Backcast. Paint a futuristic picture in your mind of how you want things to look a year, two years, five years from now. Buy a calendar and change all the dates so that 2005 becomes, say, 2010. Make a reverse timetable showing key events that you would like to see happen. This, not some dusty plaque on the wall, is the way to harness the power of a corporate vision.

Appreciative Inquiry involves the art and practice of asking questions that strengthen a system’s capacity to heighten positive potential. It mobilizes inquiry through crafting an “unconditional positive question” often involving hundreds and sometimes thousands of people. In AI, intervention gives way to imagination and innovation; instead of negativity, criticism, and spiraling diagnosis there is discovery, dream, and design. AI assumes that every living system has untapped, rich, and inspiring accounts of the positive. Link this “positive change core” directly to any change agenda, and changes never thought possible are suddenly and democratically Mobilized.

Appreciative Intelligence: Seeing the Mighty Oak in the Acorn

According to Vickers, day-to-day life is a continuously changing flow of interacting events and ideas. As people encounter events and ideas, they make judgments about reality and its value, deciding what is good or bad based on previous experiences. He argued that those judgments eventually lead to “action judgments,” or decisions to act, which in turn affect future events and ideas. Thus, in an appreciative system, people’s judgments of something’s value or worth dictate their actions. If they frame perceptions and judgments appreciatively, or as something valuable, they also act in a way that reflects reality’s positive value.

Second Model of AI by Geoffrey Vickers (1894–1982), an English bureaucrat-turned social scientist

Appreciative Intelligence: Seeing the Mighty Oak in the Acorn

"This is so simple it sounds stupid, but it is amazing how few oil people really understand that you only find oil if you drill wells. You may think you’re finding it when you’re drawing maps and studying logs, but you have to drill.”

— The Hunters*, by John Masters

personal note: The only way to learn a technology is to actually build something with it in contrast to keep studying and reading about. Escape the tutorial hell by building something with your hands.

Habit 2 is the first or mental creation. It's based on imagination -- the ability to envision, to see the potential, to create with our minds what we cannot at present see without eyes; and conscience -- the ability to detect our own uniqueness and the personal, moral, and ethical guidelines within which we can most happily fulfill it.

To Begin with the End in Mind means to start with a clear understanding of your destination. It means to know where you're going so that you better understand where you are now and so that the steps you take are always in the right direction.

Excerpt from The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen R Covey

Regardless of the enormity of the problem, proceed by trial (manageable in size) and error, error, error. (Failure motto: “Do it right the first time!” Success motto: “Do it right the 37th time!” And hustle through those 37 tries!)

-- Tom Peters

The Character Ethic is based on the fundamental idea that there are principles that govern human effectiveness—natural laws in the human dimension that are just as real, just as unchanging, and unarguably “there” as laws such as gravity are in the physical dimension. An idea of the reality—and the impact—of these principles can be captured in another paradigm-shifting experience as told by Frank Koch in Proceedings, the magazine of the Naval Institute.

Two battleships assigned to the training squadron had been at sea on maneuvers in heavy weather for several days. I was serving on the lead battleship and was on watch on the bridge as night fell. The visibility was poor with patchy fog, so the captain remained on the bridge keeping an eye on all activities. Shortly after dark, the lookout on the wing of the bridge reported, “Light, bearing on the starboard bow.” “Is it steady or moving astern?” the captain called out. Lookout replied, “Steady, captain,” which meant we were on a dangerous collision course with that ship. The captain then called to the signalman, “Signal that ship: We are on a collision course, advise you change course 20 degrees.” Back came a signal, “Advisable for you to change course 20 degrees.” The captain said, “Send, I’m a captain, change course 20 degrees.” “I’m a seaman second class,” came the reply. “You had better change course 20 degrees.” By that time, the captain was furious. He spat out, “Send, I’m a battleship. Change course 20 degrees.” Back came the flashing light, “I’m a lighthouse.” We changed course.

Excerpt from The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen R Covey