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"If I could ask one thing in any situationÉit would not be 'what's wrong and what will fix it?' but 'what's possible here and who cares?'"(1)

Picture a failing social services department. Employees are demoralised and weary; morale is low. Staff are leaving; those remaining feel undervalued and isolated from the department, from colleagues and from the service users. The outside pressures to improve services threaten and divide.

Now imagine walking into this department a year later and discovering a complete turnaround where resignation and defeat has been transformed into communication, learning, commitment, responsibility, partnership and accomplishment.

This is what happened in a Head Start pre-school programme in Denver, US. Head Start aims to foster healthy development in children from low income families through services to encompass each child's development and learning.

Nine months after turning to appreciative inquiry (AI), the programme had startlingly positive results and there was new hope for the service as staff enthusiasm grew.

Could this method do the same for social services in the UK? Certainly, policymakers, regulators, managers and practitioners could take a new look at how to improve the performance of services.

AI is a strengths-based approach to creating positive change for organisations and individuals. It engages people with what already works well in their situation and helps them to build on this for the future. Service users, staff, councillors and partners are invited to recall the times when their organisation was at its best. Working together, they turn their understanding of this into a shared plan or vision for the future.

This approach challenges traditional problem-solving methods that "fill the organisation with stories, understandings and rich vocabularies of why things fail".(2)

Focusing on problems draws attention to breakdown rather than the strengths of the system. It encourages a blame culture and creates an emphasis on looking good rather than being good. As Cooperrider observes: "A compulsive concern with what's not working, why things go wrong and who didn't do his or her job demoralises members of the organisation, reduces the speed of learning, and undermines relationships and forward movement".(3)

Is this familiar to departments preoccupied with performance assessment and star ratings?

AI invites us to understand the impact of labelling performance and how we handle interventions. Building on acknowledged strengths creates enthusiasm and commitment, and change becomes inevitable.

Anne Radford describes AI as "the art and practice of asking questions that strengthen a system's capacity to discover and develop its potential".(4) AI follows five distinct stages within this framework:

• Definition - decide what to learn/inquire about.
• Discovery - explore, inquire.
• Dream/imagine - picture what may be possible; create shared images for a preferred future.
• Design - find innovative ways to create that future.
• Delivery - sustaining the change.

It can be used with whole organisations, partnerships, teams or individuals.(5) Methods vary according to the size of the inquiry. Everyone might work through the process together over two to four days. In large inquiries, interviews are carried out across the organisation over several weeks before bringing together the findings for further work.

A social services team might decide to inquire into its performance. Having defined what they wish to change, team members use specifically worded interviews to discover and explore their strengths and resources. They talk about the times when they are at their best, saying what they value about the team and identifying needs.

They then work together to understand the features of these times, and how the team would look if these things were always present. They create images and statements to describe this scene succinctly. In the design stage they look closely at what needs to change to make this happen, including personal offers and commitments to specific actions.

On a larger scale, an "improving" authority might arrange for its staff to interview each other about times when the authority was at its best. This might be done by everyone or by representatives of the whole organisation. Hundreds of staff can be asked what they think works best in their authority.

The design stage leads to concrete action plans for improving the organisation in specific ways and further inquiries will stimulate momentum.

In both examples, the process is participative, creative and focuses on increasing best performance. This approach immediately affects the way performance is described and addressed. For example:

• The language of "failure" is rejected. Strengths of the people and the organisation are highlighted and celebrated.
• Interventions are mutual; facilitators work collaboratively with the whole system, including service users, councillors and the staff who will achieve the organisation's recovery.
• Participants develop a shared view of the changes needed to improve their organisation. Specific actions are developed for real situations. Everyone is involved in and committed to the organisation's recovery.
• Energy and enthusiasm for change are created, together with commitment to take forward the changes in practical ways. Changes achieved under these circumstances are more likely to be sustained.

The success in Head Start has many parallels for services here. More public and private sector organisations have used AI to engage staff, service users and the public in creating positive change. UK examples include work by Hampshire social services in creating and implementing integrated mental health services; and evaluating the impact of including lay people in inspections by the National Care Standards Commission, now the Commission for Social Care Inspection.

The UK star rating system publicly labels failure. Our preoccupation with performance targets inevitably focuses attention on to gaps and problems. Turning this on its head is a challenge. Appreciative inquiry can give our beleaguered organisations positive hope for the future.

Imagine what it would be like if people in social services were talking not about problems and failings but about their achievements, the things that have gone well. Imagine turning this into exceptional social services. 

Julie Barnes is an independent practitioner with 20 years' experience working in Surrey and West Sussex social service departments and for the Social Services Inspectorate. She is a qualified personal counsellor and works with groups and organisations to facilitate learning and change using appreciative inquiry.

Abstract

This article invites social care managers and practitioners to look differently at how we improve social services. Appreciative inquiry is a way of managing change positively and creatively. It is a collaborative method for people who care about their services to explore what works best and to use what they learn to move in new directions. Applicable to staff and work with service users, it offers an alternative way to improve services.

References

1. M Weisbord, Productive Workplaces: Organising and Managing for Dignity, Meaning, and Community, Jossey-Bass, 1987
2. D Cooperrider et al, Appreciative Inquiry: An Emerging Direction For Organisation Development, Stipes Publishing, 2001
3. ibid
4. A Radford, AI consulting website www.aradford.co.uk
5. J M Watkins, B J Mohr, Appreciative Inquiry: Change at the Speed of Imagination, Jossey-Bass, 2001

Further Information

• www.appreciativeinquiry.cwru.edu
• For more information on the UK examples of AI mentioned in this feature go to Anne Radford's AI consulting website www.aradford.co.uk. She compiled the summary document Strength-based Approaches to Change and Transformation in Health and Social Care Services.

Contact the Author

Email: jebarnes@supanet.com.