Twenty First Century leaders will be successful in creating an appreciative organization to the extent that they fully understand and embrace all three of these cultures. Successful and appreciative leaders will support the production and use of information, the clarification and monitoring of intentions, and the generation and enactment of ideas. The challenge for many leaders is to find a way to feel comfortable in and recognize the important role played by each of these three cultures. I will briefly describe each culture and suggest ways in which leaders working within each can most effectively engage the six strategies of the Appreciative Triangle. I then turn to a fourth culture that incorporates all three domains.
Culture of Information
I have consulted to many organizations that I would describe as left leaning. This doesn’t mean that these organizations are liberal in political ideology. Rather it means that the leaders of these organizations tend to dwell in the domain of information and readily embrace appreciative strategies associated with this domain: assessment, benchmarking and feedback. These strategies are all located in the lower left-hand corner of the Appreciative Triangle—hence, the term left leaning.
The leaders of left leaning, information-rich cultures love data and lengthy, in-depth analyses. They are inclined to be very cautious and may emphasize autonomy and individual responsibility. These men and women tend to live in and help create a culture that is information rich. Abundant data are generated and shared among members of the organization. This information animates the organization and clarifies intentions. When it is operating effectively, this information-rich culture is conducive to reflections about the functioning of a work team and about the relative success of the overall operation of this team. Feedback regarding performance is welcomed. Mistakes are acknowledged and learning from mistakes is encouraged.
Successful and respected members in a left leaning organization tend to be flexible in their response to problems and creative in identifying or generating alternative solutions. This culture rewards analytic competence. Successful members tend to be skillful in designing and managing the methods being used in the group. Members of these organizations tend to support procedures, policies and practices that help to create and maintain a productive and safe environment in the group.
Thoughtful leaders thrive in this culture. These leaders compliment the focus on information with their commitment to careful analysis and reflection. Frequently, an information-rich culture produces an excess of information. This information may be valid, but it is not very useful. The thoughtful leader encourages careful research and the formulation of questions that produce useful information. In an information-rich culture, the thoughtful leader will usually find enthusiastic support for rational discourse and the ongoing technical training and conceptual education of all employees.
Culture of Intentions
The domain of intentions is particularly important in some organizations with which I have consulted. I find that these organizations readily embrace my recommendations regarding the use of appreciative strategies that reside at the top of the Appreciative Triangle: chartering, benchmarking and development. These organizations are upward focused because of this emphasis on strategies at the top of the Triangle. The energies of these organizations are focused upward, metaphorically and topographically, with regard to the Appreciative Triangle. The leaders of these organizations thrive when attention turns to discussions about organizational charter and to an exploration of the mission, vision, values and purposes that form a foundation for this charter.
The intention-rich culture is characterized by settings in which members of the organization focus on relationships rather than methods (as in the case with information-rich organizations). Members of upward focused organizations are sensitive to and fully appreciative of diversity in the experiences, ideas, values and aspirations that exist among organizational members.
