It changes the way we behave.

And I firmly believe that when I am positive, it not only makes me better,

but it also makes those around me better.
-Harvey Mackay

A fundamental practice of Appreciative Inquiry (AI) is to focus on strengths rather than weaknesses. Doing so enables us open up our thinking to explore our successes and opportunities rather than obsess about our shortcomings or failures. This practice does NOT mean that we sugar-coat or overlook reality. It simply means that we build on our immediate and local assets rather than focusing on what is not there or not desirable.

We all tend to find evidence to support our assumptions and values, no matter what they are. As public servants, we can use this inclination to our advantage in our interactions with both citizens and colleagues. This practice, based on the principles of Appreciative Inquiry, is called finding “the flip.”

This is not the same thing as putting a more palatable spin on a negative topic. Instead, it enables our capacity to recognize any positive assets or attributes that are contained within the hard situation. That’s the positive nugget, the gold. We want more of that.

Consider one simple example. You are leading a staff meeting following a week in which your community experienced conflict or, perhaps, a natural disaster. People are depleted and disappointed, AND there is a lot of work to do. Assume our society and we as individuals share the responsibility in varying degrees for the bad things that happened. Ignoring the weight or reach of the negative experience is not appropriate, and ignoring the work that has to be done today is not an option, either.

Try opening the meeting by going around the table to allow responses to one of the following questions:

• Share one simple action you saw or experienced in the last week that gave you hope for our capacity to act with integrity and compassion, even in challenging situations.
• Our systems were overwhelmed dealing with difficult circumstances last week. Share one small example of a successful interaction with the public that gave you pride in our organization.
• The stressful events of the last week indicate we need to strengthen arenas of both prevention and response. As we begin work to do that, share one practice or asset we have that strengthens our public interactions and should be retained into the future.

By naming that good stuff together first,  we can unleash the potential of that positivity and design the way forward together — a future that includes more of what we desire.

To learn more about using AI in your work in the public sector, join us in Winston-Salem on November 4, 2016, for a one-day workshop on Positive Problem Solving.

The post Appreciative Inquiry 101: Finding “The Flip” to a More Positive Outcome appeared first on The Public Leadership Blog.

Two different ideas expressed recently at a conference and on a blog might merge to generate one strategy to address this dual challenge of identifying and developing diverse talent.

• In a recent “Engaging Women in Public Service” conference hosted by the School of Government, Margaret Brunson, Ph.D., shared her research into how high achieving women in the medical field used critical life events to develop their leadership capacity. The session, entitled “Illumined Leadership Perspective: Tapping into Your Life’s Journey to Guide Your Leadership Practice,” was thought provoking in that it directed participants to consider how their personal lives informed their public leadership.

• In a parallel thread of public discourse, Vu Lee, in his blog Nonprofit With Balls, describes the paradox of our societal message that we want to build the leadership and capacity of diverse communities, yet we are less willing to change the strategies for making that happen.

“If we value the voice of our diverse communities, we must build the capacity of organizations led by those communities. But we must do it differently than how we’ve been doing it. We must invest strategically and sufficiently. We must take some risks.”

We could, for example, encourage the development of either young or non-traditional public leaders by providing opportunities to identify and honor the lessons of life events.

Here’s an example often shared by Jim Johnson, Distinguished Professor of Strategy and Entrepreneurship at the UNC Kenan Flagler Business School: Consider a middle school student who lives in the territory of one gang but stays after school at his grandmother’s house, in a neighborhood where another gang dominates the streets. If that kid can safely navigate the walk from one house to the other, he is probably a diplomat.

In my own life experience, I learned how to advocate for others and make complex grant applications in my nonprofit career. That experience came in handy when I helped a loved one navigate medical and disability processes as he suffered through a memory disorder. My professional experience informed my later personal work, but the order in which the critical learning took place might be reversed for someone else. The personal work could come first and go largely unrecognized and under-valued, if we do not present opportunities to name and respect it.

• We could allow job applicants to describe either personal or professional experiences when asked to describe their skills or strongest attributes.
• We could point out to our less confident staff that planning a four generation family reunion demonstrates special event planning skills that could be applied to organizing a professional conference.
• We could recognize that successfully moving homes four times in six years demonstrates the resilience and adaptability of a military spouse.

And, finally, we can examine our own lives and recognize the lessons learned in those hard years when we

• simultaneously cared for young children and ill parents,
• successfully assimilated a blended family,
• escaped a violent situation and created a new, healthier life, or
• insert-your-life-challenge-here.

As we worked through those challenges, we also developed our capacity to make good and useful things happen around us. The public sector always needs more of that.

The post Honoring the Personal Opportunities of Leadership Development appeared first on The Public Leadership Blog.