Part of the ESME : Resources for Sense-able Conversations Pack.
To help to find out what is working well the positive inquiry tool asks two questions – 'What worked well for you'? and 'What could we do more of together to improve your experience'? Notice that we are starting by asking people what worked well which engages people in a conversation about what they value.
The use of language in the second question conveys that people are 'experts of their own experience', and that it is through working together that new possibilities can be explored and brought in to being. Note that it does not ask what are the problems or issues, this relates to the fact that the questions we ask help to determine the response we get. If we are to ask what are the problems people tend to give a list of things. Asking people 'what could we do together to make the experience better?' invites people to help to co-create the solutions, thereby implying a shared responsibility in this – i.e. it's about what we can both do together to make the experience better.
It is suggested that this inquiry tool is used as a starting point for conversation. Rather than anonymous feedback, the invitation with this tool is that it forms the basis for further discovery work of what helped things to work well, and what might we create together in moving forward.
These questions can be used to engage in conversations with a range of people in your workplace where the aim is to reflect on the best of what has been, and to explore how to further enhance how things might be in the future.
All the resources in the ESME: Resources for Sense-Able Conversations are licensed under Creative Commons BY 4.0. This means that those using the resource can copy and redistribute the material in any medium or format and adapt, transform, and build upon the material. Further details about the licence can be found on the Creative Commons website.
We would like to encourage you to have a look, take a light-hearted approach to giving them a go and notice what happens in the conversations when you try them out.
