Appreciative Inquiry Core Competencies

• Identify and understand your personal and professional values – implicit and explicit.
• Understand the lens from which you view the world (race, ethnicity, culture, beliefs, prejudices, assumptions)
• Appreciate and work from your ‘Authentic’ self.
• Utilize Emotional Intelligence (EQ) to understand, utilize, and regulate your emotions in positive ways that relieve stress, communicate effectively, empathize with others, overcome obstacles, and defuse conflict and adversity.

– Self-Awareness. Recognize and identify your emotions and how it impacts clients and influences your work.
– Social Awareness. Read a group’s emotional currents, culture, and power dynamics and how it impacts your client and influences your work.
– Self-Management. Retain the ability to serve as a positive balance for others during times of adversity.
– Relationship Management. Take intentional steps to ensure the relationship between you and the client is both healthy and beneficial.
– Empathy. Sense other people’s feelings, understand their perspective, and take an active interest in their concerns.

• Understanding and acting in alignment with the values and beliefs reflected in the theory and practice of Appreciative Inquiry.
• Encompass the Principles of Appreciative Inquiry in your personal and professional life.
• Embody the behavior needed to facilitate and empower stakeholders to become successful change agents within their own systems.
• Transfer the knowledge of the wholeness principle to clients so they understand how their individual actions impact the organization.
• Examine and challenge your assumptions about your work.
• Facilitate the process so your role as consultant is almost invisible.

• Convey your values to clients to help them to understand and trust you.
• Allow client to communicate their concerns and fears without judgement or consequence.
• Display the energy and confidence you want clients to feel about the work that is co-created.
• Share knowledge freely.
• Create an environment of openness and transparency.
• Determine the essential elements that need to be present for the change(s) to be successful.
• Reply to clients in an effective and timely manner.
• Advocate at all levels (i.e., individual, group, organization) any potential barriers and obstacles that may impact the growth and development for the consultant(s) and/or client.

• Introduce the concepts and researching underlying Appreciative Inquiry that is both energizing and experiential.
• Propose a change intervention that meets the needs of the prospective client.
• Discuss and agree on a clear objective of the process and content for the consulting project.
• The deliverables listed in the agreement must be concrete, realistic and achievable.
• Present a clear timeline for all work items.
• Identify the point of contact for all questions and information.
• Establish roles, responsibilities and expectations for all parties listed in the agreement.
• Establish communication channels that work best for all parties.
• Ensure all verbiage is meaningful within the industry in which you are working.
• Clearly establish how much the project will cost and how payment will be made (e.g. prepayment, reimbursement).
• Invite feedback so that all voices are reflected and agreed upon in the appreciative working agreement before the project/work begins.

• Demonstrate a desire to understand where your client is coming from and what they hope to achieve.
• Do not filter what you hear. Be aware of all information being provided to you by the client (i.e., facts, feelings, emotions, and ideas).
• Remain neutral and non-judgmental.
• Maintain positive posture, tone, and wording when engaged in dialogue with a client.
• Provide clients with adequate time to explore their thoughts and feelings.
• Refrain from interjecting conversations with questions and comments any time there is a pause in the conversation.
• Demonstrate understanding by paraphrasing what the client has said.
• Ask relevant questions that help the client build upon and/or clarify what they have said.
• Summarize progress of the conversation from time to time.

• Ask questions that introduce your clients to new ideas, people and situations.
• Inquire into your client, the work they do, their culture, etc.
• Ask questions to help identify the strengths of the individual and/or organization
• Ask questions to uncover the Life Giving Force of the individual and/or organization.
• Ask questions that empower clients to dream of new opportunities, generate excitement and inspire action.
• Ask open-ended questions.

• Choose a form of engagement that is most appropriate for your client’s change agenda, timeline, resources and other circumstances.
• Field test the interview guide until all discussions and energy focuses on the affirmative topic.
• Seek information about the client that will help you to create an intervention that meets their needs.
• Seamlessly bridge difference perspectives from different groups within the organization.
• Understanding how organizational forces that may impact the client and the success of the project.
• Remaining flexible in project activities and delivery techniques so that they are inclusive of the diversity represented in the organization.
• Understand pedagogy and how it can influence the learning experience for the client (e.g. lesson plans, room setup).
• Engage the participation of those with caries learning and thinking styles.

• Identify and enlist the support of positive deviants within the group to help champion the change initiatives.
• Promote core team creation that encompasses the Wholeness Principle by ensuring the core team is a diverse slice of the team, group, organization or community.
• Help client identify where support is most required and what types of support will be most effective.
• Assist your client in developing a communication strategy that answers how the change will be communicated, shared, and managed.

• Encourage feedback through the change process and make adjustments when possible
• Formulate decisions with input from various perspectives.
• Solicit input from individuals who may not speak up.
• Guide the focus and direction of conversations.
• Create space (physically and virtually) to allow for people to provide input.
• Ask follow-up questions to collect more information.
• Clarify meaning of words as they vary from client to client.
• Create a safe space for people to express feelings (e.g., interpersonal issues may impact culture, output, etc.).
• Help individuals identify and review underlying assumptions.
• Surface conflict, acknowledge feelings and views of all parties, and then redirect the client’s energy towards a shared ideal.

• Ask questions about ideas to help clients think deeper about their perspective.
• Encourage clients by providing them time, space and resources needed to explore their interests.
• Help clients make the transition from providing good answers to asking great questions.
• Help clients reframe situations and conversations from a deficit mindset to one of abundance.
• Encourage clients to express curiosity in ways that are most comfortable.
• Invite and encourage clients to think outside the box.
• Ensure all ideas are captured.
• Empower clients to create ways of working creatively and effectively in an ever-changing work environment.
• Encourage the clients to know itself and trust that identifying its strengths will enable them to imagine and co-create their best possible future.
• Enable/empower clients to develop understanding, skills and abilities to operate creatively outside of your assistance.
• Help clients shift their thoughts, words and attention from what they do not want, to what he/she/they want.
• Facilitate client brainstorming sessions to identify high energy themes, threads, quotable quotes.
• Assist clients in creating powerful metaphors and images of their positive topic.

• Assist the client in bringing their dream into focus.
• Move from concepts and discussions to action and defined accountability.
• Assist client in designing specific actions that will allow the client to practice, demonstrate and achieve their desired outcomes.
• Help clients explore how new relationships, information and resources can support the success and sustainability of the client’s outcomes.

• Measure the change process.
• Keep the client focused.
• Assist the client in modifying action item(s), if needed.

• Help client focus on results and outcomes
• Encourage the client to continue exploring what gives life to human systems when they function at their best.
• Empower the client.
• Coaching/mentoring client.
• Consider the type of follow-up support would be useful for your client, including frequency of contact.
• Celebrate short term wins.
• Provide effective training.
• Identify and/or provide resources for the client to access in the future to support growth.
• Help client understand and implement an ongoing Discovery, Dream and Design in whatever they plan to do.
• Determine the role you will play, if any, in your client’s future.

• Engage in ongoing study/learning related to the field of Appreciative Inquiry.
• Practice reflection and learning.
• Build personal industry knowledge and networks.
• Maintain Appreciative Inquiry Certification.