FAQ

The short answer is YES! AI is a useful approach to any interaction in human systems. It is not “just” an approach to organisational development. It is an approach that can be used in research, counselling, mediation, in families, coaching, project identification, evaluation, strategic planning, mergers, inter-cultural relations – and the list is endless. AI is really just another way of doing what you already do!

Yes, AI can be used also when there are givens. For example, an organisation may have spent a substantial amount of money and time crafting a new vision (without using AI). This new vision can be used as a given and as a good starting point for an AI intervention. It is not necessarily about changing what we do – it is about changing how we do it and how we get to where we want to be.

AI is a fundamental shift in paradigm to how we normally operate, and not just another tool for the tool box. Therefore, to use AI well, it is most effective to attend a training course run by experienced practitioners. AI has to be experienced as well as theoretically understood if one wants to be able to apply it. AI is deceptive, it is much more than asking positive questions, it is also about carrying through a full inquiry and living and using the underlying principles.

It is with AI as it is with any intervention and plan being made in an organisation. There needs to be someone to carry the ideas and plan forward. Because AI usually creates more energy and enthusiasm than most other interventions and because there is greater ownership of the results, plans and agreements made with AI are usually more sustainable than most other intervention results. Having said that, as AI is not the prevailing paradigm in which we operate, it is important to establish a core group of AI champions in the organisation who are willing to uphold AI and remind the group of the plans and results they came to together during AI intervention.

Yes, you can invite people to dream – AFTER they have discovered the best of what has been experiences. It is fundamentally important that any dream is grounded in an experience that people have had. Otherwise, it becomes “a pie in the sky” and they have nowhere to hitch the designs and plans for the future. A dream always has to be based on the discovery.

AI does not avoid problems, it deals with problems by re-framing them. So, for example; “we never worked well together here” is dealt with by asking “think of a time when you did experience some degree of working well together – even the smallest thing” What happened then? AI IS problem solving. The mere fact that people voice a problem means that they have a vision of things being better, otherwise they would not voice the problem!