Introduction: Positive Transformation in Government

by Jen Hetzel Silbert, Loretta Randolph and Lee Salmon

Summary: There was a time when citizens didn’t look to government systems to feed the poor, to send rockets into space or to investigate the steroid use of celebrated baseball players. Evidence of government transformation surrounds us around the globe and its pace of change hastens year after year. But it’s not just the pace of change in government that gives us pause; it’s also the conditions in which change is taking place, in particular the everincreasing value placed on partnerships / collaboration, shared values and participatory planning methods.

by Martin B. Kormanik and Loretta H. Randolph

Summary: The client organization, a 10,000 employee United States Government regulatory agency, had undergone substantive and ongoing change in a short period of time. By mid-2001, there was an atmosphere of uncertainty and distrust of additional planned change efforts that would significantly change the organizational structure and reporting relationships. This project case study highlights the assessments of two agency components and the use of AI to conduct those assessments. The authors served as consultants on the project.

Appreciative Inquiry and Natural Resource Management in Rocky Mountain National Park

by Myriem Le Ferrand

Summary: This case explores stewardship of natural resources in one of the U.S. Department of the
Interior’s National Parks, Rocky Mountain National Park. Over three million persons visit this park a year for the thrill of reaching accessible yet well-preserved tundra landscapes. In this case we’ll explore how Appreciative Inquiry (AI) offered an innovative means to discovering social and ecological sustainability in a national park setting.

Values shared by Community Response Teams: Improving Our Nation’s Emergency Preparedness

by Anne L. Drabczyk

Summary: Due to 9/11, President George W. Bush established Community Emergency Response Teams across the nation to aid in national disasters. The purpose of this study
was to increase understanding about the individual and shared values of citizen and professional emergency responders. These findings generated recommendations to improve
the nation’s emergency preparedness for disaster relief.

Strategic Planning and Team Building: NASA’s Experience

by Roselyn Kay and Marilou Bova

Summary: What happens when a dispirited group in a government agency caught up in a negative
spiral is introduced to Appreciative Inquiry? This article highlights the interaction between strategic planning and team building, and how using an appreciative approach shifted management and employees into a productive, collaborative and dynamic relationship.

Appreciative Program Design: A Mentoring Project to Develop Canadian
R & D Leaders

by Catherine McKenna

Summary: In 2003, an R&D Agency within the Canadian government providing leading edge science and technology to its clients identified a need to develop future leaders. Like many
scientific organizations, the Agency faces a challenge: How do you build a culture of
learning that connects the calling of a scientist with the possibilities of organizational leadership? Mentoring was identified as a way to tap existing resources to build such a culture. This article describes the pilot mentoring programme, key learnings and success factors.

Appreciative Inquiry in the U.S. National Intelligence Community: Lessons in Leading and Fostering Empowered
and Collaborative Workplaces

by Jen Hetzel Silbert and Tony Silbert

Summary: “I don’t know about this Appreciative Inquiry stuff,” she said, “but I have a hunch you
can make it work for my folks.” Little did this newly appointed Chief know how quickly
her leap of faith would pay off. What started as a typical offsite planning process turned into a highly participatory and empowering
inter-organizational collaboration with impressive results – in less than one month. The  article explores how bold and empowering leadership helped create a participative strategic plan. Specifically, this case study examines how the Strategic Assessments Group within the U.S. National Intelligence Community applied Appreciative Inquiry  to create its 2004 strategic plan, but in the process wound up reinventing itself as a highly collaborative service organization and achieved impressive results quickly.

Innovation in Leadership Development within the Dutch Government

Igniting Leadership at All Levels in the Federal Workplace: An Experiment for Organizational Change at US EPA’s
Office of Research and Development (ORD)

by Mary McCarthy-O’Reilly, Kenneth Elstein, Cheri Torres and Carolyn R. Weisenberger

Summary: The US Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) Office of Research and Development (ORD) began a courageous journey in 1995 to prepare for the new millennium. This was to be a conversation of hope, discovering and dreaming together and designing change
efforts to generate the very best science to protect the American people. We explain our rationale for using AI as a means for cultural change, our first steps towards change, the results so far, and what, we believe, the future holds. It also includes a description of how we brought together Experiential Learning with AI to foster cultural change.