Common themes in unexpected places
In June 2007 at the closing session of IABC’s international conference in New Orleans, Marcus Buckingham inspired the audience by telling us that the way to succeed is not by trying to correct our weaknesses. Instead, he said, we should discover our strengths and use them fully.
I am in the Washington, D.C. area in the third day of an ASAE (American Society of Association Executives) Global conference on social responsibility. I am here because I want to learn more about what associations are doing to foster social responsibilty and also because the conference is using Appreciative Inquiry, a process I have never experienced.
The conference facilitator, a business professor from Case Western Reserve, began the conference with a Peter Drucker quote: “The task of leadership is to create an alignment of strengths in ways that make the system’s weaknesses irrelevant.”
The first step of the AI process is to look at what the person, or in this case, the association is doing that is working. What are our strengths? A woman I spoke to at lunch, who leads AI processes told me that Appreciative Inquiry is all about building on strengths. Maybe that’s why it is called “appreciative.”
I am always intrigued when I see the same idea come from different directions. I am happy to see this one pop up again.
More on social responsibility in the next post.