Designing Information and Organizations with a Positive Lens: Volume 2

In this volume of Advances in Appreciative Inquiry, leading scholars from the fields of art, management, design, information technology, organization development, and education come together to chart new directions in Appreciative Inquiry theory and research as well as new intervention practices and opportunities for design in organizations. While diverse in topic and discipline, each of the following original chapters treats the reader to a view of Appreciative Inquiry's revolutionary way of approaching familiar questions of information and organization design and vice versa.

The common view of design sees in it a way of reacting to our problems. To the question, “What are the boundaries of design?” Charles Eames asked in return, “What are the boundaries of problems?” Another view – taken in many of the works presented here – sees design as a response to opportunities. And never have opportunities been more abundant. “We are as gods,” declared Stewart Brand, “and might as well get good at it.” Or, as Bruce Mau has more recently framed it, “Now that we can do anything, what will we do?”

The role and potential contribution of a positive lens to the design of systems and organizations is the focus of this essay. The positive lens refers to an emerging perspective in the social sciences that emphasizes a positive stance toward our capacity to construct better organizations and technologies through a positive discourse. Joining a positive lens onto organizing with the transformative power of design thinking opens new horizons and uncovers previously overlooked possibilities for creating organizational and social well-being. We discuss the core practices that drive design and argue that they hold the key for applying a positive design attitude.

Sustainability issues such as energy security, air quality, climate change, and poverty are introducing greater levels of complexity into strategic decision-making and often have far-reaching implications for companies in today's competitive environment. Building on Appreciative Inquiry, this paper discusses a new model for sustainable value creation, based on the growing business opportunity to do well by doing good.

Designing with a positive lens is inspired by positive psychology, which turns attention away from the treatment of dysfunctions and toward the encouragement of human strengths. I present a positive design method that is inspired by Appreciative Inquiry and draws on a comprehensive theory of design from sculpture. By incorporating a comprehensive theory of sculpture as a guide for designing with a positive lens, we can take advantage of design lessons from the arts, and strengthen the positive design movement in all stages of the design development process. From a theory of sculpture we see that designing includes forming. Forming, in turn, always involves two opposed energies, which can be thought of as a warm and a cold, or an inside and an outside, force. By using a theory of sculpture to guide designing with a positive lens, we reframe our attempts to create new information and organization designs so as to make them achievable even though the positive designer is not an artist. Design thinking and design processes based on a theory of sculpture can ease our dependence on artistic creativity and expand the organizational impact of a positive lens.

Due to the strategic, economic, and social significance of information and communication technology development and use, a better understanding of factors that contribute to technology acceptance and use decisions can be extremely important. In this chapter, we posit that one of the fundamental reasons that people utilize technology is to support their well-being by fulfiling their various needs. Taking this motivational perspective, we suggest that the purposes and utilities of information and communication technology should support various human needs. Using a motivational approach to study technology design is intended to be positive. We revisit some fundamentals that may have been forgotten and we unearth the intrinsic drive of technology development and use. As a first step toward a design theory, we propose ten design principles to achieve high motivating information and communication technology.

We present a new approach that shifts the leverage point of information systems development from problem orientation to opportunity development. Our approach, entitled FormIT, employs a careful focus on enhanced user involvement, concentrating on users as human beings, and attention to users’ needs as opposed to system requirements. As theoretical and methodological foundations, we build on the 4-D cycle model of Appreciative Inquiry and current research on needfinding. Our field experience demonstrates that FormIT shifts the systems development process from being reactive to being proactive, and in turn, enables a smoother implementation of inevitable change, particularly radical change. Moreover, FormIT stimulates the generation of rich local knowledge and helps reveal deep insights into the development process and the overall organization.

Building on a proposed four-phase model of the design revolution, I outline an expanded domain to which design ideas may be applied, and offer a design theory that has general application to the expanded design domain. Numerous disciplines within the domain of design, which have been separately developed, are converging through digital devices and software such as computer-aided design programs. I refer to this “Connection” as the first phase of the design revolution. In the second “Expansion” phase of the design revolution, I expect that the domain where principles of design are applied will be expanded beyond the visual to include all five human senses. The design theory that I propose is a logical application of design principles to various disciplines in the second phase of the revolution. In the third “Application” phase of the design revolution, the design theory will be applied not only to conventional objects of design such as products and services, but also to institutions and systems such as governments, firms, and households. Finally, in the fourth “Integration” phase of the revolution, various parts of the world will be integrated into a holistic system under a single design theory.

This chapter discusses how the special qualities of poetic language can inform new principles for organizational design. Appreciative inquiry makes extensive use of poetic language – of stories, metaphors, and imagery – to facilitate the discovery of high-point experiences and the articulation of desired future states. It is commonly believed that through this narrative mode of knowing, appreciative dialogue awakens the imaginative and relational possibilities for successful transformation of organizational systems. In a critique of current practice, the chapter suggests that the unleashed generative capacity for change is not fully utilized because of appreciative inquiry's reliance on logico-scientific discourse during its design conversations. This return to modernist managerial practice is unfortunate, if we accept the need for alternative ways of knowing and talking in our efforts to create more just and sustainable forms of organizing. In an attempt to renew existing thinking, the chapter explores the question of what becomes possible when we embrace the poetics, rather than the pragmatics, of organizational design. It describes four qualities of poetic language – imaginative, ambiguous, touching, and holistic – which may inspire the design of organizations that are both more daring and caring in character.

We propose a framework of positive design approaches that can be effective in creating quality systems. Quality systems are systems delivered on time, with high quality, effectiveness, and user satisfaction standards. The framework is conceptualized as a 2×2 framework, where the first (or y) axis reflects the way in which positive approaches are introduced into the group or organization. At one end of the y axis is the direct approach, while the other end represents the indirect approach, which is culturally embedded. The second dimension, on the x axis, is represented by invisible changes on one end, and visible changes on the other. Invisible changes are those that are unobtrusive in nature. We explore actual examples of design that made a positive difference in the quality of a group of individuals’ work lives and well-being through the use of messages, technologies, information, and shared views. We use verbal analysis as an intuitive, reflective, and interpretive approach to examine our own and others’ narratives of systems success to trace the linkages that support the notion that positive approaches result in positive outcomes for developers of information systems. We analyze stories about introducing positive memes; empowering decision makers through information sharing; encouraging an open source philosophy; and embracing positive metaphors to positively shape the users’ subculture. In doing so, we examine stories from systems researchers who have experienced positive IS design outcomes. Our contribution is to mine the linkages between actions designers take and the positive outcomes users experience; the suggested methods that designers can use to create positive outcomes; and examining specific examples where design methods used in a positive way contributed to positive outcomes for systems, users, the adoption of new technologies, and improved organizations.

In this chapter we consider the meta-models that are applied to the design of organizations and information systems, and especially the implicit assumption about organization and information that are at the core of these models. We explore these assumptions and suggest that they share common dimensions which can be used to structure the current discourse on design and design processes.

Images and forms of interaction that disrupt traditional relationships of power represent ways of going “beyond words” in organizing and exchanging information as well as in designing ways to organize and inform in the future. In these processes, a departure from dominant and restrictive forms of expert writing and speaking can enhance the participation status of traditionally marginalized individuals and groups, a move aligned with the precepts of Appreciative Inquiry. This chapter addresses underlying theory of themes related to expert status, reveals examples, and identifies current theory and practice that is consistent with the notion of going “beyond words.”

Given the dramatic changes taking place in society, the economy, and technology, 21st-century organizations need to engage in new, more spontaneous, and more innovative ways of managing. I investigate why an increasing number of companies are including artists and artistic processes in their approaches to strategic and day-to-day management and leadership.

This chapter offers a distinction between traditional bureaucracy and an emerging organizational form, which we call positive organization, a byproduct of intervention techniques such as appreciative inquiry. We suggest that the root of the distinction lies in positive organization's greater reliance on a heretofore underexploited institutional pillar (Scott, 2001), which we label the relational–emotional. The relational–emotional pillar, unlike its regulative, normative and cultural-cognitive counterparts, owes its potency to attachment phenomena (Bowlby, 1969). We expand on the distinction by viewing the positive organization as one of three aspects of Ouchi's clan form, the other two being normative bureaucracy and cognitive bureaucracy. We conclude with a contingency theory of transaction cost reduction. Regulative (traditional) bureaucracy is most effective in reducing transaction costs when environmental uncertainty and vulnerability to opportunism are both moderate, normative bureaucracy when environmental uncertainty is moderate but vulnerability to opportunism is high, cognitive bureaucracy when environmental uncertainty is high but vulnerability to opportunism is moderate, and positive organization when both environmental uncertainty and vulnerability to opportunism are high.

The high-risk/high-stress nature of hospital emergency departments has made handoffs (i.e. patient transfers across organizational units) an area of significant safety consequence, as evidenced by numerous studies and 2006 Comprehensive Accreditation Manual for Hospitals: The Official Handbook (CAMH). Joint Commission Resources, Inc.: Author; 2005. This same high-risk/high-stress environment is known for generating resistance to traditional deficit-based, external expert driven approaches to improvement. The authors describe how one hospital overcame this resistance by using an Appreciative Inquiry approach to the redesign of the information flow and organizational roles within a mission-critical area of the hospital. Rather than designing to ameliorate the root causes of ineffective handoffs, this positive lens approach (Appreciative Inquiry) was used to engage staff in identifying and expanding upon their most effective handoff experiences. Implications for shifting from problem-based design to a positive lens approach in the creation of micro-information systems and new organizational processes are discussed.

This chapter presents William (Bill) H. Carris's distinctive organizational design for a positive and practical model of 100% employee-governance in the movement toward 100% employee-ownership of the Carris Companies, a manufacturer of wood, plastic, and metal reels in six United States locations and one in Mexico. The positive approach in the redesigning of the Carris Companies’ corporate governance was distinguished by the commitment to teach employees the business, the one-person, one-vote provision, the discounted sale price, and a transparent accountable model for decision-making. Multiple theories of corporate governance and organizational design are applied within this case. The analysis suggests that the Carris Companies’ commitment to its positive design facilitated its adherence to its long-term vision of shared ownership and governance, independent of upturns or downturns in the industry and economy. Further, not only were these fundamental to organizational success, the efforts by the Carris Companies contribute to the growing fields of positive design and positive organizational scholarship.

Drawing on recent, successful experience in Nepal, this paper traces the use of Appreciative Inquiry (AI) in designing roles, structures, and processes to support the engagement of private-sector businesses and non-profit civic organizations in a peace-building response to the collapse of governance and the Maoist insurgency. Specific case illustrations are offered including: the design of grassroots peace building and development organizations; the need for continual redesign; the power of populist design; the positive design lens for micro-business and post-conflict development in Africa; and the positive design lens in global business. The paper concludes by asking what might be learned from this experience that might bring new hope to Africa, the Middle East, and other troubled corners of the globe. Some of the most important lessons identified include: (1) focusing information-gathering and decision-making conversations on the positive, on the successful, and on what works in resolving conflicts and promoting collaborative understanding, (2) designing conversations which identify windows of opportunity to build success on success, (3) creating dialogical structures which illuminate positive deviation and highlight exceptional experiences that have contributed to building trust, enhancing communications, resolving conflicts, and bridging cultures and viewpoints, and (4) streamlining social design processes such as AI, so that people at all levels can embrace them quickly, easily, and enthusiastically to bring about rapid and positive change.

Images and ideals of organization design have changed dramatically in the past decade in response to the need for a redirection in the purpose and strategy as well as leadership styles following the global economy, new brave networked world, emerging new forms of organizing, and social innovations. This chapter is an invitation to explore a new genre of organization design and organizing as if life matters. It is a call to embrace organizations designed to affirm, nurture, and sustain life. The chapter discusses two key questions: “What Gives Life to Human Organizing” and “What Are We Designing.” The first part aims to uncover what gives life to human organizing through an exploration of nine principles of appreciative organizing. The second part aims to expand what we mean when we talk about organization design through an examination of six fundamental structures that seem to be at play in organized action.