This is From The Balance Beam

[TheBalanceBeam] - Appreciating the Good Things

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THE BALANCE BEAM
Ideas and Inspiration for Creating a Life that Works
Vol. 3 No. 20, November 15, 2001
Published by Success Builders, Inc.
http://www.SuccessBuildersInc.com
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"He who knows others is wise; he who knows himself is enlightened."
Lao-tzu
In this issue: APPRECIATING THE GOOD THINGS
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Dear Friends:
How often do you find yourself counting your blessings in your workplace? And especially these days? Although The Balance Beam has a global audience, what inspired this article was next week's quintessential American holiday, Thanksgiving. Still, I'm hoping that all of you will resonate with this theme of appreciating what we have in the midst of difficult times, and being grateful for what is. As for me, I am especially thankful for all of you, and for your allowing me to come into your hearts and emailboxes every couple of weeks. Blessings to you and yours!

If you are interested in reading earlier editions of The Balance Beam, you can easily retrieve them by clicking on http://www.successbuildersinc.com/newsletter.html and going to the Archives section. If you are not yet a regular subscriber to The Balance Beam, you can also enter your subscription information at this location.
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Today's Topic: APPRECIATING THE GOOD THINGS

I picked up the newspaper this morning, and, because it is Wednesday, the grocery store circulars dropped out of the bundle and landed next to the front page. There is was, on my kitchen counter - the ads for Butterball turkeys and cranberry sauce right next to the stories about anthrax letters and the hunt for Bin Laden. What a strange juxtaposition of thoughts to swallow along with my coffee and orange juice. And what a study in contrasts to lead into Thanksgiving week.

Thanksgiving is an American holiday that stirs up tradition at its finest. It's about rustling leaves and pumpkin pie and football and counting our blessings. I've heard a number of people recently discussing how the holidays will feel different this year, given all the bad news that's happened in the world and in the economy. It's hard to feel festive in the midst of so much loss and change.

Much of the business arena has been hard hit this year, with climbing unemployment rates, declining profits and multiple plant closures making the headlines. It's easy to become focused on the problems that abound, versus looking for positives and expressing gratitude. Which is exactly why it's a perfect time for using the tool of "appreciative inquiry" in our organizations.

Appreciative inquiry is a technique first developed by Drs. David Cooperrider and Suresh Srivasta at Case Western University in the 1980's. Known as "AI" for short, it refers to a way of strengthening an organization by building on what is already working well. If you've had much contact with consultants, you know that they typically begin an engagement by diagnosing the problems in an organization. In the true spirit of Dilbert, energy then becomes focused on what's wrong, what's broken, and what needs to be fixed. And, because we get what we pay attention to, what typically results are more problems. It's no wonder that the change agents of the world get a bad rap.

So just what does this business of Appreciative Inquiry have to do with Thanksgiving and counting your blessings? Simply put, it's an approach that asks us to acknowledge and value the best of the past and the present in order to, as Cooperrider described it, "ignite the collective imagination of what might be." Translated, it's about being grateful for the good things, and using them as building blocks to the future.

I was having a conversation with a client this afternoon whose role is to thoroughly revamp a social services agency in a major metropolitan community. I asked her what she thought would be most essential to guiding this process. She said that while she didn't want to oversimplify the situation, what she really feels she needs is a bunch of "can-do" people. What gets in the way, she explained, is staff members who prefer to complain and focus on what's wrong with the system, what can't be fixed. These self-limiting beliefs are what keep people stuck in the past and blind to the possibilities for positive change.

Just imagine the energy that could be ignited in your organization if you chose to engage your employees in identifying, honoring and expanding on what is working well. Picture yourself having a juicy conversation with your associates around the following kinds of questions:

- What works really well around here?
- What enables you to do your best work?
- What about your job makes it meaningful for you?
- What's the best team experience you've ever been a part of?
- What happens in the course of a day that makes you really proud to work here?
- What makes our customers want to initiate and keep doing business with us?

As you might expect, asking questions like these yields a very different conversation from asking folks to identify all the problems and challenges they encounter in trying to do their jobs. Positive organizational change happens more easily when people don't get bogged down with nit picking and negatives; when they're invited to celebrate and honor what is effective and good. And yes, when they can give thanks.
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Words to live by:

"Reflect on your present blessings, of which every man has many; not on your past misfortunes, of which all men have some."
- Charles Dickens

"I don't think of all the misery, but of all the beauty that still remains."
- Anne Frank