Positive Matrix - How do you deal with negativity amidst this positive perspective?

We do not discount negativity, sadness, loss and grief. We acknowledge there are highs and lows in most situations.

We invite people to focus on their high point experiences as we seek to deliberately access the “positive core” of a system.

There are choice points in all interventions. In Appreciative Inquiry (AI), we choose to elicit stories that are life-nurturing, energizing and capacity building; we invite people to recall the times when they and their system are performing at their best.

A belief of AI is that in every system something already works well. So when it comes to negativity or sadness or loss or grief we design the question in a way that seeks to find something in the situation that provides hope and renewal.

AI is not about the positive. AI is an inquiry that seeks to guide people to learned helpfulness and therefore asks questions that are generative, what works and what is possible and sustainable.