hate is easy, love is hard

All the blame and none of the credit

"What if, instead of seeing organizations as problems to be solved, we saw them as miracles to be appreciated?  How would our methods of inquiry and our theories of organizing be different?" (Busche, 1995)

What if, instead of seeing schools as problems to be solved, we saw them as miracles to be appreciated?  How would our methods of inquiry and our theories of schools be different?" 

Perhaps I'm impressed by Obama's ability to speak, but when a President tells a nation to praise more teachers (like he did in the state of the union this week) I can't help but listen and subsequently ponder: What if, instead of blaming schools for all the problems of the world, we gave them credit for all that is right with the world?

Busche's writings about "appreciative inquiry" speak to me, like Obama, as the underpinnings of Positive Psychology and my approach to learning.  I realize my ice-age brain is designed to get more excited about problems, yet it doesn't help me much in the modern world.  I strive to live with more intent, put forth more effort towards the thoughts and attitudes proven to expand my ability to learn...rather than dwell on those which naturally hinder it (and take no effort at all).  I accept there is no hard-wired response to savor and hope like there is to fight or flight, so I must constantly fight for positive affect, satisfaction, and meaning.  This type of thinking is considered "unscientific" by many traditional scholars and "unreal" by many friends and family.  Appreciative inquiry and action research is even labeled "soft science" because it's not following THE scientific method of addressing a problem -- much like optimism is considered "living in a pipe dream" because it's an attempt to control one's thoughts rather than blindly follow the trivial ups and downs of one's hormonal responses.  "Keeping it real" and "soft science" are labels without much inquiry because they elicit the predictable hard-wired responses of our brain.  Such negative narrowing is helpful in crisis, but harmful for long-term development.  Positive broadening is helpful in retention and health, but harmful for eliciting predictable momentary emotion.

I enjoy the interplay of studying organizations and individuals within them.  It doesn't surprise me that attitudes, beliefs, stories, rituals, artifacts, and ceremonies that define an organizational culture are hard to change when members are biologically and evolutionarily better at identifying problems than they are at identifying what works.  In my wellness class I ask students to identify things they'd like to fix and work on in small groups and inevitably have to set a time limit to bring them back because they have lots to stay, right away.  When I follow it with the task of identifying their strengths and how to use them better, silence and confusion are almost instantaneous.  The same happens when I ask groups to identify where they manifest stress in their body; they instantly point to their necks, chest, back, and stomach.  But when I ask them to identify where they manifest joy in their body, the finger point hesitates and wanders while their eyes search what others are doing. 
Organizations that attempt to increase positives experience the same stall and the same doubt, often a result of the way we study them.  Perhaps the search for objectivity is impossible, but the search for positives just requires more effort.