Role of Appreciative Inquiry in Effective Management

This paper reviews impact of Appreciative Inquiry on the performance of employees. Employees need higher attention as they represent the organization to the public; they interact with the highest number of people outside the organization. Their enhanced performance would lead to more profitability to the organization. Appreciation is not just looking at good stuff, it is to value and recognize the best in people or the world around us, affirming past and present strengths, successes, and potentials, and it is to perceive those things that give life (health, vitality, excellence) to living systems and to increase in value. The Traditional organizational development methods had deficit based thinking. It focused on problems and relied on critical thinking to resolve the problems. However, the researchers in the field of psychology soon realized that instead of criticizing and identifying what is wrong with individuals and the organization, why don't we appreciate the good things about them. In today's environment, the rules for working are changing, now the employees are no longer criticised and judged based on their flaws and their weaknesses but rather their strengths are identified and further appreciated towards the betterment of the individual as well as the organization and this is called Appreciative Inquiry (AI). Appreciative Inquiry is about the co-evolutionary search for the best in people, their organizations and the relevant world around them. In its broadest focus, it involves systematic discovery of what gives “life” to a living system when it is most alive, most effective, and most constructively capable in economic, ecological, and human terms. The approach works on the assumption that by focusing on the positive and collectively constructing ways of building on what works contributes to strength-based development for the program, organization or community (hereafter collectively referred to as the program). The AI approach is not a once-off measure that instantly corrects the deficits within the program but rather, a process that incorporates the entire organization in what is termed a whole system event.