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Appreciative Inquiry Newsletter Issue 9,
May 2000
This Newsletter is a forum for people interested in making the world a better place using Appreciative Inquiry and developing themselves and others to do even more wonderful things.
The Newsletter is designed to complement other Ai resources such as web sites, hard copy journals and the Ai listserv, and to support the whole tapestry of Ai.
WELCOME TO ISSUE 9 OF THE NEWSLETTER
Work that received a national "Best Practice" Award from the Department of Housing and Urban Development is the focus of this issue. Laverne Webb, a consultant and part of the Ai newsletter virtual team, highlights how the relationships between landlords and the City of Dubuque shifted radically in two years.
In this city of 60,000 people, landlords and others started to look at enforcement issues and appeals processes, new projects to address transitional housing for women and children and develop a conference to address the 5-year housing development plan. Coming together for the same goal was catching on.
She sets out clearly how the stakeholders got involved and developed sustainable solutions: there is the citizens training, the interviews they carried out and the meetings to translate stories into activities.
Some interesting aspects that we can feed in to Ken Livingstone, the new Mayor
of London, to involve citizens in the Vision for London.
With very best wishes,
Anne Radford
Editor/co-ordinator of the newsletter
editor@aipractitioner.com
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CONTENTS OF THE NEWSLETTER
1 AI IN A PUBLIC POLICY CHANGE PROCESS
1.1 CLIENT AND ISSUE
* Client: Housing Services Department of City of Dubuque, Iowa
* Issue: How to engage the entire community to deal with difficult and controversial housing issues.
1.2 PEOPLE INVOLVED AND PROCESS
* People involved: Citizens and key stakeholders
* Process: Dates/Activities/ No. of participants involved
1.3 METHODOLOGY AND OUTCOMES
1.3.1 Phase 1: The Appreciative Inquiry and Affirmative Customer Service Process™
* 60 citizens conducted 220 interviews
* Housing Summit
1.3.2 Phase II: Policy Analysis, Revision and Work Process Redesign
* Stakeholder Focus Groups
* Study Questions
* Action Conference
* Fewer and more focused initiatives to realize their visions
* An 'Event Historian' documenting the learnings
2. AI TRAINING EVENTS
2.1 USA
2.1.1 Appreciative Team Leadership
2.2 USA and Italy: The Taos Institute
2.3 England: Introduction to AI
3. OTHER WORKSHOPS in the UK
3.1 A new series of workshops on Engaging People in Large Scale Change
3.2 A "career ecology" workshop
3.3 Change Agility Conference
4. COUNTRY CONTACTS/CO-ORDINATORS
5. How to get back copies of the newsletter
6. How to subscribe to the newsletter
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1. AI IN A PUBLIC POLICY CHANGE PROCESS
Laverne Dees Webb, CEO, EnCompass LLC
(lavernew@aol.com / www.encompassworld.com)
1.1 CLIENT AND ISSUE:
* Client: Housing Services Department of City of Dubuque, Iowa
In the summer of 1998 relationships between many landlords and the City of Dubuque, Iowa were contentious. Rule making and enforcement around housing inspection standards had angered many landlords. A few had even demanded that David Harris, Manager of the Housing Services Department, be fired. Harris struggled with balancing regulatory and enforcement requirements with his strong desire to reinvigorate his organization with a customer service orientation. Harris says, “The public felt that we weren’t listening and that we didn’t care.”
* Issue: How to engage the entire community to deal with difficult and controversial housing issues
Late that summer the Dubuque City Council approved a Housing Services Department request for an ambitious program to strengthen customer relations. In the summer of 1999 they approved a second phase of this work to achieve a community-wide consensus on a 5-year strategic plan for the investment of over $20 million in federal and other funds for 2000-2005 for Housing, Community and Economic Development.
The Housing Department wanted to confront difficult and controversial housing, and related community and economic development issues by engaging the entire community in a dialogue about the kind of future they wanted to create. They made a commitment to take a “whole systems” view that would include all the customers and stakeholders in the system and would address both public policy issues and internal organization change issues.
1.2 PEOPLE INVOLVED AND PROCESS:
The City engaged the services of EnCompassllc, a management consulting firm, to design and guide this work.
The City wished to bring a customer focus to the regulatory tasks and functions of government. They wanted to clarify the role of the Housing Department in providing affordable housing. And they were committed to finding new ways to bring citizens and key stakeholders together with them in new partnerships and collaborations. This was not to be a standard planning process. The City wished to rewrite the story about how the government and its constituents would create public policy and the future together.
* People involved: Citizens and key stakeholders:
The chart below describes the phases of the overall process and the numbers of participants involved in each phase.
* Process: Dates/Activities/ No. of participants involved
Sept'98 to Feb '99 Citizens Planning Committee for AI/Affirmative Customer Service process-17
Nov'98 to Jan'99 AI/Affirmative Customer Service Interviews, Interviewers-60 Interviews conducted-220
Feb'99 The Summit Conference-82
Fall '98 to present Policy Analysis and revision-Dept. Housing Services-35
1999 to 2000 Work process redesign-Dept. Housing Services-20
Aug'99 to Feb'00 Citizens Planning Committee for Action Conference-22
Nov'99 to Jan'00 Stakeholder Focus Groups-50
Feb'00 Action Conference-80
Feb'00 to present Follow-up to Action Conference: Task Forces formed-7 Chairs
1.3 METHODOLOGY AND OUTCOMES
EnCompassllc worked with the Department of Housing Services leadership and staff and two different planning committees over the course of this 1.5 year process. The design was based on Appreciative Inquiry and Affirmative Customer Service™, a process that combines Appreciative Inquiry approaches with work process redesign and monitoring and evaluation systems.
1.3.1 Phase I. The Appreciative Inquiry and Affirmative Customer Service Process™:
*60 citizens conducted 220 interviews-landlords, tenants, local govt officials, bankers, social service professionals, neighbourhood and religious leaders
A Planning Committee worked together through the fall to plan and design this approach. In the late fall of 1998, sixty citizens were trained in the “appreciative interview” process. Through early 1999 they conducted interviews with over 220 citizens – landlords, tenants, local government officials, bankers, social services professionals and neighborhood and religious leaders. They inquired into people’s beliefs about what is “best” about living in Dubuque, about what people most value about their own housing, about the “best practices” of customer service in the City’s Housing Services Department, and about what they hoped for or wished could be better in the future. Phase I of this process received a “Best Practice” Award from the US Department of Housing and Urban Development in 1999.
*Housing Summit
In February 1999, 82 of these participants came together in a 1-1/2 day Housing Summit. They told stories from the interviews, discovered shared values, and tried to better understand each other and the larger system. They built new relationships, found common ground, and discovered some shared visions for the future. One landlord summed it up best, “I felt maybe it was all for naught, but we were heard….There is and can be camaraderie between the different factions – landlords, tenants, housing providers….Coming together we can all work toward the same goal….And we’ll do what our conscience and our hearts tell us to do, what is best for the community.”
Where there was acrimony, cooperation grew. People began working on new projects, like transitional housing for women and children, on task forces, addressing thorny enforcement issues and appeals processes, and on planning the Action Conference that would address the 5-year Housing, Community and Economic Development Plan.
1.3.2 Phase II Policy Analysis, Revision, and Work Process Redesign in the Department of Housing Services:
During this time, the Housing Services Department was “reinventing” itself, changing the way they did their business with the public. They changed rules, policies, procedures, work processes, bureaucratic language, paperwork and forms, and most importantly, their approach to doing business. They transformed a rule-bound bureaucracy into a responsive, customer-focused organization that not only listened in new ways to their constituents, but also acted in new ways. They actively sought customer input.
* Stakeholder Focus Groups: The Planning Committee (the second planning committee in this systems change process) for the Dubuque Housing Action Conference commissioned two qualified members to conduct a series of focus groups of specific stakeholder groups who would be involved in the Action Conference. The Planning Committee wanted to reduce the length of the conference to one day to ensure attendance by people with “heavy schedules” – people they feared would not participate if asked for more time.
With a shorter conference, the opportunity for the different factions and stakeholder groups to listen, engage in dialogue, and come to understand one another across their boundaries and differences was compromised. However, because the Action Conference was building on a 1.5 year long dialogue process amongst many, but not all stakeholders, the use of focus groups provided an opportunity for all voices to speak and to be heard even before the Conference began. It also got the reports of specific issues and concerns of each group out for advance review by all the conference participants, planners, and facilitators.
* Study Questions
1. Data questions for all groups:
A. What seems to be going right; what can we build on?
B. Whose needs are being met, and whose could be better met?
C. What are your hopes and expectations for housing in Dubuque?
D. What do we need from each of the other stakeholder groups in order to improve housing in Dubuque?
E. In general, what will our stakeholder group need to contribute to this effort in order to assure success?
2. “Homework” questions for all groups:
A. What have you seen elsewhere that works?
B. Are there others who are absolutely critical to the process?
* Action Conference: In February 2000, some 80 citizens, representing the “whole system” came together in a 10-hour Action Conference. The day began with storytelling, music and poetry about the community’s shared history around housing. Participants determined the strategic directions and specific actions that will guide the City’s Consolidated Plan for Housing, Community and Economic Development, and the expenditure of some $20 million for 2002-2005.
Many made individual commitments and group plans to continue working in task forces toward the realization of their shared visions for 2005, and the specific plans of action they created together, including a controversial long-term development plan for the downtown. The day ended with individual and task force commitments to action, related in creative presentations.
Task forces that formed during the Action Conference met the week following the Conference to organize and move forward the action agendas they created. Six weeks after the Action Conference, participants gathered for presentations and dialogue about their progress on plans, and to plan the next steps they will take together as a community.
* Fewer and more focused initiatives to realize their visions
A retrospective analysis of this process shows an interesting progression in comparing the visions articulated in the Summit Conference (February 1999), the emphasis of the focus groups (a year later), and the plans prepared in the Action Conference (February 2000). All Summit visions were reflected in different ways in the plans prepared at the Action Conference. By the time of the Action Conference, participants settled on fewer, but more focused, initiatives through which they articulated plans and actions to realize their visions.
* An 'Event Historian' documenting the learnings
An “Event Historian,” a sociology professor with depth in AI and social construction theory, who was involved from the beginning of the process, documented and examined the process and outcomes of the Action Conference. She provided important feedback in a report to the Action Conference participants, especially about issues of inclusion. She made a significant contribution to the learnings from this process that guides the Dubuque community as it continues to engage diverse, and sometimes divisive, citizens and key stakeholders in dialogue and planning for the future.
The Dubuque community has demonstrated the power and effectiveness of a well-organized appreciative inquiry process to engage citizens and stakeholders in public policy issues that can move an entire community from conflict, struggle and debate to dialogue, understanding and collaborative action for change.”
2. AI TRAINING EVENTS
2.1 USA
2.1.1 Appreciative Team Leadership
Date: May 15-17, 2000
Location: Baldwin-Wallace College, Berea, Ohio
Topic: Appreciative Team Leadership Special Keynote Speaker: Dr. David Cooperrider
sponsored by Baldwin-Wallace College, Executive Edge, Inc. Mobile Team Challenge
Using models, tools, and techniques that integrate AI and Experiential Training and Development you will design a customized Team Leadership program for your organization or program.
For information: www.bw.edu/~seminars/ or www.executiveedgeinc.com or www.mobileteamchallenge.com
To register: www.bw.edu/~seminars/ email: seminars@bw.edu
2.2 USA and ITALY
AI Training by members of the Taos Institute, Taos, New Mexico from May to November 2000 .
For a full listing, contact Dawn Dole <coopdole@modex.com>
Topics include:
Appreciative Inquiry: A Constructive Process for Organization and Community Transformation
Appreciative Inquiry Summit Workshop
Relationships: An Appreciative Journey for Couples
Appreciative Inquiry for Practitioners
Appreciative Life
Appreciative Inquiry for Complex Systems
2.3 ENGLAND
Workshop: ‘Introduction to AI’ in the UK
Dates: June 28 to 30, 2000
Programme: The workshop is designed for you to learn about the principles of AI, experience an AI process and look at ways to apply the approach in your practice or in the organisation where you work.
Workshop facilitators: Tricia Lustig and Anne Radford. They have run very successful AI taster sessions and had a great and lively group in this 3-day workshop last year.
Tricia is a Director of LASA Development UK Ltd. She works with leaders and their staff in the areas of leadership, coaching, creativity and organisational development. She has worked in Europe, Asia and the USA in the corporate sector, the not-for-profit sector and for the government.
Anne Radford works with consultants to help them strengthen their practices, organisations to develop new cultures, and community groups develop effective partnerships. She is the
editor/co-ordinator of the AI email newsletter and, recently, helped develop the PEACE workshop for the UN’s International Year for the Culture of Peace.
Location: Central London in a training centre located in a light airy loft. Easy access from Paddington for anyone coming in on the Heathrow Express.
Workshop Fee. £350.00 + £62.25 VAT Total £411.25. You can pay by credit card or cheque payable to ‘Anne Radford’.
No. of participants: up to 20 people
Registration options: By going to the shopping area on www.aradford.co.uk . There you can pay for the workshop with your credit card-the site is secure. Or send your details and cheque payable to 'Anne Radford' to 303 Bankside Lofts, 65 Hopton Street, London SE1 9JL, UK.
For more information, contact Anne Radford at editor@aipractitioner.com, fax number 44(0)7000 077 012 or telephone 44(0)7000 077 011.
3. OTHER WORKSHOPS
Here are some workshops that involve people in organisational and personal change.
3.1 UK
3.1.1 the new series of integrated workshops on Engaging People in Large Scale Change (a partnership between Roffey Park Management Institute, VISTA Consulting, WIKIMA Consulting, and Hawthorn Press)
Consulting Skills for Large Group Engagement - 26 to 27 June 2000
Future Search Learning Workshop - 4 to September 2000
Power and Leadership Conference - 10 to 15 September 2000
Open Space with Harrison Owen, Birgitt Williams and Romy Shovelton - 25 to 27 October 2000
Search and Participative Design - November 2000
Contact: Paul Roberts at Roffey (paul.roberts@roffey-park.co.uk)
3.1.2 A"career ecology" workshop which engages the principles of natural systems and AI organised by the International Association of Career Management Professionals. Workshop leaders: Ken Scott and Janice McDougall
Dates July 6 to 9, 2000 in Brighton, Sussex.
Further information is available from IACMP@avlconsultancy.co.uk.
3.1.3 Change Agility Conference in June.
Organised by the Bath Consultancy Group and with Peter Reason at the University of Bath Management School. Peter Hawkins says "This is a working conference, working with real issues and we will be using some Appreciative Inquiry."
For information, contact Peter Hawkins at <AlisonBCG@compuserve.com>
4. COUNTRY CONTACTS/CO-ORDINATORS
If you would like to contribute to the newsletter, please contact one of the following:
Walter Bruck/Germany wbruck@wb-consult.de
Gervase Bushe/Canada bushe@sfu.ca
Steve Cato/USA West Coast scato@worldnet.att.net
Contact person to be confirmed /South Africa letsema@wn.apc.org
Joep de Jong/The Netherlands joep.dejong@syntegra.nl
Muriel Finegold/USA East Coast Marafine@aol.com
Sara Inés Gómez/Colombia sarinago@inter.net.co
Mette Jacobsgaard/Denmark 101572.622@compuserve.com
Bill Kinsey/Zimbabwe bkinsey@econ.vu.nl and
root@bruin.uz.zw
Liz Mellish/Australia info@mellish.com.au
Ravi Pradhan/Nepal ravip@mos.com.np
Hamdi Qenawi/Egypt qenawi@usa.net
Anne Radford/England + Newsletter Co-ordinator editor@aipractitioner.com
Marge Schiller/USA East Coast MRSENTP@worldnet.att.net
Magdalena Steinmeyer/Mexico hgstein@ibm.net
Laverne Dees Webb/USA East Coast lavernew@aol.com
Margaret Wright/Scotland mwright@resolution-scotland.com
5. BACK COPIES OF THE NEWSLETTER
To get back copies of the newsletter, go to www.aradford.co.uk/AInewsletter.htm. Each issue of the newsletter is posted on the web site two weeks after it has been distributed.
6. To SUBSCRIBE to the newsletter, go to the website
http://www.aradford.co.uk. At the "Welcome" letter, go to subscribe, which will take you into the secure shopping area where you can select one of three contribution levels.
I hope you have enjoyed this. Do let me have your feedback and comments. Issue 10 featuring an article on chaordic organizations by David Cooperrider will be distributed in August 2000.
Do forward the newsletter to as many people as you like.
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