How To Use Appreciative Intelligence In Your Business

Intelligence? The answer is probably yes. In some way, shape, or form, you've heard that term before, but you may not have heard of appreciative intelligence. Dr. Katherine Wyberg is here with us today on Cash In On Camera to talk about what is appreciative intelligence. Katherine, great to have you here. Let's start with that question.

What is it? Thank you so much, Cheryl, for having me here. Appreciative intelligence is one of my one of my favorite tools to use. I first learned about it in my doctorate program. It is to look at things in an appreciative way, but to appreciate in two different ways. First of all, to appreciate with gratitude, to recognize what is strong, what is good, what is working well in your organization. What do you like about you? What do you like about your team? What kinds of things are going well? And fully embracing that, truly appreciating it. Second, to appreciate in value. You think about when you buy a home or something that is classic, that is going to increase in value as it becomes antique. That increase in value is called appreciation in the accounting world. It's the same idea. So when we appreciate with gratitude the things that are going well, we then can build on those things that are going well, do more of them, do them better, and find other people who do well the things we don't do well. Bring them into our team and then appreciate in value everything about our organization, the way we see ourselves, the way that we show up in the world and what our company can do.

So, when you go in and you work with companies because I know you work with larger companies, I think 25 employees plus and you're going in, are you finding that that is a problem that those organizations are not actually utilizing this methodology that they're kind of focusing on all the things that are not working as opposed to focusing on the things that maybe are going well?

In business schools, we're taught the SWOT analysis: strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats. It definitely has its place. It's a way to look at the world to prepare your marketing and so forth. Have found that a lot of people, especially within the company culture, you might find individuals who are different. But a lot of people focus on the weaknesses and the threats and look at, "Oh my goodness, what can we do? Why is this a problem? How can we fix those weaknesses? How can we avoid those threats?" When you use Appreciative Intelligence, Just like in the SWOT analysis, you see the strengths and the opportunities, but you also see the aspirations and the results. So you're looking at it from the perspective of what do we do well and how can we do it better? Instead of trying to make your weaknesses become strengths, play to your strengths. And a lot of people hear it but don't know how to do it. And a lot of organizations are still, because we're taught in business school, focus on your SWOT analysis. A lot of people still focus on the weaknesses and threats instead of the strengths.

But what I'm hearing, I'm hearing you say that it's not that you should ignore. I mean, the SWOT analysis I think is a very, it's a great process to go through.

Yes, yes.

I'm not hearing you say don't do a SWOT analysis. Correct. But what I hear you saying is don't let that be the be-all and end-all. That there ought to be also as much of a focus on the things that are working well and being appreciative and etc. And working from the strengths.

Absolutely.

I've heard that before. I've heard people say that before where they've said, you know, work from your strengths. Don't focus so much on trying to improve the things that really are not your forte. Right.

It's true. And appreciative intelligence has been around since the 1980s, just like emotional intelligence has. But people haven't heard it as much. We hear a lot of the pieces, play to your strengths, focus on what's working well. And we hear it and we want to do it. And it's still so ingrained to feel stuck wanting to do everything well when we can't. That's not who we are as people. But that's one of the big reasons that strength is emphasized in so— by so many thought leaders today. And recognizing that your team, whether it be one other person, three other people, 20 other people, can have complementary strengths and you can use all of their strengths to build your organization, build your team, build yourself even.

So is using Appreciative Intelligence also a team building kind of teamwork type of action that you can take, or an analysis, I guess we would call it, so that you can better determine from a company perspective who ought to be working on said projects together. It's like, well, let's put these people who have this particular strength or bring this type of value to that project, put those people in there together.

Absolutely. You nailed it right on the head. In fact, I built my own framework based on Appreciative Intelligence principles called Reframe, Rewrite, Redesign that does look at team building. It looks at the amazingness of the individuals, looking at what brought you to today and reframing it, looking at it in a different light. When you reframe, it is like having a picture in a white frame that it accents all of these different wonderful colors and different aspects of the picture. And then taking that same picture and putting it in a black frame. It's the same picture, but with a different frame around it, different things are accented. It's not necessarily that black is better than white or white is better than black. It's that you see things differently. And when you take that to your team, you can recognize what brought the individual team members here How can we look at their experiences differently? How can we look at their strengths differently, their work history differently, and really understand who they are? And then you can rewrite your present, change up your teams, find people with complementary strengths, really understand who people are because people want to be engaged. We have people all over the United States leaving their jobs. And most of them, it's not for pay. It's because they want to feel appreciated and they want their value at the company to appreciate. They want it to grow and they want to develop. So when you rewrite your teams and the way you're looking at your employees, your organization, yourself, then you can redesign your future. You can change your culture if it needs to be changed. You can find the pieces that need to continue. And it all comes down to the strengths, the teams, and looking at things in a new light.

This is a comment from a Facebook user says that this is something difficult for a baby boomer to explain to a Gen Zer. How do you respond to that?

Well, for me it, it doesn't seem difficult because I am— I'm 47, so I think I am a Gen Zer. I always forget where the delineations go these days. But for a Baby Boomer, which would be my mother's age, to explain it to a Gen Zer, I think it's looking at starting with an example from your life. So as a baby boomer, talk a little bit about when you were new in your career field and say, you know, this is how I saw things then and this is how I approached it and this is how I see it now. Give them the opportunity to look at it from two different lenses. And then you can ask your Gen Zer, so tell me about something that you see differently now from what you saw 10 years ago? The same thing. Yeah. And then from there, what did you learn? How can you grow from it?

Right. The principles are the same no matter what generation you're really from. But what I found interesting, what you said earlier, is that this actually stems back to the 1980s, but yet I'd never heard of it.

Honestly, I was surprised as well. I learned about it first in my doctorate program. I'm surprised that it is not more widespread as a body of knowledge. There are books published on it. There are some consultants who know about it. One of my missions is to get that out there so that people know it's there, so that people know that there have been case studies done, that there have been people who have put Appreciative Intelligence into play and their businesses have grown. People have put Appreciative Intelligence into play. And they've said, oh, look, it's not just an attitude of gratitude. That's a piece of it. But there's more to it than that. And, and really understand it more holistically than the little pieces that we hear about. I, I want more people to understand that this is a thing. And it's a big deal.

Yeah. Um, Katherine, I want to show your website, tell people how they can learn more about your Reframe, Rewrite, Redesign, and get in touch with you.

Thank you so much. So my website is profitablealignment.com. You can visit that directly, or you can book with Dr. Katherine, and it's just D-R Katherine. That is what I go by. And you can, by visiting the website, you can understand a little bit more about where I'm coming from. But with the book-a-call, we get to have a conversation. I get to find out what you are doing well, what you don't realize you're doing well, and how I can support you in your own reframe, rewrite, redesign. And then how does that apply to your business?

I love it. What is a tip, tool, tactic, or technique that's really helping you to market yourself today? What is something that you'd like to share with the audience before we leave?

A tip, tool, or tactic that helps me market myself? I mean, like yours.

I just want to interrupt for one second because I hear some— there's some sound. I'm not sure if it's something is rubbing against something.

I wonder if it's me.

I don't know, but carry on. Let me ask the question again. Maybe I can— I don't know where it is, but okay. It was just a bit distracting. I don't know where that came from. Um, that's okay. No, no. Um, what is a tip, tool, tactic, or technique that's helping you to market yourself today?

I love being on podcasts like yours, and I have in fact created my own podcast, Engaged Company Culture, where I invite other coaches and consultants, other service providers who work with small to medium-sized businesses to talk about what an engaged company culture looks like. It's even useful for small businesses so you can determine what you want your business to look like as it grows and start today.

Fantastic.

Awesome.

Thank you so much for coming on the show today. There was a question about how to share the live broadcast. There should be a button near wherever you're watching this from because it could be YouTube, it could be Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, wherever. You can just share that out with your network either on the live or after the fact as well. So we always appreciate you sharing that out with your audience. And Catherine, great to have you on today to share your insights on Appreciative Intelligence. Thank you for being on the show today.

Thank you, Cheryl. This was wonderful.

Bye now.