Say the quiet part
Everyone in the room already knows what discover — finding what is already alive is. They just have not been given permission to name it. appreciative inquiry as a leadership stance is mostly a permission technology. The frameworks are the pretext.
Asset-based scanning before any problem-solving. Yes, even before the layoffs. Especially before the layoffs. If nobody in your leadership team has laughed out loud reading a section of this magazine this quarter, either the magazine is failing or your leadership team is. We are open to both possibilities. We would like to know which.
A protocol so short it feels like cheating
Before your next high-stakes conversation, do exactly this: stop for ninety seconds. Feel your feet. Name — silently, to nobody — the outcome you are trying to protect. Name — silently, to nobody — the outcome you are secretly afraid of. Enter the room.
That is it. That is the protocol. It is not the whole practice. It is the entrance to the practice. Every practice has an entrance. Most of them are boring on purpose.
The frameworks are the pretext. The practice is the permission.
What you get, what you give up
You get a slightly slower first minute of every meeting and a substantially different rest of the meeting. You get the option, previously unavailable, to change the temperature of a room without changing the topic.
You give up the identity of the person who was always right in a hurry. That identity paid well and made you tired. We are proposing a different arrangement.