An appreciative inquiry is a constructive performance strategy for enhancing better leadership and facilitating change for an organization or a workforce. Unlike many other techniques, appreciative inquiry enables the company or administration to identify the strengths rather than just the shortcomings (Lewis et al., 2016). The beginnings of appreciative inquiry can be dated back to ancient times, and it is now commonly used in the field of current leaders and managers. Therefore, it enables for-profit and non-profit organizations to integrate power and plan efficiently for the future success of the organizations.
I have served as an army platoon sergeant for over thirty years. Before my retirement, I spent the last 15 years at Fort Greenly, Alaska, with the Missile Defense Battalion. While working in the military, the duties and responsibilities were assigned on a teamwork basis. Employee performance assessment is conducted monthly by identifying each individual’s contribution to the team. The key positive aspects of the group were that it offered chances for career development, educational opportunities through coaching of team members, and performance management. Therefore, such elements strengthened the team, creating an excellent working surroundings which facilitated an opportunity to manage change in the military group.
The human resource management officers provided coaching sessions for the entire military personnel. The main aim was to ensure that the team had an ongoing learning process to create room for innovations within the task force (Whitney & Trosten-Bloom, 2010). Having an innovative military team creates an opportunity to convert ideas into reliable outcomes. While in service, after undertaking staff coaching, my team contributed positively to the military by recommending the adoption of modernized walkie-talkies, Global Positioning Systems, and the internet to improve the performance and work process design. Therefore, innovations create a common destiny and a positive change within a team, enabling them to accomplish their future goals.
The military created room for team development for every individual by ensuring each was valuable, concerned, and focused on the matters related to the set missions. Each individual was able to work with the group and produce outstanding results. To ensure that the military team recorded continuous success in its mission, every individual had to make more inquiries from every team member. The entire team required a less command structure by several and more discoveries of opportunities were made by many people (Whitney & Trosten-Bloom, 2010). Such a strategy ensured that we could adapt quickly as the military field was challenging daily. Having good team development enabled us to achieve one of the histories making missions whereby the team of three hundred individuals defended approximately three hundred million individuals.
While at the military camp, we ensured that every individual was determined and talked to another to make inquiries enabling the team to function very well. The team consulted with everyone and confirmed that we were making new relationships with every team member, which ranked us as the top-performing team. Every individual offered support to one another to make sure that implemented strategies succeeded in the daily operations. Such experiences could work in an appreciative inquiry approach in developing a plan to improve team performance. It would allow the organization to involve employees to increase their performance hence achieving an excellent and sound change.
The effectiveness of the team is evaluated and measured by considering a number of successful missions and considering the problems faced while implementing strategies in favor of the task. Feedbacks given by each team leader are key consideration used to evaluate the team’s effectiveness (Whitney & Trosten-Bloom, 2010. To ensure that the group’s performance was efficient, selecting the best suitable individual for the task was considered.
The traditional organizational development approach could help identify challenges and improve the team’s performance because it focuses on finding ways to attain planned and operative goals. It ensures the existence of an ongoing communication strategy that makes an individual feel comfortable and appreciated within the team (Basadur et al., 2012). Therefore, it could enable the team to create a new point of view of how they see themselves and what they think of the organization and the world.
An appreciative inquiry approach would better the team because it focuses on the organization’s plans, structure, challenges, and outcomes to facilitate a positive change. It ensures that every individual is appreciatively involved in organizational functioning while focusing on the strengths, morals, visions, and expectations (Lewis et al., 2016). If the team were to hire a consultant, it would recommend using the Appreciative inquiry approach because the strategy always focuses on the strengths and possibilities available for the group and ways of ensuring motivation and team engagement (Whitney & Trosten-Bloom, 2010). Therefore, an appreciative inquiry strategy would be a practical approach to assessing the team’s performance and providing recommendations for improvement.
Employee performance is crucial to ensure success for both profit and non-profit organizations. The appreciative inquiry approach and traditional organizational development approach help track the performance of every individual in the organization and identify possible ways to facilitate change and improvement. They attempt to create a friendly work environment for every employee to ensure effective performance. Therefore, every organization chooses whether to use the appreciative inquiry approach or the traditional organizational development approaches to initiate change.
References
Basadur, M., Basadur, T., & Licina, G. (2012) Eds. Organizational development. In Handbook of organizational creativity (pp. 667-703). Academic Press.
Lewis, S., Passmore, J., & Cantore, S. (2016) Eds. Appreciative inquiry for change management: Using AI to facilitate organizational development. Kogan Page Publishers.
Whitney, D. D., & Trosten-Bloom, A. (2010) Eds. The power of appreciative inquiry: A practical guide to positive change. Berrett-Koehler Publishers.