Emotional Intelligence and Appreciative Inquiry

A post on Emotional Intelligence and Appreciative Inquiry. Enjoy!

Just out of curiosity, how would you place EI information before the shareholders in elections of board members?

Happy Sunday Morning Dr. S:

Thank you for your question. I agree with several researchers regarding the ways in which EI can be introduced to shareholders for a board of director’s election (or anything else organizationally related). One way to place EI information before a group’s shareholders is through appreciative inquiry. Dunton (2008) acknowledged, as Anderson (2010) did, that future trends in the practice of organizational development include appreciative inquiry. I believe these trends are suggestible for today’s organizations and corporation’s shareholders. Action learning and inquiry is a way to drill down by asking tough questions, look at facts in a non-judgmental way, and to be thorough in the process (Dunton, 2008). Dunton (2008) clarified that action learning with inquiry focuses on the individual (or individuals on a future board) that is presenting the problem and creates an opportunity for curiosity from others in the room (a room full of shareholders).

Faure (2006) discussed five important functions of an appreciative interview. Appreciative inquiry:

• Sets a positive, energizing tone.
• Values the participants.
• Creates personal connections.
• Reduces differences, and
• Reduces anxiety.

I believe Faure (2006) hit the nail on the head when he stated that using a generative metaphor can help shareholders by inviting them to view a phrase or saying in a new way or in doing things differently. This can be used to help individual employees, the board of directors, shareholders, and the organization as a whole. The third reason Faure (2006) gives for involving the whole organization in appreciative inquiry is that innovations arise when people look at old problems and make associations between previously unconnected things. Faure (2006) calls this out-of-the box thinking. Liljenquist, Galinsky, and Kray (2004) called it counterfactual thinking:

Consistent with our hypothesis, activating a counterfactual mind-set at the individual level had a debilitating effect on the group judgment task, whereas activating a counterfactual mind-set at the group level had a facilitative effect, increasing information sharing, synergistic coordination and judgment accuracy (p. 1).

One of the important aspects of appreciative inquiry is the idea of conscious evolution of positive imagery and thus assists the boards of directors (and shareholders) evolve together as a whole. Asking the right questions within appreciative inquiry is the basis for its transformative power. Cooperridor & Srivastva, (1987) says it is a, "...collective action which are designed to help evolve the normative vision and will of a group, organization, or society as a whole" (as cited in Thatchenkery 1992, p. 4). Asking the right questions means to ask powerful questions. The Center for Community Support and Research at Wichita State University (n. d.) organized the idea of a powerful question centered on the following characteristics and argued a powerful question(s) should:

1. Generate curiosity and invites creativity

2. Focuses inquiry and stimulates reflective conversation

3. Is thought provoking and surfaces underlying assumptions

4. Touches a deeper meaning and stays with participants

5. Travel well, spreading around the organization (WSU, n. d., p. 1).

Organizations (and shareholders) can move from the less powerful yes/no type of questions, on a continuum to more powerful questions before an election. As shareholders are able to move from simple yes/no questions to why to what if queries, this stimulates enhanced reflective and creative answers (WSU, n. d.). The processes of creating powerful questions assist shareholders in capturing the vision of the organization and its elections. Literally, it can re-frame the trajectory of the board, the shareholders, and the election process.

Moreover, the power of reframing one’s thoughts/perceptions/consciousness is significant as it relates empowering transformation, through appreciative inquiry, for shareholders and their elections. Reframing as Thatchenkery (1992) said is, "intentionally focusing on the person's positive attributes, a reality different from the "problem person" is created. Intentional focus on positivity and not negativity allows the person to become transformed. Holmes (1966) in chapter eight of his book discusses the power of thought. Holmes (1966) posited,

That which thought has done, thought can un-do. Lifelong habits of wrong thinking can be consciously and deliberately neutralized, and an entirely new order of mental and emotional reaction established in Mind; we must become actively constructive and happy in our thinking- not merely passively so (Holmes, 1966, pp. 142-143).

It is interesting to note that Berger and Luckman (1966) advanced the idea of understanding the role of language in creating reality in the same year Holmes (1966) was, to me, doing just that in his book, Science of Mind. Basically, Holmes (1966) guided us toward the idea that our thoughts create our world. Holmes (1966) said, "The more power one gives to his thought-the more completely he believes that his thought has power-the more will it have" (Holmes, 1966, p. 47). This is what Cooperrider, (1990) alluded to when he said, "...positive thoughts leading to positive language and positive action or affirmative language creating affirmative organizational cultures" (as cited to Thatchenkery, 1992, p. 2). I believe it is the shareholders responsibility to take appreciative inquiry into account as they participate in an election of a future board of directors.

Appreciative inquiry is a way that can impact shareholders helping them change the language or reframe questions that help them to address an election. It strikes at the shareholder’s ability to create a shared consensus about the future of their board of directors. Thachankary’s (1992) account of appreciative inquiry does not ignore the problem or issues that organizations have, rather, it reframes the language around the problem that involves powerful questions; questions that delve deeper and allow for critical reflection prior to an election.

Complex decisions can have serious implications and consequences when made by groups (shareholders) (Galinsky & Kray, 2003). For example, when the Presidential Commission investigated the explosion of the space shuttle Challenger, it was reported that lack of information sharing was a contributing factor to the accident (Galinsky & Kray, 2003). The Report of the Presidential Commission on the Space Shuttle Challenger Accident (1986) showed that although information and data was available showing the temperatures were low and could cause malfunction with the space shuttle, this information was not disseminated (As cited in Galinsky & Kray, 2003). The decision makers were never informed of the information. In this case and the case you asked me to consider (EI sharing to a group of shareholders before an election of a board of directors), counterfactual mind-sets can increase the discussion of unshared information and improve the decision-making process (Galinsky & Kray, 2003).

Counterfactuals are lines of thoughts about what might have been. Counterfactual mind-sets stand for alternate realities for events in the past (Galinsky & Kray, 2003). Roese (1994) stated that counterfactual thoughts are distinguished by expressions of “if only…” (As cited in Galinsky & Kray, 2003, p. 606). People can reconstruct the past through counterfactual mind-sets and thoughts about what might have been can influence future behavior (Galinsky & Kray, 2003). Moreover, asking a group or team to think about what might have been in one context can affect future decision making (in an election) and problem-solving in an unrelated context (Galinsky & Kray, 2003).

This type of mental simulation (Kahneman & Tversky, 1982) can assess the probability that a specific plan will succeed, evaluate alternatives, and identify the risks involved in a plan or course of action (Galinsky & Kray, 2003; Liljenquist, Galinsky, & Kray, 2004). In short, as Galinsky and Kray (2003) suggested, “Counterfactual mind-sets improve group decision making by providing a cognitive mechanism that lead to mental simulation and a greater consideration of alternatives” (p. 615). In this way, shareholders can discuss organizational structure, provide unshared information, resolve issues, and consider the right persons for the organization they support through the use of appreciative inquiry for electing a board of directors. Thank you for your post.

References

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Dunton, D. L. (2008). Inquiry and feedback: Using action learning for transformational change. Industrial

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Faure, M. (2006). Problem solving was never this easy: Transformational change through appreciative

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Galinsky, A. D. & Kray, L. J. (2003). From thinking about what might have been to sharing what

                we know: The effects of counterfactual mind-sets on information in groups. Journal of

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Holmes, E. (1966). Science of mind: A philosophy, a faith, a way of life. New York, NY: Penguin

                Putman.

Kahneman, D., & Tversky, A. (1982). The simulation heuristic. In Kahneman, D., Slovic, P. & Tversky, A.

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Thachankary, T. (1992). “Organizations as texts: Hermeneutics as a model for understanding

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Wichita State University. (n. d.). Center for Community Support and Research. Retrieved from

                http://www.wichita.edu/ccsr