Words Create Worlds

David Cooperrider often says, “Words Create Worlds,” and I believe they do. From studying appreciative inquiry and practicing it in my own life, I know that the words I choose matter.

That’s why I am so surprised that so many people say things like, “Well, you know, it’s because the millennials… <insert negative comment here>. I have heard everything from they are lazy, entitled, rude, selfish, have a poor work ethic, etc. Regardless of the date ranges you prefer, you are talking about more than 80 million people. I’m not sure how it became acceptable to talk despairingly about 80 million people, but somehow, I seem to hear and read about people doing this all the time. For anyone that is either participating in this behavior or accepting it in others, I have one question – What do you hope to achieve?

Can you think of anytime throughout your career or life that you talked badly about someone and their behavior improved as a result of it? What would we say if we heard our teachers were talking to children in classrooms this way? Would we believe the teachers were encouraging the children to become better? What do we want for this generation in the work place? Do we want them to take our companies on to bigger and better places? Do we want them to continue innovating and finding cures to diseases? Do we want them to eradicate poverty and help with global warming? If so, why aren’t we encouraging them to be their best?

Can you imagine if we changed our language highlighting their strengths? What if the story became that they are better equipped to create technology for affordable solar energy and digesters? What if we talked about their caring attitudes and their desire to have meaning and purpose? What if we welcomed what they had to offer and how it complimented the other generations? Do you think they’d live up to the new story?

If ‘Words Create Worlds’, I challenge you to find the words that create the world you want to live in.

Appreciative Inquiry is Not Reasonable

In Chapter 3 of The Power of Momentsby Chip and Dan Heath, they refer to Forrester’s research on customer satisfaction. Forrester has built models on the financial value of customers and has shown that very satisfied customers spend more money with you than less satisfied customers. On a scale of 1-10, the very satisfied customers were identified as a 7. They go on to say that if you focus on the customers with a satisfaction of 4-6 and work to improve their experience, it is better for your business than fixing the issues of customers with a satisfaction score of 1-3. In other words, you should not focus all of your energy and budget on your most unhappy customers, but rather on your neutral customers. 

This research validates how important it is for organizations to focus on using the Appreciative Inquiry framework in their planning and business processes. Appreciative Inquiry is inclusive and will generate energy and help create the mechanisms necessary in your business to move neutral customers to very satisfied customers. This will happen through customer ideas, employee ideas and the shared energy in your organization to reach a common goal that everyone works on together. If you have not experienced the Appreciative Inquiry process, it can be difficult to understand how valuable it is.

Chip and Dan Heath refer a little to that in The Power of Moments when they talk about reasonableness. They state that often times we don’t create memorable moments because it isn’t reasonable. That’s also what organizations say when we talk to them about having an Appreciative Inquiry summit and including their staff. They say it isn’t reasonable to shut down their company for an entire day, or to pull half of their organization out of production to create an inclusive plan. They say it isn’t reasonable to invite their customers into their planning processes, or to even let competitors know what they are planning. It may not sound reasonable, but it is remarkable, and it produces results.

The final fact I’ll leave you with on this topic was also cited in The Power of Momentsby Chip and Dan Heath. “There is nine times more to gain by elevating positive customers than by eliminating negative ones.” Appreciative Inquiry will allow you to elevate positive customers, create a strategy to elevate neutral ones, accomplish whole system change, and have a remarkable experience in the process. It might not be reasonable, but it is profitable.

Tampa's Mayoral Debate: An Appreciative Perspective

By Mike Echevarria

 I attended the Tampa Mayoral debate on October 3, 2018 and decided to provide an appreciative perspective of the debate. An appreciative perspective looks for what I liked most as opposed to what I liked least. In addition, the appreciative take asks if the debate was positive, optimistic, and uplifting versus negative and pessimistic. Here are my major takeaways.

1. The debate was hosted by the Emerging Leaders of Tampa Bay committee of the Greater Tampa Chamber Commerce  https://www.tampachamber.com/emerge.aspx . This committee is comprised of young professionals between the ages of 21-35 years of age.  It was great to see the commitment of these younger leaders to the future of the City of Tampa.

2. The mood of the debate was upbeat about the future of the City of Tampa. There are many positives going for the city and the candidates were all optimistic about the future.

3. The candidates maintained a respectful and civil tone throughout the debate. Although, there were a few light-hearted jabs amongst the candidates, laughter and not gasps followed.

4. The major issues and opportunities were discussed.  The issues were transportation, the Rays, potential budget shortfalls, citizens safety, education and the state of the neighborhoods. There was even a question about the candidates’ favorite businesses. It was apparent that all the candidates like to eat!

   Here are a few ideas/quotes that I liked:

• “We are only as strong as our weakest neighborhoods.”

• “Its’ always about the process!”

• “All neighborhoods should rise with the tide.”

• “Bob Buckhorn got Tampa to fall in love with Tampa. The next Mayor needs to get the world to fall in love with Tampa!”

• “Tampa is a big City with a small-town feel.”

• “Suggesting the use of UAG’s (Urban Aerial Gondola’s)”

    My appreciative takeaway is there is a great deal of positive momentum, hope and optimism for the City of Tampa’s future. A lot of work remains to be done on some major and pressing issues. Tampa’s future is bright if we remain civil, respectful and collaborative. We can chose to focus on what’s going well now with the City and leverage those assets into a big Vision for our community.

Hump Day as an Opportunity

What Does Hump Day Mean?

This expression has long puzzled me. The definition says “Wednesday, regarded as the midpoint of a typical work week”, and then goes on to say this – “it’s hump day and perhaps the toughest day of the week for you.” Now, why would Wednesday be the toughest day of the week?

As I think about this, I’m confused. It feels like we’re celebrating, or at least condoning a relationship with work, school and life that somehow devalues the week and praises the weekend. I heard someone say last week, “I live for Fridays!” and I thought, “what about the other six days of the week?”

The New York Times published an article stating that a heart attack was 20 percent greater on Mondays for adult men and 15 percent greater for adult women, which they had initially blamed on the stress of returning to work but said additional factors may be involved.[1] If we believe returning to work on Monday can cause so much stress that it effects our health, then why aren’t we looking deeper into this? I would also think additional factors that could contribute to the increased heart attacks on Monday could be or our coping habits we’ve developed for escaping from the work week, which can include excessive drinking, smoking, partying, eating, exercise, tv watching, etc. I wonder what would happen if we started working to seek the opportunity in this situation to make changes?

I know some businesses include employee wellbeing in their cultures, and I’ve read about a lot of organizations that are looking for ways to create a healthier employee. I wonder what might happen if we reshaped the problem as an opportunity using the framework of appreciative inquiry?

What might the landscape look like if we asked a question like –

• How might we structure our company culture so that employees look forward to coming to work and feel valued and respected here?

• What if we asked the employees that question in groups with managers and CEOs?

• How might it create whole system change to recreate the work day, the space, and the policies and procedures?

• What if the solution is not to fix what we have, but to explore what might be without the limitations of the current structure?

When I started working, we didn’t have computers. You got mail in a mail room, and we used carbon paper to make copies of the things we wrote. You’d think things were very different then, but really, they weren’t. We sat in workspaces similar to the ones available today, we worked the same types of shifts, had the same types of bosses, and dealt with a lot of the same issues. It feels a little like the world changed, and we just keep adjusting our old system by layering and layering new things on a foundation that isn’t big enough or strong enough to support it.

When I read about education, the comments are very similar. The current structure of having kids sit at their desks for hours and hours a day and then do hours of homework at night isn’t meeting the demands of the future workforce. Businesses need their own training departments, and Corporate Universities to give employees the skills necessary to work. What might happen if we included Universities and schools in that same conversation I referred to earlier with employees and managers and CEOs? Is it possible we could look for community solutions to create foundations for success?

In a world with so much opportunity, it seems very limiting and sad to stop one day a week and say, “Today is Hump Day, let me climb to the top of this very small hump and slide into the weekend,” when I could be saying, “Today is Wednesday. I wonder what mountain I could climb today?”

[1] https://www.nytimes.com/2006/03/14/health/14real.html

You Were FIRST – Why Aren’t They Celebrating?

Have you ever been to or seen the clips of that race where the runner was in first place, saw a teammate fall, ran back to help them and they hobbled over the finish line together with the entire crowd cheering them on? There is so much energy in the moment. The crowd is watching and almost willing the duo to finish strong, while the stronger runner is smiling and focusing on one goal – getting their teammate over the finish line. Someone actually won that race – they crossed the finish line first – but in our story, we focus on the runner who went back for their teammate. They become the real winner.

That is what an Appreciate Inquiry session feels like.

When the executives sit around a conference table and plan the goals for their organization in a strategic planning session, they go for the win. The employees sit in the bleachers to watch the race, hear the results, and then receive the plan for their training practices and workouts, but they don’t get to participate. How enthusiastic would you be to workout and prepare for a race that you weren’t going to participate in? You can have the t-shirt from the race, but no entry and no number.

The Appreciative Inquiry framework is inclusive and asks your employees to train for a race that they are very much a part of and want to win. They are included in the training plan, the workout plans, and assigned coaches to help them reach their potential. In this process they have the opportunity to go back and help a fellow runner get across the finish line and they feel the glory when they get across themselves. Instead of being in the bleachers, they ask their family, customers, vendors, competitors, and community to watch as they give it their all and show what they are capable of, and when everyone is there cheering the on, the executives hold back and offer support to help everyone win. In this process, everyone can win together.

What does your planning process look like? Are you including your employees, vendors, competitors, and community? Do your employees have a voice, or do they just nod their heads and say things like, “They said we have to…, or “Apparently the new process is…,” which lets everyone know that they’ve been told to do something they do not believe is in the best interest of the customer or the organization.

I invite you to consider the power of an inclusive process and whether you want your employees to run the race or watch it.