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As a manager or leader, your priority is your team. You want your team to thrive in a positive business environment. You want to offer them the potential to develop their skills for future promotion and career development.

You want them ultimately to be the best they can be, right? Well, this is where Appreciative Inquiry (AI) comes to the forefront.

What exactly is Appreciative Inquiry?

Appreciative Inquiry is being able to recognise the strengths of your team members and using them to benefit their career and ultimately your organisation.

Appreciative Inquiry pushes any thoughts of negativity aside and puts the focus back on positive thinking and productivity for everyone involved.

“Individually, we are one drop. Together, we are an ocean.” – Ryunosuke Satoro

Motivate your team members

Everyone is unique. Everyone wants something different from their life and their career.

By asking suitable questions to your team members, you can determine what challenges and motivates them. You can find out what they enjoy and what their long-term goals are. You can identify what works specifically for them.

With this knowledge, you can then set about making a plan to build on their success.

Out with the negative talk

Negativity begets negativity. If the negativity in the workplace is replaced by positivity, a ‘can do’ attitude ensues.

Working in an environment filled with promise and possibility is incredibly motivating and rewarding. As you apply Appreciative Inquiry individually to each team member or the group as a whole, you are emphasising their value and capability. You are showing that all opinions count.

“Confidence and empowerment are cousins in my opinion. Empowerment comes from within and typically it’s stemmed and fostered by self-assurance. To feel empowered is to feel free and that’s when people do their best work. You can’t fake confidence or empowerment.” – Amy Jo Martin

Through this methodology, you are altering the company culture and reducing the need for destructive or exclusive behaviour.

Build their confidence and get them involved

People want to feel like they matter – that they have made a difference. It is human nature, after all.

Ask their opinion and get them to submit their ideas on corporate matters. By doing so, you are giving them the opportunity to contribute. You are enabling them to be heard and building their confidence and encouraging open discussions in the organisation.

Armed with these tools you are creating a better future for your team and the company. There are so many exciting possibilities ahead. Together you can see what has worked well in the past, what is currently working and what will work in your future.

If you are yet to implement Appreciate Inquiry, then it is worth considering to bring about organisational change. It means taking the best of what is and using innovation to guide you forward.

Your team’s success is a reflection of your skill as a leader and by using the art of Appreciative Inquiry, you are certainly on the right path to success.