were assigned executive mentors who had “walked the path” to help guide and coach them.
The upside was that these executive mentors had been there and done that, the downside was that they often had no mentoring skills and the relationship they would form with the mentee was left to chance.
Over the past 5 years executive mentoring has become more sought after and there has been a shift from internal mentoring to more external results focused mentoring from professional mentors.
Mentees need to be given the opportunity to choose their executive mentors as the relationship and fit is crucial, and executive mentors need to have the mentoring skills to uncover and impact those enablers that will make the biggest difference for the mentee.
Blue Chip Coaching work with leaders and aspiring leaders as they take understand more about their leadership and take it to a new level.
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Read more about executive mentoring.
What would prove more expensive for your company - investing in management coaching or finding a new manager?
One of our Blue Chip Coaching clients, a senior leader in a large insurance business, was interested in measuring the return on investment of the management coaching programme we ran with him and a number of his senior managers and management teams.
For him, the benefits of the management coaching programme easily outweighed the costs. One example he identified would be losing a manager he hadn’t invested in by way of management coaching - “My view is that the loss of a single manager would pay for a year of coaching for the entire team. So it’s pretty simple maths to me, though I think these issues are often overlooked.”
In order to ensure that management coaching and leadership team development programmes produce the desired return it is essential that the management coach is familiar with the environment (culture and business) that the manager or leadership team is working in. Our leadership team development and management coaching programmes always include an assessment and gap analysis phase to ensure that this knowledge is developed and the measures for success agreed for the coaching programme are defined, realistic and measurable.
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View more about Blue Chip’s management coaching.
A Challenge for Business Leaders
Retaining employees can be a challenge for business leaders. Positively impacting your retention rates can significantly improve productivity and bottom line results.
Why is it important to hold on to employees?
While unemployment in New Zealand is likely to rise over the next year, much of that unemployment rise will be in the unskilled labour force. Recruiting highly skilled workers and managers in most industries is still relatively challenging. Perhaps more relevant are the time and costs involved in the recruitment and induction process and the impact on business which is not captured adequately by accounting entries as it encompasses the impact on staff and clients when good people leave.
What makes an employee happy?
People generally join organisations but often they leave managers. In an article published by Hay Group, 70% of service employees’ reasons for exit were experience of their manager. This is not too surprising as we already know that managers and leaders account for a significant component of employees job satisfaction.
So what are some of the key compenents that give them that level of satisfaction?
Staff are more likely to be retained if they feel…
- Cared for, understood and valued by their manager or leader
- They have clarity about their development plan
- They are provided with the support to achieve their development goals
As a managers or leader are you doing what you can to retain those people you most value?
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To read more about developing leaders with the coaching skills required to develop and retain staff go to Team Development.
