Wow, this could really work!

I’ve been there many times. I’m sure you have too. It’s that moment in a meeting where you just no things are about to spiral. A conversation has been going back and forth (usually with no sense of any progress or resolution) and you can sense that it is about to take a turn for the worse.

This particular meeting was no different. Until it was. See, it was at this meeting several years ago where I thought, “Wow, this could really work!” There may be something to this Appreciative Inquiry thing where it is more than something that seems great, but that it also could work.

Let me back up. One of the core principles of Appreciative Inquiry is what we refer to as the simultaneity principle. The simultaneity principle says that change happens the moment we ask the question. And that is what happened on that day right in front of my eyes.

I was in a brainstorming meeting with a leadership team that had been working together for years. We were discussing some weaknesses and shortcomings and then… right there… I knew it. We were at that moment. It was about to spiral out of control. I could feel it. I could sense it. And I’m pretty sure everyone else felt the same way.

Now I had been thinking about Appreciative Inquiry and a key idea in AI is that of reframing. One way to reframe a conversation is to ask about when the organization got it right instead of all the times they got it wrong. So in that moment, I took the leap. I stopped the conversation and I asked the group, “Ok, so we’ve gotten it wrong. But when did we get it right? What stories capture us doing it well?”

And that was it. Everything changed right there. I saw the simultaneity principle in action. With the asking of the question, change started. The rest of the day was different. Personas changed. The entire experience changed. People walked away excited and invigorated instead of deflated and beat down.

It was just one question. But it changed the rest of that day. And it was then, right there, that I realized that this Appreciative Inquiry thing really does work.

My first exposure to Appreciative Inquiry

Organizational development can be tough. Change is difficult under the best of circumstances, in part because it requires acknowledging that something within the organization is not as it could… or should… be for the benefit of the organization and for the flourishing of those connected to the organization.

And yet, in my first real exposure to the variety of approaches taken to organizational development, I couldn’t shake the feeling that all these approaches were just so negative. They were deflating. Even when a problem got fixed, it came across more as a sense of relief than exuberance at the forward motion for the organization.

It was here, in the Organizational Change and Development class as part of my PhD program, that I first was exposed to Appreciative Inquiry, or AI as it is frequently called. Against the backdrop of muddy, negative and deflating approaches to organizational change, AI stood out to me like a ray of sunshine sneaking between the cracks in the clouds, portending a better option, a better way.

Another decade passed before I pursued more formal training and certification in Appreciative Inquiry from The Center for Appreciative Inquiry, but I spent those intervening years checking in on AI, reading the occasional article on AI, and becoming convinced that there was a better option. There was an approach organizational change that would be life-giving to all participants even as it sought the benefit of the organization and its constituents.

While future articles will explore various aspects of AI, it was there, in that class, that the journey started. A journey that has enriched me to believe that there’s something to celebrate, if only I am looking…

The Space Between – A Good Friday Poem

The Space Between written by Steve Jeantet and narrated by Steve Brown

The Space Between is a poem I wrote for Good Friday. The full text is available here.

In Hope of the Mended Wood

True, beautiful and good        
        Was the first sea, was the first wood
Blooming of red roses and leaves falling from the tree        
        Waterfalls and canyons, resplendent in majesty
On snow capped peaks and o’er oceans blue        
        Sunsets reveal a sky of gorgeous purple hue
Gliding o‘er still waters is the elegant swan with such grace        
        While the wild stallion gallops as the wind rushes in its face
The playful dolphin and the osprey soaring in the sky        
        Knew why they were made, knew their reason why
Yes, the whole world was true, beautiful and good        
        Reflecting the God who made it, just as its should

In a moment, in a flash, the world was decimated        
        With the first bite of the forbidden fruit, sin invaded
A world of splendid beauty was broken in an instant        
        The once-so-close glory of creation now seemed so distant
Even thorns on roses shows the whole world was marred        
        The effect of Adam’s sin so severe, the whole world was scarred
The world as it was known from desert to rainforest canopy        
        From birds above to beasts below to the fish in the sea
Even the weather fights back with hurricanes and cyclones        
        Because this is not how it should be, all creation groans
The only hope in a world that lost the true, the beautiful, the good        
        Is the promise that it will not be so in the Mended Wood

“Behold, I am making all things new        
        Write this down, for these words are trustworthy and true.”
From New Jerusalem, that city with walls of precious stone        
        Will those words yet be spoken by the King on his throne
All things will be made new, all things will be made right        
        The old, broken world will be gone, forever out of sight
So creation cries, “Come Lord Jesus, come soon”        
        Awaiting that day that will need neither sun nor moon
The Son will shine down upon the earth in brilliant glory        
        To make all things new and right, oh what a story
This new world will be better than true, beautiful, and good        
        A perfect earth will rise where the old broken one once stood

I went for a walk…

Part of the way that I have dealt with the coronavirus pandemic has been to go for late night walks. My gym, my place of mental and emotional escape from the daily pressures of the world, was closed and I needed a way to get some exercise. So I put on headphones and started walking. Sometimes I walked for an hour, sometimes for two hours. But usually late at night when the sun was down. I found it refreshing to walk down dark, dimly lit roads.

A friend asked me, “Aren’t you scared to be out by yourself in the dark?” One night, as I was just starting my walk, I was thinking about her question. Why would I be scared? Who is going to mess with the 6’2″ 220lb guy? No, I was never scared, not even for a moment.

And as I thought about it, realization set in and my heart sank. No, I was not at risk out for a late night walk by myself. No, I was in no danger. And how much of the fact that I was in no danger is simply because of the color of my skin? I can walk alone down unlit streets late at night but Ahmaud Arbery can’t go for a Sunday afternoon jog? I can put on my headphones and tune out from the world under the cloak of darkness while Mr. Arbery gets chased and shot while jogging in broad daylight? That is more than just sad and tragic: it is wrong.

Unfortunately, that was not an isolated event. Doesn’t it feel like we are stuck on repeat? Mr. Arbery was shot three days before the eighth anniversary of the tragic shooting of Trayvon Martin. Eight years apart but seemingly the same story. Again.

The first of these racially-charged and morally wrong events I remember in my lifetime was the March 3, 1991 beating by the police of Rodney King. It’s been 29 years and we are still seeing the inhumane, unjust and wrong harming, beating and killing of black men. Just this week, it happened again.

George Floyd died after being arrested and having a police officer pressing all of his body weight on Mr. Floyd’s neck for five minutes. The video is gruesome to watch and, even in the moment, the bystanders knew it was wrong. They were yelling that Mr. Floyd was not resisting (at the very least, no longer resisting). They were yelling that he’s human. They were yelling to have it stop. As Mayor Jacob Frey of Minneapolis succinctly stated, “Being black in America should not be a death sentence.”

Let me briefly shift to the Scriptural perspective here: All people are made in the image of God! At its core, this racism and racially-motivated actions is both a failure to see others as image-bearers and a failure to grasp the immense dignity that being an image-bearer can and must bring. The Bible both starts and ends with an incredible affirmation of the dignity of the full vastness of the different people he has made:

Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness…” So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them (Gen 1:26-27).

“Worthy are you to take the scroll and to open its seals, for you were slain, and by your blood you ransomed people for God from every tribe and language and people and nation, and you have made them a kingdom and priests to our God, and they shall reign on the earth” (Rev 5:9-10).

Every person – whether you like the person or not, whether you agree with them on a particular subject (or any subject) or not, whether they are like you are not, whether they look like you or not – every person is made in the image of God. And they matter. And they have dignity. And they have value.

So no, I was in no danger going for a late night walk on dimly lit roads. But can I say the same if my beautiful, black daughter went for that same walk? The answer is no. Now it is up to me and to you – to all of us – to change that. And the start of that change is to see the dignity of every person you meet.

Holy Week Reflections, Day 9: Holy Monday

Holy Monday (Day after Easter) Scripture Reading: Luke 24:36-48

Reflection Questions:

• What is the significance for you that Jesus is both fully God and fully man?
• When is a time when you experienced someone question the factual nature of Christ’s resurrection? How does a passage like this reassure you that Jesus is fully man?
• The day after Easter invites us to think about how to live every day in light of the resurrection. How can you live in light of the resurrection in the coming year?

I pray these readings and videos have been encouraging to you in this most unusual of Holy Weeks. But we hold to this: In good times and in hard, confusing and sad times, we have hope because he lives.

Holy Week Reflections, Day 8: Resurrection Sunday

Resurrection Sunday Scripture Reading: John 20:1-18
He is risen! He is risen indeed!

Reflection Questions:

• When did you first believe that Jesus literally rose from the dead?
• How have you experienced the resurrection power of Jesus in your life?

Holy Week Reflections, Day 7: Holy Saturday

Holy Saturday Scripture Reading: Matthew 28:1-10
In today’s video I reference a poem I wrote a few years ago for Good Friday entitled The Space Between. You can read it here.

Reflection Questions:

• If you were one of the Marys who went to the tomb, what mix of emotions would you have experienced approaching the tomb where your friend and the one you thought was the Savior was buried?
• Verse 8 says that they left the tomb “with fear and great joy.” What mix of emotions would you have experienced leaving the tomb.

Holy Week Reflections, Day 6 (Good Friday)

Good Friday Scripture Reading: John 18:1-19:42
This is the longest of the readings during this period. By working your way through the two chapters all together, I pray that you will enter into the swiftness of the events from Jesus praying in the Garden to being arrested to the trial and conviction and then to the cross. The whole thing unfolds very quickly!

Reflection Questions:

• Pilate believed Jesus to be innocent, yet succumbed to the crowds who appealed to Pilate’s loyalty to the emperor, his pride and his fears. When is a time that you, like Pilate, knew what was right and chose to do the wrong thing anyway?
• We, unlike Jesus, are guilty. How have you experienced Jesus taking your guilt and giving you his innocence?

Holy Week Reflections, Day 5: John 13:21-32

Maundy Thursday Scripture Reading: John 13:21-32

Reflection Questions:

• When is a time that you were betrayed by someone close, maybe a family member or friend? What emotions did that experience bring?
• How have you betrayed Jesus?
• How does the story of the cross address your betrayal of Jesus?