As leaders we are expected to lead and manage change. A core success in that endeavor is to foster, create, and lead highly collaborative teams. A powerful way to achieve this is through appreciative inquiry. It’s a process I use with groups of all kinds. In this article, I will illustrate how you could use appreciative inquiry in two practical examples, a time-limited project team and an ongoing department team. I hope these two examples will offer a structure that you can use in your own leadership as you build and foster the teams you lead and are part of.

From “Rename and Remain” to “Reframe and Regain”: Reimagining Campus Inclusiveness
In my last article, I highlighted the crucial strategies of “person-first” and “targeted universalism” amid the wave of anti-DEI legislation in higher education. Initially, many of us embraced a “rename