Speaker 1: 0:21

Welcome everyone back to the search for clarity. I've been so excited for our session today. We have got Dr Jackie Stavros with us, an expert in appreciative inquiry. We'll be talking all about that throughout the session, and this session is focused on leading with positivity. So how we harness this thing called appreciative inquiry for transformational leadership.

Speaker 1: 0:42

It's a two-part episode with Dr Jackie Stavros, and I'd just like to remind you that the views and opinions expressed on this podcast are solely of the individual contributors and it's in no way endorsed or associated with any of the employees or clients that I might have. So just do a brief introduction to Jackie. So, jackie is an industry expert in appreciative inquiry. It's a branch of psychology that focuses on positive change. She's internationally recognized as the creator of the SOAR framework, which is a positive approach to strategic thinking, planning, and leading A co-author to the Appreciative Inquiry Handbook Learning to SOAR Conversations Worth Having, along with many other publications which have touched the world in over 25 countries.

Speaker 1: 1:29

She's a keynote speaker on Appreciative Inquiry, soar, leadership Development and Change Management, currently a professor at Lawrence Technological University in LTU, she holds an MBA from Michigan State University, a doctorate from Weatherhead School of Management at Case Western Reserve University, and her work has been featured in Forbes, smart Brief, smart Company, the Smart Manager and many, many more. So, jackie, it's an absolute honor to have you on the show with us today. How are you doing?

Speaker 2: 2:00

I'm doing great and thank you, richard. I just love your program. It's the search for clarity. Hopefully at the end of this podcast people will be really clear on this humanistic AI called appreciative inquiry.

Speaker 1: 2:11

Appreciate it. Yeah, so this all started from me picking up the book Conversations Worth Having. It seemed like an intriguing title, had a look through it and it has really shifted my thinking tremendously on. I mean, I think there's so much to take away from the book, but the one thing that really stood out for me was words create worlds, and that just landed so radically with me and it really transformed the way I perceived the conversations that I have with people. You have a really great diagram where you refer to above the line, below the line conversations where you're talking in a constructive, positive way versus talking in a negative sort of deconstructive way, if we call it that. And yeah, it really made me realize, just in terms of the songs that we listen to our daily conversations, how much negative, destructive kind of wording, conversations of words, we have going through our heads at any given point during the day. It's very insightful.

Speaker 2: 3:10

Yeah, that's true, and one of the things I think about appreciative inquiry is, once you're aware of how you're constantly in conversations with yourself and with others, when you understand the power of this AI called appreciative inquiry, it really changes your whole outlook and it really impacts how you work with teams in the workplace, your family, the community. It's a quite powerful way of being knowing, thinking and doing.

Speaker 1: 3:39

Absolutely so, I think, to start us off. Obviously this podcast is focused on leadership, business transformation, etc. Maybe let's start off by getting your definition of what leadership is, jackie, so that we can sort of get a nice foundation before we kick off.

Speaker 2: 3:55

You know I'm going to go back. I've read hundreds of books on leadership, and leadership is about how do you motivate and influence and inspire others to join you, and I think you have to also learn to lead yourself. So at the end of the day, I boil leadership down to it's relational. It's all about your relationships with people, and you can read there's dozens of styles. I teach leadership on leadership, but leadership is not me telling you what to do, but influencing, inspiring myself and you of what we need to do. And I think, leading people. It's a journey of reflection, introspection, and it starts with you. It starts with leading just yourself every day.

Speaker 1: 4:39

And so how does? Well, maybe you could give us an overview of appreciative inquiry and then we could talk about how that would apply to leadership today. But how would you define what's the best way to define appreciative inquiry? To those of you listening, yeah.

Speaker 2: 4:56

So in the biggest picture, I call it the humanistic AI, because we hear a lot about artificial intelligence and it's having again tie it to leadership. It's having the power to be a human-centered leader. So if you think about appreciative inquiry, it's a strength-based approach to leading yourself and others and it's all about the word think of the word appreciate. When you say appreciative, you want to value your people, value the situation and add value. That's what appreciation is. Inquiry is the power of your questions. Being very curious, how I ask you a question is going to either lift you up above the line or put you down. So it's really important about how we talk to others is I'm using appreciative inquiry.

Speaker 2: 5:46

I did my doctorate at Case. It was created by David Cooper writer and you could Google look up appreciative inquiry. It's been around for about 40, 50 years and it's really, I think, the most effective way, no matter what your leadership style is, what your leadership beliefs are, is that appreciative inquiry is a way of being, knowing and doing and it's looking for the best in yourself and others in your organization and it has like a set of principles, practices. It has a methodology, but that's what it is. It's just how we engage in conversations with people.

Speaker 1: 6:21

And what would the principles be around appreciative inquiry, what does it? How do you know that you? I mean from a practical standpoint, what would it mean for you to be speaking in an appreciative inquiry way?

Speaker 2: 6:44

dissertation and there's five principles. I'm going to name them and I'm going to quickly walk you through them.

Speaker 2: 6:47

So there's the principle of social construction simultaneity, poetic, anticipatory and positive. So let's take the first one, and that's what attracted you to the book. Social construction is our words create our world. So if you and I are having negative conversations, saying negative things, we're really putting a lot of negative energy out there in both our worlds and with other people. So think about it. What you say, what you think, say and do really matters to somebody. So social construction creates your next moment. It's our language, and language is created by you and me. Simultaneity is very powerful. Simultaneity principle is the moment I make a comment to you, richard, or ask you a question, I'm impacting you. The moment I ask a question, there is change. I used to be a lifeguard, so if I tell the kids don't run on the deck, the brain just hears run on the deck and they run faster. I say don't dive. In the shallow end, all they hear the language is dive.

Speaker 1: 7:48

So this is where I'm going wrong with my parenting, clearly.

Speaker 2: 7:53

Yeah, if you want to stop your kids from jumping on the bed, you have to say sit on the bed, because it's simultaneous Social construction. Simultaneity, watch your words. Construction, simultaneity, watch your words. The third one is poetic.

Speaker 2: 8:09

I can talk about how stressed out we are in our work days and how long there are. Or I can say you know what? Let's talk about what brings life. Let's talk about the great days at work. How do we create anything? I can choose to talk about how bad the culture is or how to create a healthy culture. Which one would you rather have a conversation on? Talking about a bad culture or toxic culture doesn't help us, but talking about a healthy culture actually moves us in the direction. So each principle really builds.

Speaker 2: 8:39

The fourth one is anticipatory, and you know Henry Ford is not too far from where I work. I'm in the motor capital of the world here in the US and he would say if you think you can, you can, and if you think you can't, you can't. And Carol Dweick's work, the growth mindset and the fixed mindset. So anticipatory is anticipating. How will you succeed? How will this project turn out? How will this negotiation go? Which leads to. The fifth principle is positive and there's so much science out there that the more positive the image, positive the words, positive the actions, the positive results. So positivity is the last principle, with appreciative inquiry.

Speaker 1: 9:27

Thanks for that, and I think, just for the viewers and the listeners out there. So we get into the practical application of this in a few minutes, because I know that. So from a principle level it all sounds great. But how on earth do you make this a practice? And I can assure you that the work in this book is exceptionally practical. It's lovely the way it brings you a model to start working this through and having these conversations. But I was having this conversation with my wife a little while ago and the immediate I think I started to have it when I read the book a little, but she had the same was oh man, don't tell me, this is one of those always positive, always happy kind of people that you're going to end up becoming, where you just you know, you go and you complain and it's just like oh no, look at the great side of life, all this wonderful stuff. But it wasn't that at all.

Speaker 1: 10:14

It really was more around still acknowledging the problem where there's a challenge or there's an issue, it's not about just being painfully happy and painfully positive, but it's about wording it in a more constructive way that would empower you to actually do something about it, as opposed to creating this negative energy around. That problem makes it difficult to sort of come up against. So I was curious around your thinking or your perspective of that as well.

Speaker 2: 10:45

Yeah, so there's a great article written by a man named Jervis Bush. He's from Canada and he says appreciative inquiry is not just about the positive. There's five principles. Positivity is only 20% of it. There's four other powerful principles. Getting back to what you and your wife were talking about, there's two practices generative questions and positive framing. But I'm going to talk about positive framing first, because that connects with what you're saying. You know we have this thing called name it, flip it, frame it. You have to let people name their problems. The question is how much time do you want to spend dissecting a problem? Okay, so we can talk about bad statistics, bad performance, and all we know is all the bad performance going on. It doesn't help us create a solution or solve it. So we named it. We named it, it's bad performance. What's the positive opposite, richard? Don't think too hard. What's the positive opposite of bad performance?

Speaker 1: 11:47

good performance perfect.

Speaker 2: 11:49

All right, you got an, a good performance. Now keep going, because the frame is if you have good performance, what is this workplace like? And then we can talk about. So we're not talking about the bad performance, we're not really even talking about the good performance. We're talking about what is a high performing team and we want to really go in and understand what creates a high performing team. When we go in and we do the inquiry, asking generative questions about experiences of high performing team, what makes a great high performing team, we really study a high performing team. What makes a great high-performing team? We really study a high-performing team. Guess what? We've addressed good performance. We've actually addressed the bad performance indicators. So, yes, you don't ignore the problem, but you name it, flip it and then you frame it and you talk about more of what you want to happen. That will solve that problem.

Speaker 1: 12:40

What I found practically in the leadership that I do. It was and this made me realize a little bit more is often we'd say you know, performance is really bad and how are we going to get it resolved? And that's all fair and well. We have to address it. But by flipping it, by creating that, by taking a step, stopping for a minute and saying, well, what does good actually look like? A minute and saying, well, what does good actually look like?

Speaker 1: 13:06

I find, in all organizations that I engage with, very frequently the clarity on what good's supposed to look like is actually not there. There's this you know, a whole bunch of different people all have a different perspective around what good might look like, and so you know when you go and speak to someone and say, right, you're not performing the way that's been expected, et cetera. What I liked about the reframing it is you're actually starting to articulate very clearly what you were actually looking for or what good would actually look like. So everyone's very clear on right. So that's what we need to be doing in order to succeed, as opposed to just focusing on the negative aspects around. Right, that's not what we want to do, that's poor performance and that, for me was a very practical insight that I took away to say makes sense. You want to be positive. Create that positive picture of what good would look like in order for us to be very clear on how we actually need to perform to get there.

Speaker 2: 13:59

And you brought it into all of us. In leadership roles, management roles, we do performance reviews, performance evaluations and I think it's really important when you're doing a performance review or evaluating someone is to start with, what are they doing well, what is going on right? Because that connects the mind and it opens them up to listening to you. And then you talk about what is it that they can do better. Now you can tell them everything they're doing wrong, but that doesn't help them get better. That actually shuts them down, pushes them below the line, because all they know is everything they're doing wrong. But if you tell them what they need to be doing right and how they need to grow in the position and what else is possible, you're connecting. It gets back to leadership is relational. You are connecting with them and it's really a lot of science behind this and you're connecting them to you so that they can hear this is what I'm doing well, this is what I need to do better and this is what is also possible, and it's giving them that energy to turn around just about any negative situation.

Speaker 2: 15:03

So a generative question is typically a question that I would say to you and let's just stay with performance reviews. You know, tell me a time, richard, when you were really succeeding on this team. What was going on with that experience? What strengths did you bring? So I bring you to that time. It's an open-ended question. I don't even know what story you're going to bring into it. I don't know what situation you may enlighten me with, a situation, as your boss, that I didn't see. So a generative question is an open-ended question. I'm very curious. I don't have the answers and what I want your listeners to understand. That generative questions will surface any assumptions that you have. It will build trust between you and me. It will create shared understanding and then it comes up with possibilities. So they're not gotcha questions, they're not yes or no questions, they're not questions that I know the answer to. So generative questions are very powerful, creating new images.

Speaker 2: 16:01

Which brings me to the appreciative inquiry 5D cycle. So that's a methodology, that's an approach. There's a lot out there on the 5D cycle and the 5D cycle is a method that has the 5Ds, which is define, discover, dream, design and destiny. And again, there's a lot of science and 40, 50 years behind this 5D cycle. So in define, we actually define. What is it that we are going to talk about here. Again, I'm not going to talk about bad performance. I'm not going to talk about good performance I might choose, with the team to define. We are going to talk about what makes a high-performing team. That's what we need here. So in the discovery stage we're asking generative questions about experiences with high-performing teams.

Speaker 2: 16:54

The third one is we're dreaming, we're thinking imagine 90 days from now we're a high-performing team. What is going on in our team? How are we impacting this organization? So we dream of what that would look like and then we actually design that support. We design everything we need to do as a team to be that high performing team.

Speaker 2: 17:17

And the fifth D used to be called deliver, do it. It's called destiny, whichever language you're most comfortable, but then you deliver on what you design, you, you've discovered and you've defined about. So the 5D cycle can be used with a sample of just yourself going through that. And then they have appreciative inquiry summits where they bring hundreds and thousands of people together in communities and issues on technology innovation and they take. You know they'll go through that 5d cycle in a day or two and so you can get resources at the david l cooperator center for appreciative inquiry. There's a center for appreciative inquiry, but you can be trained on these principles, these practices and the 5d cycle that's great, and I think that's more because there's two distinctive things about at least this is what I perceived.

Speaker 1: 18:10

you might correct me, but there were two distinctive things I noticed about conversations with having. The one was there's at an individual day-to-day level and the other one was at a more corporate, more planning sort of level, and so from a leader's perspective, I mean, I'd see the five Ds as being more of a corporate planning application, of appreciative inquiry, whereas the cycle that you mentioned earlier on that tuning in generative questions, positive framing that would be something you'd use on a daily basis. So I think, bringing it down now to practical application as a leader, what are the kind of things that a leader can start doing to start applying this to their teams on a daily basis in general conversations that they're having? Would you be able to share some insights for the viewers and the leaders that we have watching on what they could do to start actually applying this stuff in the workplace?

Speaker 2: 19:09

Absolutely, and you nailed it or in their daily lives as well. Everything you just said about appreciative inquiry, it's principles, five principles, two practices and actually the 5D cycle is exactly what you said. I think, when we talk about leadership, one of the most important habits we need as leaders and probably spouses, with our significant others, is the ability to tune in. So if there's one thing you can learn from listening to this, tuning in is where you pause. Just pause, take a deep breath and be curious, get curious. That's tuning in. That means I am really listening to you.

Speaker 2: 19:48

Richard, I don't. I'm not on my phone, I'm not on my computer. I might have a pen and a notepad taking notes, but I'm really tuned into you and I'm here to listen to you. So I think that, so you can't just jump into being positive, you've got to tune in and ask yourself where am I? You even said this at the beginning. Am I above the line? And above the line is that appreciative space? Or am I below the line? And you don't know. If somebody's below the line, maybe they had an emergency in their family, maybe they didn't get enough sleep, maybe they're dehydrated. There's a lot of things that push people below the line. So to get above the line, you need to pause, breathe and be curious and be in that appreciative space that I value you, I value the situation and we're going to have a conversation that adds value. So tuning in is critical for any leader.

Speaker 1: 20:42

That's active listening as well, right? Yes, it's the skill of actually just-.

Speaker 2: 20:46

Active listening and it's also deep listening and I'm genuinely curious. So when Sherry and I set out Sherry Torres, my co-author, and I set out to write about appreciative inquiry, we wanted to put it in the everyday space. Lots of people know about the 5D cycle. There's lots of books on the appreciative methodology. But Sherry and I were like, how do we use this every day in work environments? And when we set upon writing Conversations Worth Having?

Speaker 2: 21:17

It occurred to us that you are constantly in conversations. You are in conversations with yourself, with other people. Think about that when you're awake. How many hours when you're awake are you having a conversation, whether you're on your phone, email, face-to-face. So when you go into a conversation, let's just take a really common example.

Speaker 2: 21:43

Some of us have had and we talk about this in the book Melissa, who is always late for our Wednesday morning meeting. And if you would think of having a conversation with her. The problem is she is late to the Wednesday morning meeting. That's the day minute, but then the flip is she's on time to the Wednesday morning meeting. Well, what do we really want to talk to Melissa about? And it goes back to how does she become a productive team member here?

Speaker 2: 22:18

And you know, in the story, when Mark begins to talk about Melissa, melissa pointed out to Mark Wednesdays at 8 am are the only days of the week that I can't get here early. And she told the story why. She said I have a son, his name is Connor. It's the only day of the week I take Connor to daycare and I, you know, and it's very hard for me to switch, and Mark said so. Part of the thing is, is I set the morning meeting at 8 am? What if we went back to the team and said can we push the meeting to 9 am or is there a better day of the week to have this meeting? So then you begin to really address what it is about. Why do we have meetings? When do we have meetings, and are they conducive for everybody?

Speaker 1: 23:17

Why do we have meetings? When do we have meetings, and are they conducive for everybody? So that's again the pausing, the breathing being curious and talking to Melissa, very powerful. They're not just about asking questions. You're having to frame those questions from what I'd gathered from the book and I could be wrong again, but it was about making sure that your questions invoked they weren't negative. They were focused on generating a conversation, as you mentioned. Focused on generating a conversation, as you mentioned, the principle of simultaneous Simultaneity.

Speaker 2: 23:52

Yeah, the simultaneity principle, that's the one.

Speaker 1: 23:54

It was about the moment we ask the question, a change happens. So it's almost as we're asking these questions, we need to be very clear to ourselves. About what will this question? If I'm wanting to create a change, how do I need to frame this question in order to get that change started for the person who's going to answer it? Because that's going to be going on their heads the moment that question lands with them. It's kicking their heads into a line of thinking that you're wanting to send it on, and so is it simple as just asking questions. What's the formula behind good, generative questions? I guess is the question I've got, yeah.

Speaker 2: 24:35

So when you ask a generative question, be really in tune. You don't know the answer. You're very curious. So, again, let's talk from a leader. You're managing people and you have the complainer on your team, the person that's always complaining, the person that is telling you everything that's wrong, and you can say to this person you know, richard, you just told me everything that's not going right. Let's talk about what is going wrong, or what is going right and how. What do you want to see more of? What do we really need to be talking about here? So it's, I'm very curious and I really want to talk more about what you want to see happen, not everything you don't want to see happen. I acknowledge you've told me everything you don't want to see happen, but then I began to talk to you about. So tell me what you want to see happen. Tell me, and we start talking. It's really about how we communicate. Well then, what if we pulled the team together and we talked about how do we have continuous connective communication where we're moving at lightning speed? I don't know. Well, let's have a conversation about that, about how do we become better communicators.

Speaker 2: 25:50

And I'll give you one more example, because I've been in a lot of manufacturing plants here in Michigan. Plant manager Joe his real name is Joe and he was on the second shift and it was a really bad shift. First shift was doing great, the third shift but it was a mess. He invited me to the plant to the second shift and when I walked in there was red signs everywhere and I said Joe, I know everything that the plant is doing wrong. I said what are they doing right? The plant's in business. He said that's it. I said there's nothing on the walls in yellow or green, it's all red. What you can't do, what you don't do, what's going wrong, how they're going down. There's nothing in there that tells me there's anything going on right.

Speaker 2: 26:30

In the second shift and when he began to connect with his second shift he was the plant manager. They talked about what was going right on the second shift, what type of training do they need, how do they better connect from the handoff to the first shift to the third shift, and they totally turned around the second shift and about 90 days later I got to go back on the plan and there was yellow and green and things they were doing right and you could just feel the energy different on the second shift and we just focused in on. You know what are they doing well, what do they want to do better and where do they need more training? Where do they need more resources?

Speaker 1: 27:10

We've talked about tuning in Very important skill, something that takes practice as well, and I think leaders very often are very challenged just in that being able to turn the noise off and tune into something for that deep listening. We've talked about generative questions. Something that I have had a great deal of challenge with is that flipping it part, how you end up taking the situation. So you've created these generative questions, You've started to get things in a getting a different, a clearer perspective on where you're wanting to head. Can you talk to us a little bit more around the flipping it side of the approach?

Speaker 2: 27:48

Yeah. So let me imagine these. We're working with some colors here, but imagine a red box, Name it. You name the problem, so you don't ignore it. You name it. Then the yellow box is you flip it to the positive opposite. You don't need to think too much about it, and if the positive opposite was true, it was going on. The green is the frame, what we should really be talking about. So you know, I'm a professor those of you listening that have kids. Your kid comes home with a bad grade.

Speaker 1: 28:26

What's the opposite of a bad grade, a good grade.

Speaker 2: 28:28

Yeah, an outstanding grade. What's the opposite?

Speaker 1: 28:29

of a bad grade A good grade. Yeah, that's it, an outstanding grade.

Speaker 2: 28:30

Yeah, if you had good grade, richard, what's going on in your life? And then you talk about well, I'm much more organized, I have good time management. So we begin to do an inquiry into these frames, which, guess what Helps you to get the good grades and resolves the issue of the bad grades. But we have a habit of zoning right in on that bad grade and it just dwindles downward from there. But you name it, you flip it. If the positive opposite is true, what is the frame? And the frame is a statement what do you want to study more of? And then you come up with the questions around that frame so that you can learn more about the frame that you have chosen, or you and your team have chosen to study.

Speaker 1: 29:15

So, if I try and pull this all together in my feeble attempt, here is part of the tuning in is understanding the problem, calling out the problem, really understanding the nature of the problem, the problem calling out the problem, really understanding the nature of the problem. We then there's a clear positive frame we want to get to. It's really what good would look like, and it's about using generative questions in order for us to, in a collaborative way, understand what we need to be doing in order to get to what that positive frame is and what we need to be doing to get to that positive frame. So, using selective questions that look at the positive attributes and the positive aspects around how we take this problem and turn it into the positive frame that we're actually after.

Speaker 2: 30:00

Is that a- yeah, so naming it, you name the problem, you flip it to the positive opposite and the frame. In order to get at the frame, sometimes you have to ask questions, Sometimes the frame, and once you get to that frame, the frame is what you're going to study, what you're going to ask more questions about, Because if the frame is true, you've solved the problem and you've hit the positive opposite as well you've solved the problem and you've hit the positive opposite as well.

Speaker 1: 30:35

So what is the most important habit for a leader? To be able to start leading in a more appreciative way? What would the most important habit be for that?

Speaker 2: 30:44

So I'd say it's tuning in. And in order for you to tune in, you probably have to experience emotional intelligence. I'm an emotional intelligence is I am aware of where I am, my own emotions. I am aware of your emotions. Guess what? I can control my emotions and I can help you control your emotions. That's what emotional intelligence? It's that self-awareness and other awareness of somebody so that you can help them move forward in yourself. So I think, tuning in and really taking a time out, you know, pausing, breathing, getting really curious when am I, where are you? And helping us move forward in the most productive and engaging way possible. And when Sherry and I wrote Conversations Worth Having, the subtitle was Using Appreciative Inquiry to Fuel F-U-E-L Productive and Meaningful Engagement. And that's what leaders want productive and meaningful engagement productive and meaningful engagement.

Speaker 1: 31:48

Absolutely, that's been fantastic. Thank you very much, jackie. So this concludes our first episode with Jackie Stavros on leading with positivity and harnessing appreciative inquiry for transformational leadership. So thank you for that very, very much, jackie. So if you haven't and you likely haven't so I'm going to highly recommend you check this book out. So we've almost scratched the surface. We've really gone into it deeply, but we've almost just scratched the surface around what these conversations are. There's a lot of really practical illustration stories and exercises within the publication to help you really get these conversations and discussions into your workplace and helping you lead in more of an appreciative inquiry sort of fashion. And so do stay tuned. We'll have our episode two in two weeks. So until then, thank you very much for joining. Thank you very much, jackie, for your time and look forward to continuing your search for clarity over the next two weeks. Bye, everyone.

Speaker 2: 32:47

Thanks.