Optimistic Pessimist, or vice versa?

When it comes to my faith-based community’s foray into the Appreciative Inquiry process, am I an optimistic pessimist or a pessimistic optimist?

From the beginning, I was skeptical, leery that the announced process was just another system-in-a-box that had caught someone’s attention.  However, such an almost jaded reaction on my part quickly horrified me & sent me online to research the process. 

To be honest, what I read wasn’t all that encouraging (seemed better suited for  organizations with clearly identifiable stakeholders).  Then, I heard a different take on the process.  I brought it up during a Community Matters conference call & was surprised when a couple participants shared heart-warming stories about their communities’ AI experiences.  Success was possible!  Where once I saw only cause for skepticism, now I could see potential for great things. 

What touched me most were their descriptions of working up through grassroots (rather than from a top-down structure) and building off of extant best practices, achievements & successes.

Once I heard their stories, I looked forward to the next  AI “summit,”  which I attended with high hopes.  At first, it was exciting to hear people brainstorming ways we could seek opinions from the community’s older demographic – until they clarified that interest was limited to opinions about the “AI” process, not in general. 

That just hit me wrong.  Was my response tied to my own deep, community-driven desire to connect more fully to those older voices?  Possibly.  In any case, it was enough to leave me feeling unsatisfied & unengaged. But I continued to hold out great hope for the process to yield good fruit, especially since it would spring from seeds of my community’s successes & strong points. 

Yesterday, at church, I picked up the “Outcomes of voting on the Strategic Plan.”  After dropping off a grannie client, I headed to Be Well to enjoy one of my final café au laits (go vegan, at my doctor’s insistence, this week) & check out the Final Three. 

Sitting there in that cozy space, surrounded by pictures from last year’s Bryn Athyn Bounty, settled in to look over the results, culled from 200 participants at eight different community venues.   

The Final Three are:

• support people in spiritual living, and provide them with tools and support to engage in spiritual practices the Lord (??) tells us about;
• find ways to welcome young people into our church community and to involve them in it;
• ensure there is broad input and transparency in decisions.

Hmmm…  Not what I expected.  

To begin with, the first two seem more relevant for the ministry than for the grassroots laity.  But what took me seriously aback discovering each of the Final Three is a broad initiative, rather than a specific, action-oriented goal.  Not one of the three is SMART. 

Now, don’t get your knickers in a twist.  That doesn’t mean they’re dumb or not worthwhile.  They just aren’t SMART, as in:

Specific

Measurable

Achievable/Attainable

Relevant

Timely

What is an example of a SMART goal?  Rooted in the Final Three, they could be:

• Create a weekly online, interactive doctrinal class with direct involvement at its first airing, accessible at a viewer’s convenience any time thereafter, with the ability to share comments or questions, building up a rich archive of past classes.  
• Build off proven success initiatives such as New Church Live, SWET, and the various church camps (Maple, Laurel, the granddaddy of them all – the British Academy Summer School) to develop the first tier of a multi-level youth ministry that involves lay leaders, under the direction of pastoral staff. 
• Develop an easy-to-access & navigate interactive website that functions as a resource center, forum & access point to the Pastor’s Office on matters covering the full spectrum of issues related to decision making.

Caveat - I am not advocating any of these, simply using each as an example of a SMART goal:  Specific, Achievable/attainable, Relevant to the overall goal of strengthening a waning sense of community & connection, Measurable & Timely.

I apologize for my skepticism.  Chalk it up to over 20 years of corporate business experience with systems similar to Appreciative Inquiry.  I’ve been part of a select few that succeeded, many that struggled, and some that ultimately failed.  It is essential for the society for this one to succeed.

That said, two statements in yesterday’s handout stand out to me like red flags waving:

• “Over the past few months we’ve been asking people in the congregation to help us prioritize the 27 items on the strategic plan that arose from the Appreciative Inquiry process, and subsequent work with the Board, Pastor’s Office and School.”
• “Thus the pastoral staff and the board are happy with the results.” 

 Wow.  Both seem to indicate that key people are unaware that  1)  all related work is part of AI, from brainstorming beginning to ultimate real-time actions;  2) it’s based on being a grassroots effort - making organizational leadership “happy with the results” is not a goal.  Both statements leave the impression that  organization leaders used to taking the helm continued to do so, rather than dropping back to virtually invisible status, letting grassroots community members take the lead.

Maybe I am the totally wrong person to comment on the Appreciative Inquiry process. a process I chose to not be part of, therefore one I know very little about. 

For example, I am confused that the Final Three seem to address our deficiencies.  Isn’t that contrary to the very heart of Appreciative Inquiry, which is designed to focus on existing best practices, achievements, and successes? 

Am sorry for sounding like such a Debbie Downer.  But am I an optimistic pessimist or a pessimistic optimist?  I’d say the former - I believe great things can come out of Appreciative Inquiry, when the process is followed.  Not sure it has been.   

It’s clear that I have definite opinions on the Final Three & how the process was followed; still, it took me over 24 hours to come to the difficult conclusion that I have to share my thoughts.  Was kept awake last night by more than a glorious “super moon” streaming in my window.  

Speak up or stay out of the picture? 

Got me thinking about Stephen Covey's ladder.  What would you do if you saw someone with a brand new ladder, one that reached great heights & had a firm footing, but which was placed against the wrong wall?  Or maybe Christine Kane is right, and there is NO wrong wall.  

What to do, what to do?  

Speak up, or stay silent?

Spent what felt like a sleepless night batting around what feels like the quintessential  “damned if I do, damned if I don’t” situation.  Countless people have put in countless hours of dedicated work into this process.  It pains me that they might feel I am disparaging their efforts.  

Not so!  I am appreciative of all their work & inspiration, especially Erik Buss.  

At the same time, do I keep silent rather than share my observations? 

Whichever I do, I am at risk of either public or personal censure.

In the end, the process itself made up my mind for me.  “Appreciative inquiry is a strategy for purposeful change that identifies the best of ‘what is’ to pursue dreams and possibilities of ‘what could be.’ It is a co-operative search for the strengths, passions and life-giving forces that are found within every system—those factors that hold the potential for inspired, positive change.”  Knowing that, how could I stay silent?

So, we end up back at my original great hope - that the Appreciative Inquiry process ultimately nurtures & develops a healthy sense of community & individual connection to each other and the Church.  And, always - let the sense of community & connection grow, beginning with each one of us.  That is a process that never fails.