Appreciative Problem-Solving
Another mode of appreciation is evident in a collaborative setting when efforts are made to form complementary relationships and recognize the mutual benefits that can be derived from the cooperation of differing constituencies and the valuing of varying sources of expertise. Appreciations in this regarding centers on acknowledgement of Diversity and the value this acknowledge brings to the problem-solving enterprise. This series of essays is filled with examples of diversity being beneficial—whether we are describing the team of rivals in Lincolns’ cabinet or the ethics of care to be found in Carol Gilligan’s vision of a vibrant 21st Century society.
This appreciative strategy requires not only the recognition of diverse perspectives and differing backgrounds, but also the engagement in processes that brings about a search for common understanding, non-judgmental acceptance, and potential integration of diverse perspective and accompanying practices. Bohmian dialogue (named for David Bohm) can be of great value, with dialogue being engaged that has no predefined purpose. There is no structured sequence of conversations.
As in the case of the open space structure I described earlier, this form of dialogue is intended as an inquiry into and reflections on the way both parties are thinking and on ways in which they might “think together.” This dialogue can allow people with divergent ideas to examine their own preconceptions and prejudices well as to explore the potential intersection of their thoughts and ideas. I would also refer to the process of Spectrum Analysis that was engaged for many years by the Synectics Group (Gordon, 1961). At the heart of this analysis was the search for the “seed” or “kernel” of validity and usefulness in any idea being proposed in a problem-solving group.
Appreciative Decision-Making
The description and analysis provided by Robert Macfarlane regarding the workings of a forest is but one of the analyses he offered in Underland. He explored many phenomena that tend to play out over time and continue to be present over many years and centuries. He offers all of these analyses on behalf of what he called Deep Time. It is when we extend out observations and analyses over long stretches of time that we are likely to gain some important and often startling insights—such as the complex network found in a forest. Macfarlane (2019, p. 15) makes the following case:
“We should resist . . . inertial thinking; indeed, we should urge its opposite – deep time as a radical perspective, provoking us to action not apathy. For to think in deep time can be a means not of es<aping our troubled present, hut rather of re-imagining it; countermanding its quick greeds and furies with older, slower stories of making and unmaking. At its best, a deep time awareness might help us see ourselves as part of a web of gift, inheritance and legacy stretching over millions of years past and millions to come, bringing us to consider what we are leaving behind for the epochs and beings that will follow us.”
Macfarlane (2019, pp. 15-16) portrays the positive outcomes to be generated by one’s assumptions of a long-ranging deep time perspective:
“When viewed in. deep time, things come alive that seemed inert. New responsibiliti4es declare themselves. A conviviality of being leaps to mind and eye. The world become eerily various and vibrant again. Ice breathes, Rock has tides. Mountains ebb and flow. Stone pulses. We live on a restless Earth.”
