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Title: Encyclopedia of Positive Questions, Volume I: Using AI to Bring Out the Best in Your Organization by Diana L. Whitney, David L. Cooperrider, Brian S. Kaplin, Amanda Trosten-Bloom, Brian Kaplan, et al David Cooperrider, Diana Whitney ISBN: 1-893435-33-4 Publisher: Lakeshore Communications Pub. Date: 01 October, 2001 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $15.95

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Average Customer Rating: 1 (1 review)

Rating: 1
Summary: Not So Good
Comment: Appreciative Inquiry (AI) is a means of planning change by focusing on the positive rather than the negative in organizations (or in an individual's life for that matter). The Discovery phase (Step 1 in the process) relies in large measure on obtaining input from stakeholders and that in turn requires having the right questions to encourage people to open up positively about past experience, the present situation, and future hopes and dreams.

This "encyclopedia" lists sample questions, usually three per topic, on a variety of issues that are arranged alphabetically (like an encyclopedia). I have two problems. One is that the topics might have better been grouped, e.g., those dealing with Mission and Vision, those dealing with Marketing (customers, products, quality), and so on. The other problem I have is that the questions after a while all sound somewhat similar. This would have been a more useful book, I think, if more space had been devoted to how to frame and ask questions. That particular chapter is rather brief but helpful.

Unfortunately the last 70 pages (of a 150-page book) could have been almost entirely eliminated. A chapter gives a template for a sample interview. It then makes it concrete by simply adding the phrase "the Human Resources Department at XYZ company" in the "Company Name" space of the template. There then follow four copies of the same blank template for the reader's use. Why four copies I don't know, unless the reader doesn't have a computer or copy machine. Is one supposed to cut out each copy for use? One simple chapter explaining the template would have been fine. The "sample interview" was a total waste, as were the four copies of the same template presented earlier.

While, as a planning consultant I think AI is a good tool for information gathering and assessment, I don't think I would find myself reaching for this book on a regular or even seldom basis.

I think the book to be written has to do with gathering positive information from people but also dealing with negative information. People will share positive experiences and hopes and are too infrequently asked for them, but they will also want to "vent" with negative information and an AI researcher needs to know how to react to and absorb and use that as well. The danger is that AI becomes a reaction to negativity (we all love to complain) and so simply tips the scales in the other direction rather than achieving balance in gaining people's contributions for change.

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	Title: The Thin Book of Appreciative Inquiry (Thin Book Series) by Sue Annis Hammond ISBN: 0966537319 Publisher: Thin Book Pub Co Pub. Date: November, 1998 List Price(USD): $7.95
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