Using appreciative inquiry in a classroom can be an effective way to teach people about Dialogue – and then at the same time introduce AI to them as an alternative to problem-solving. You can also generate valuable content around team development depending on the topics of inquiry you choose.

Jo Tyler and I annually facilitate a day-long training session for a local leadership training program. The training session is the first day of a year-long program for the students and is intended to teach them points about team development, group dynamics, and diversity. One of the topics is also Dialogue. For the duration of the year, the class is grouped into teams of 8 members, each with an assigned annual project.

The teams also get a quick introduction of Tuckman’s team development model (Forming, Storming, Norming, Performing, Adjourning). Up until our session this year, elements of our training session had some focus on the obstacles team’s overcome as they evolve to a Performing stage. Teams often though need to perform regardless of their stage of development. So, this year, as we planned the training day, we looked at “what we wanted more of” and
focused on helping the groups establish:

* Characteristics of their Best Team experience
* Leadership actions in their Best Team experience, and
* Harmonious working relationships (aka Conflict Management) within those teams

We incorporated AI as a piece of the training day and built it into the dialogue portion during the afternoon. Our inquiry topics were the three items listed above.

We achieved three objectives:

* We introduced Dialogue
* We introduced AI
* Taking the group through Dialogue and AI we were able to get them to list principles and behaviors of best teams that they can now keep in front of them throughout the year to help them form and perform as teams.