Sometimes, the Biggest Ideas Arise when people gather together to ponder many small questions. That's the premise behind “appreciative inquiry,” a meeting methodology that, through a focus on peer-to-peer interaction, results in tangible outcomes. AI's creator, David Cooperrider, has had great success using the format in the corporate world, and he believes it may be the next big thing for association meetings. Meetings that think big, that is.

AI is, after all, designed to discover an organization's strength through questioning, then come up with real-world solutions that add both to an organization's bottom line and to society at large. Cooperrider serves as faculty director at the Center for Business as an Agent of World Benefit, Weatherhead School of Management at Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland. All he needed was the right meeting to move his theory to the forefront of the association arena.

Then along came the American Society of Association Executives and The Center for Association Leaderships' high-octane gathering, the Global Social Responsibility Summit, held April 0 to May 2.

The goal of the meeting certainly was big enough: Nothing less than helping to create what could become the world's largest social responsibility movement, said Susan Sarfati, executive vice president of ASAE and president and CEO of The Center for Association Leadership, opening the summit. The social responsibility movement has been sweeping the corporate world, resulting not just in meetings that give back to the destination through work projects, fundraisers, and other community service projects, but also in companywide programs that are aimed at doing things such as reducing hunger and increasing literacy in the world community. One of the ideas behind the summit was that associations are ideally suited to take the movement to the next level and beyond.

Even the logistics were innovative: the on-site meeting of approximately 400 association executives at the Gaylord National, National Harbor, Md., was simultaneously beamed to 19 connected sites around the world, each with approximately five to 25 participants. Around 200 people also took part virtually through an interactive platform created by technology company iCohere.

The results, while not perfect, were remarkable: 861 participants pulling together to develop 23 social responsibility initiatives — and plans on how to bring those initiatives to reality. Here's what happened.

Creating a Blueprint

The idea behind the ASAE summit was to create ways for associations to do good things in the world, but not just to do good for the sake of doing good. For lasting change to take place, they would need to build a blueprint for social change that would benefit the association as well as the world at large, according to Sarfati.

John Graham, president and chief executive officer, ASAE, explains: “Associations and nonprofit organizations represent 287 million people from every industry, profession, and cause imaginable. Think about the power, the energy, that we can harness by working together to do good while, at the same time, creating healthier associations. Doing well by doing good — that's what we're about.”

That's also at the heart of AI, says Cooperrider, who has facilitated AI summits around the world, mostly for corporations and organizations like the United Nations Global Compact and the U.S. Navy. “What we're finding, quite simply, is that the more you study the true, the good, the better, the possible within living human systems, the more the capacity for positive transformation.” While he hasn't done much work with associations, he believes appreciative inquiry is well suited to them — whether it's used to drive social change or some other initiative — because it works better with large groups. He has done summits for hundreds, even thousands, of people, and not just employees or members, but stakeholders, customers, and suppliers. The summits are like massive brainstorming sessions where participants are equally engaged in strategic planning and decision-making. The larger the configuration of the whole, the more valuable AI is as a tool to map the assets and strengths of the organization and build upon them.

“The innovations are out there,” says Cooperrider. “What we need to do now is to scale up these innovations and speed their spread. Associations are almost like a central nervous system that helps accelerate the speed and spread of information through society,” Cooperrider says. Quite simply, “associations have the power to transform society for the better. That's why this could be the most important social responsibility summit initiative that we have ever seen.”

The Four D's of Change

“I'm amazed at power of simple face-to-face dialogue to change the world,” Cooperrider told the assembly as he prepared to take them through the paces of AI. Intimate, face-to-face dialogue is at the very core of AI, providing the foundation for the “four-D process,” with those four D's being discovery, dreaming, design, and destiny. From these small conversations emerge big, bold ideas.

But it all stems from carefully crafted questions that Cooperrider has developed over the years to unearth ideas, discover strengths, and move the conversation forward.

Phase 1: Discovery

For the first step in the process, Cooperrider asked participants in the room and at the connected sites to pair up. At the Gaylord, there were roughly 50 tables of eight people each with predetermined seating assignments so that people across sectors and job functions were represented to create a richer dialogue. The same process took place at the satellite sites.

The pairs huddled for 20 minutes to ask each other questions designed to map the strengths of the association industry and establish their capacity to improve society.

For example, they asked each other to describe what the world will be like in 2020: What's better? What's changed? What do you envision associations did to drive those changes? They were asked to name three small things they would like to come out of the summit that would have the largest impact on that future society, and to name three bold things they would like to come out of the summit.

Cooperrider then asked the pairs to share their stories with the others at their table on just one of the questions (each table focused on different questions) There was a timekeeper, reporter, recorder, and discussion leader at each table.

After 30 minutes of discussion, Cooperrider called on various tables to do three-minute reports on the stories and answers. Each satellite site called in with reports as well, as did some virtual participants who exchanged ideas via virtual roundtables.

After lunch participants reconvened at different tables, this time homogeneous tables consisting of people of similar interests — young leaders, consultants, industry partners, professional associations, trade associations, philanthropic organizations, etc. The discussions became more specific as participants were asked to share their strengths in serving members, or accomplishments around social responsibility. The idea, said Cooperrider, was to discover the unique assets and leverage points of participants. Findings were reported out, as earlier in the day, ending the discovery phase and day one of the conference. Day two would build on these ideas.

Phase 2: Dream

Now that they had answers that would serve as the foundation for initiatives that would emerge later, Cooperrider moved the group through the dream stage. “To dream is to think about what is possible, what you want. Think about the real impact we want to have in the future,” he said. For this phase, Cooperrider asked each table (and virtual roundtable) to revisit their visualizations of the world in 2020, and then talk about how associations created that better world and overcame challenges. Finally, the groups were asked to present their vision of the future to the group in a creative way — and that's where things got really fun. For the next 90 minutes or so the tables of eight developed their vision and then, after lunch, they made their presentations.

The first of 12 performed a variation on “American Idol” called Global Idol — complete with judges, a host, and theme music. America would vote on the most socially responsible association worthy of the show's title. Another group created a “Jeopardy”-style game show, with the answers all related to associations contributions to curing social ills.

One group depicted a CNN-style news report on how associations were responsible for driving the booming economy and improving various social causes. Another did a news report on how poverty ended as the last child was lifted into relative prosperity.

Another group introduced the Olympic theme and presented awards in various areas in the Association Olympics. Another group imagined an association executive being given the Nobel Peace Prize for creating the “Bright Lights Network,” which shines light on good work being done around the world and focuses on connecting resources with needs.

Cooperrider had asked participants to listen closely and take notes through the presentations, looking for ideas that interest them. These 2020 visions would serve as the basis for the parade of project initiatives that would follow later that afternoon.