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
Cheung-Judge, M. (2012). The Self as an instrument: A
cornerstone for the future of OD. OD Practitioner,
44(2),
42-47.
Dunton, D. L.
(2008). Inquiry and feedback: Using action learning for transformational change. Industrial
and
Commercial Training, 40(2), 109-111. doi:
10.1108/00197580810858956
Faure, M. (2006). Problem solving was never this easy:
Transformational change through appreciative
inquiry.
Performance Improvement, 45(9),
22-48.
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
Experimental Social Psychology,
40(1), 606-618.
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.
(Eds.),
Judgment under uncertainty: Heuristics
and biases (pp. 201–208). New York, NY:
Cambridge
University Press.
Liljenquist, K. A.,
Galinsky, A. D., Kray, L. J. (2004). Exploring the rabbit hole of possibilities
by myself or
with my group: The benefits and
liabilities of activating counterfactual mind-sets for information
sharing and group coordination. Journal of Behavioral Decision Making, 17(4),
263-279. doi:
10.1002/bdm.479
Roese, N. J., & Hur, T. (1997). Affective determinants
of counterfactual thinking. Social
Cognition, 15,
274–290.
Thachankary, T.
(1992). “Organizations as texts: Hermeneutics as a model for understanding
organizational change,” in
Pasmore, W. A., and Woodman, R. W. (Eds.), Research
in
Organizational
Change and Development, 6, 197–233.
Wichita State University. (n. d.). Center for Community
Support and Research. Retrieved from
http://www.wichita.edu/ccsr
