Appreciative Inquiry: A Positive Approach to Building Cooperative Capacity

by Frank J. Barrett, Ronald E. Fry

This book provides a concise introduction to and overview of the growing discipline and practice of Appreciative Inquiry (AI). If you are intrigued by the prospect of mobilizing rapid, positive change with multiple stakeholders in a human system that is important to you, this book is for you.

128 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2005

Reviews

[Sean O]

Bottom Line Up Front: Worst book I've read this year.

I had to read this book for an upcoming class I have for work. I doubt I would have ever finished it otherwise.

Let's use the principles of Appreciative Inquiry to review this book shall we?

1. It is quite short.
2. When it gets around to it, it does a good job of describing the approach.

That's the upside. Now, here's the downside.

1. Despite the shortness, it is poorly written. The writing style is both obscure and overly descriptive.
2. The "meat" of the book (ie: the only part you really need to read) is Chapter six. The rest of it is not useful, and is, in fact harmful. Most people would give up pages ago.
3. The approach gets pretty close to "Neurolinguistic Programming" bullshit. In a nutshell, "say good things about something until it improves."

I'm sure there's a very good article that could be dug out of this book, but until someone does that, just read Chapter 6 and be done with it.

Now is a good time to introduce my "Business Book Bullshit Detector" (patent pending). I assert that the quality of a business book is directly proportional to the first mention of former General Electric CEO Jack Welch. The later the mention, the better the book. This happened at 38%, which isn't horrible, but remember, the book is less than 100 pages.

In summary, the book is a poorly written description of an interesting approach. I'm not totally sold on this approach, and the book didn't help at all.

[Stuart Reid]

Short and very easy to read quickly. A good primer on AI - a book you could give to someone who wanted to quickly get a taste of what AI is about.

[Sandeep Gautam]

This book is an excellent AI book that goes deep into the rationale and process of AI. Ron and Frank's insights and ways of putting things are amazing and there are many phrases and concepts that one finds memorable and which enables one to grasp the AI concepts very succinctly.
The book is very short but you do not find it superficial or cursory- it has the required depth. A good read for hooking you more deeply into the AI approach and paradigm.

[Chase Groomes]

A phenomenal primer on Appreciative Inquiry. It turns out we’ve been thinking about process improvement all wrong! Cooperative capacity building makes so much more sense than deficit perseveration.

[Neena Verma]

An excellent foundational reading about appreciative inquiry for the new & informed alike.

[Jerry Jennings]

This book helps to focus on the value and power of cooperation and ways to develop cooperative environments. Read more at:
http://jerryjennings.wordpress.com/wp...

[Lisa Vischer]

Beautiful strength based approach to creating what is possible….

[Danielle Krakora]

Great Overview!

this is a good overview of the AI process and serves as a point of origin to start thinking about positive change in an organization!