Master of Business Administration

Management of Change

Dr. Cynthia Ee
17 December 2017
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AI: A brief introduction
• AI is the cooperative co-evolutionary search for the best in
people, the organisation and the world around them.
• It involves the discovery of what gives “life” to a living
system when it is most effective, alive, and constructively
capable in economic, ecological and human terms.
• It involves the art and practice of asking questions that
strengthen a system’s capacity to apprehend, anticipate
and heighten positive potential.
• AI interventions focus on the speed of imagination and
innovation—instead of the negative, critical, and spiralling
diagnoses commonly used in organisations.
• The discovery, dream, design and destiny model links the
energy of the positive core to changed never thought
possible.
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 Two paradigms for org change
Problem Solving Appreciative Inquiry

• Identify Problem. • Appreciate “What is”

• Conduct Root Cause Analysis. (What gives life?).
• Brainstorm Solutions & • Imagine “What Might Be.”
Analyze. • Determine “What Should Be.”
• Develop Action Plans. • Create “What Will Be”.

• Metaphor: Organizations are • Metaphor: Organizations are

problems to be solved. a solution/mystery to be
embraced.

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AI “4-D” Cycle
Discovery
“What gives life?”
(the best of what is)
Appreciating

Destiny Dream
“What might be?”
“What will be?” Affirmative (imagine what the
(how to empower, learn
and adjust/improvise)
Topic Choice world is calling for)
Sustaining Envisioning

Design
“How can it be?
(determining the idea)
Co-constructing

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Affirmative vocabulary
• The language one uses creates one’s reality
• Avoid deficit-based vocabularies

Vocabularies of Human Vocabularies of

Deficit
Depressed
Low self-esteem
Antisocial personality
Midlife crisis
Dysfunctional family
Identity crisis
Organisational Deficit
Organisational stress
Interpersonal incompetence
Job dissatisfaction
Low morale
Team conflict
Executive burnout

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 Deficit language examples
“YES” MEN
MISSED COMMITMENTS
Gap Analysis
Repeat Reports BURNOUT
TURF BATTLES REORGANIZATION
Critical
New Circuit Failure Rate UNFAVORABLE Thinking

Down Time SILOS

CUSTOMER
WARNING
COMPLAINTS TROUBLE REPORT
Spell Check
DEBUG
RISK
PERFORMANCE
REVIEW BLOCKED CALLS Red Tape

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Exercise: Affirmative topic
• How to reduce employees dissatisfaction
• How to prevent employee suicides
• How to reduce accident rates
• How to reduce employee attrition
• How to reduce customer complaints

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History as Positive Possibility
Three factors give life to healthy organisations:
1. Continuity: Learn and apply lessons from the best of the
past

2. Novelty: Surface and develop ideas for creative acts

3. Transition: Enact actual changes in systems and

behaviours to progress toward a desired state

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Foundation Questions
(CONTINUITY)
1. Describe a high point experience in your organisation, a
time when you were most alive and engaged.
2. Without being humble, what is it that you most value
about yourself, your work, and your organisation?
3. What are the core factors that give life to your
organisation without which the organisation would
cease to exist?
4. Imagine you have awakened from a long, deep sleep.
You get up to realise that everything is as you always
dreamed it would be. Your ideal state has become the
reality. What do you see? (NOVELTY)
5. What three wishes do you have…to enhance the vitality
of your organisation? (TRANSITION)
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AI “4-D” Cycle
Discovery
“What gives life?”
(the best of what is)
Appreciating

Destiny Dream
“What might be?”
“What will be?” Affirmative (imagine what the
(how to empower, learn
and adjust/improvise)
Topic Choice world is calling for)
Sustaining Envisioning

Design
“How can it be?
(determining the idea)
Co-constructing

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Discover: Share the stories
• Storytelling
• Questions
• Carefully crafted
• Topic of choice is positive

Paired activity
1. Interview someone you don’t know very well, using the Interview Guide
2. Interviewer should listen deeply (It’s not a dialog). Ask follow up
questions. Probe (ask “Tell me more about that…”)
3. Take turns interviewing each other
4. Document your findings

Remember: Focus on the positives—what we want to create more of

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Discover: Share the stories (2)
Group activity
1. Form a group with another pair (or with 2 other pairs)
2. Share the stories you’ve heard with your group

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Discover: Identify life-giving forces
1. In your group, brainstorm the themes you’ve heard, the life giving
forces that supported exceptionally positive moments.
2. Document each theme on a Post-it. These can be in the form of most
quotable quotes, exciting and energizing stories and compelling
themes.
3. Group the themes on a flip chart
4. Discuss and agree on 3-5 themes that you have in common, which
are also most promising and inspiring
5. Present to the class

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Discover: Mapping the Positive Core
• Each person can put a dot next to the themes of life-giving
forces that are most important to them as individuals
• The “scatter-gram” of dots locates a pattern of energy, the
positive core for the group on this specific topic; it is not a vote
• Feel free to add words or rephrase

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Dream: Goals and Vision

Practical, grounded in organisation’s history  Image of the

future

Collectively share stories of positive future

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Dream: Goals and Vision
Assume you go into a deep sleep tonight and wake up in 10
years. While you were asleep, powerful and positive changes
take place, real miracles happen, and your organisation
becomes what you want it to be. Now you awaken and go
into the organisation.

It’s 2027 and your proud of what you see. What do you that
is new, changed, better or effective and successful?

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Dream: Goals and Vision
Create shared images of a preferred future

Visual images

Drawing, songs, skits, collages, dances

etc.

Share visual image with larger group

Word images

Translate visual image into word image

(provocative proposition)

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Design: Ideas and Innovation
How we’re going to make this happen

Create the ideal future based on the strengths, hopes, and dreams
articulated in the first two phases. The task now is to create a
blueprint that can bring these dreams to life. It involves a process of
building commitment to a common future through dialogue and
debate.

Creation of social architecture: structure, strategies, processes etc.

Creation of provocative proposition

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Destiny
Planning and commitment
1. Tactical details
2. Tangible steps of action

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AI fundamentals
1. Organisations move in the direction of what they study
2. AI makes the conscious choice to study the best of an
organisation, it’s positive core

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