Appreciative inquiry as a coaching method has a different focus. Did you know there are different types of focus when coaching?
1) Focus on what needs to be fixed, changed or improved.
Many traditional coaching methods look at where you can improve, what you can change to get more of what you want. The challenge with these forms of coaching is that your focus is on understanding the problem, where it exists, why you see it as a problem… You focus on the problem. This limits your vision and scope of possibilities.
2) Focus on what is working, why its working and how you can get more of that.
Appreciative inquiry is a coaching method that looks at things that you are doing well. Where you feel you are successful and then asking the questions around; Why its working? What are you doing to make it happen?
By changing your focus, it becomes easier to work towards a positive change, because your Imagination & Will motivates you to manifest what you want.
It is not that appreciate inquiry ignores problems or difficulties in life; rather it shifts attention to what is the desired future. For that future to be created, problems are resolved or become inconsequential.
Kogan Page © 2021 Excellence in Coaching1
How it works
The appreciative inquiry coaching model has 4 phases:
- Discovery; looks at what your strengths are and how you use them.
- Dream; considers what you want and helps you to envision what you want.
- Design: helps you to place your attention on what you want and define the steps you need to take.
- Destiny: helps you to motivate yourself, by experiencing and fulfilling your “future dream” in the present.
Contact me if you would like to know more
Rita Govender
“creating agile, purpose-driven thinking”.
email: rita@disclosure.co.za
call: +27 82 804 6391
Further reading
- Excellence in Coaching: Theory, Tools and Techniques to Achieve Outstanding Coaching Performance, Fourth Edition
- Appreciative Inquiry | Better Evaluation
