Most change conversations start in the same place: what's wrong, who's to blame, what needs fixing. In this episode, Klaudia sits down with Aderonke Bademosi-Wilson, founder of AB Wilson Consulting, to talk about a different starting point: appreciative inquiry, a strength-based approach that begins with what's already working and builds from there.

Learn how Aderonke used one appreciative question to guide her own return to the career she loved, why "what would you like more of?" gets further than "what's wrong?" ever will, and how to start applying this to your own life and relationships today.

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Hello happiness seekers.

Welcome to the Happiness Challenge podcast.

I'm Claudia Mitura and I'm on a mission to explore the best happiness habits that science has to offer.

Like so many others, the pandemic cut me off from my family and work.

So I decided to use my training as a psychologist to discover what science can tell us about the art of happiness.

What I found set me on a path to joy and now I'm ready to share my journey with you.

Each month I'm publishing three linked episodes where I'm speaking to a leading expert, putting their tips to the test and sharing my findings and feelings.

From mindfulness to exercise and random acts of kindness, I'll be shining a light on the simple happiness habits that can bring more joy to our lives.

So join me as I embark on my challenge and together we can become more successful, resilient and happy.

Hello happiness seekers.

My name is Claudia.

Welcome to this month's Happiness Challenge where we are exploring what it really means to coach yourself with kindness and clarity by focusing on what's working, not just what's missing.

I am absolutely delighted to be joined by Adronke Bademosi Wilson.

We met at the Gross Global Happiness Summit in Costa Rica.

Amazing.

And Adoronke is the founder and consultant of A.B.

Wilson Consulting.

She uses Appreciative Inquiry to help people build on their strengths and create positive change.

And in today's episode we'll unpack what Appreciative Inquiry is and how can you use it as a simple self coaching tool, especially on the days when you feel uncertain, imperfect or or a bit lost.

Aderonke will also share a few powerful questions you can try straight away.

So let's dive in.

Welcome Adronke.

Claudia, it is wonderful to be here.

I appreciate being a guest on your show and I'm looking forward to our conversation.

Oh, I am so excited and great.

We can connect online after our adventures in Costa Rica.

But Aderonke, let's start from the beginning.

If you had to explain to someone who's never heard the term what is actually appreciative inquiry in practice and what makes it different from maybe traditional problem solving approaches.

That's a great question.

Appreciative inquiry is a strengths based approach to change.

It helps people, teams and organizations identify what is working well and understand why and how it works and uses those strengths to create more of what they want.

And so what I mean by that if you, in any given situation, if you wanted to improve, you can use overwhelmingly positive questions to go back and say what has worked in the past.

Let's say, for example, an organization wants to improve teamwork, wants to improve morale.

Think about a time when you were part of a team that was performing at an extremely high level and you tell that story and then from that story you're able to pick the elements that make a team strong.

And so from my perspective as a consultant and facilitator, I don't stand there and tell people what a good team does.

I ask the question questions that provoke conversations, that then surface the answers from within the room.

I love that.

But I think it's a little bit counterintuitive, isn't it?

Because when generally something is not working, we want to understand what is not working.

Whereas here, very interestingly, you're saying that appreciative inquiry is okay, what has worked in the past and how can we apply it into the current situation?

Yes.

And when you start with a positive question, it changes the environment, it changes people's mindset and what they bring to the solution.

And just to think about how people respond to questions.

I've done this many times in workshops.

I asked a series of standard, what potentially standard consulting questions.

What's wrong?

Who's to blame?

Who should take responsibility?

Where do you feel the problem lies and people's body language change?

But if you start with a positive question, tell me about the best situation or experience that you've had.

Tell me about a time when you made a difference.

Tell me, tell me what?

I'm just trying to think of a really good question.

Tell me about time when communication worked well in a team.

What was happening.

So if you start there, people start somewhere different than they would if you said tell me what's wrong.

Yeah.

And so much powerful because then we concentrating on all the strengths and resources that we already have.

So, so if we think about appreciative inquiry as also individual self coaching tool, let's say we're feeling maybe stuck in the current situation that we are in, maybe discouraged by what's happening.

How can we apply some of the coaching questions to let us to actually concentrate on that positives strengths and resources we have.

So one of the things that I would suggest is that.

Let me give you an example, let me give you, let me give you a real life example.

I had a significant professional change a few years ago and I felt that I didn't know what I was going to do next.

I didn't know, I didn't know how to really figure out my future professionally.

And so I decided to use this process appreciative inquiry on myself.

So I asked myself.

Actually, the key question that I asked myself was, what was the happiest time in your career?

And I've had some outstanding opportunities in my life professionally.

But when I thought back to when was I the happiest, it was when I was consulting.

I had a company for nine and a half years and I thought I would love the opportunity to do that again, notwithstanding all the other wonderful jobs that I've had.

And I thought, okay, that's my answer.

I want to go back to consulting, which is why I'm back in my own business again, because I found so much joy.

I found I was able to help and make a difference for others.

But it came from that question.

If I had said, I don't know what happened and why are you in this situation?

It would have been like a spiral downward, at least for me.

But I decided to look out over the horizon and say, what was the best?

And how can I take what was the best and bring it into my future?

And so we can do that with all relationships, right?

We don't have to.

Just doesn't have to be a tool that you use for yourself or that you use in business.

I usually say appreciative inquiry works in human systems, and human systems are wherever people are.

And so if you want to change the conversation in a personal relationship, you can start by saying, when was the, what's the best experience that you have had in this relationship or in a relationship period?

And if it goes with, okay, so how can we create more of that for ourselves?

And so you start from a place of what is possible based on your own knowledge and experience.

And because you were a part of it, you don't have to take outside.

You don't have to take outside help in order to begin to create it.

And there are times absolutely when you need professional help.

But this is a simple tool that you can use immediately.

And I always tell people after I've done my workshops, you now have the tools, you know, all you have to do.

And worst case, go to ChatGPT and ask for some overwhelmingly positive questions about whatever the topic is.

Really interesting.

So really starting with that positive what?

Imagining as you're saying, the best, the happy as a starting point.

Okay, and how do we then dissect the this to actually create some kind of plan of action without maybe ignoring the pain, the setbacks, or hard truths.

Like what would be your tip?

I answer all those happy questions.

Okay, what's next?

So let me give you an example.

Let me Give you an example.

So maybe you have a college, a student, right, going into the first year of school, school of university, and you have a vision for that soon to be college graduate.

And the vision is, I look forward to seeing you walk across the stage in your cap and gown to receive your degree.

So that's the vision of the future.

So you create that vision together.

Now, the question, the positive question that you get to ask is think of a time when you excelled academically.

Tell me about that time.

What are some of the things that you did in order to succeed?

I went to class on time.

I studied, I did the homework, I read the textbook I provided, I wrote my papers and handed them in on time.

So these are just some of the elements that made this particular student successful.

I asked the teacher for help.

I had peer support.

So these are the kind of things that make this person successful.

So now we know what works.

We have to put it into a plan.

You need to study, you need to attend class on time.

You need to do your assignments, you need to write your papers to a higher degree.

You need to find peer support.

You need to be comfortable enough going to your professor to ask questions.

So you put these plans in place and you work towards the vision that has been set.

Will there be setbacks?

Yes, absolutely.

We're dealing with human systems.

We're dealing with human beings.

You may not get that A, you may have to settle for a C, maybe even a D, but you're still moving towards that goal.

It won't be perfect because there are no perfect people.

But you have a vision, you have the tools, because you know what has worked in the past.

Now it's just applying it and understanding that as you are creating it, you are creating the success that you want to see.

Did that answer your question?

Yeah, absolutely.

So what she's saying is we're trying to dissect specific actions that we maybe have taken in the past that helped us to then become that action plan for the future of how we get into our vision.

And we get there by really thinking about all that went well in the past, potentially, and all the resources and strengths and actions we've taken in the past that helped us to achieve what we wanted to achieve.

Great.

And I guess coming back to some of the questions you already mentioned, ChatGPT can help us maybe asking some of the questions and designing some of the questions.

But do you have some of the questions that you ask in your workshops that are like your top favorite ones that often get kind of people smiling and going on and on about that positive times in life.

So there are two questions that I like to ask and I tend to ask them regardless of the topic.

Oftentimes most of the time when I'm doing a workshop, I focus on the outcomes that the client is looking for.

Whether it's team building, leadership, communication, whatever the topic is.

But one question that I ask, what is working well but I think probably my favorite what would you like more of?

Because what that does is it identifies where you want to go in order to move forward.

And so an example would be let's say oh, let's say a team says oh, I don't know what's going on, we need to, I need more information.

And me as a manager says oh, you need more information.

I got it.

I'm going to send you an email every single day and, and you will have information.

You cannot complain that you don't have information, but that's somebody making a decision on what more information looks like.

However, if you said okay, so you need more information, what would you like more of in order to get that more information?

The person may say, I think you remember last year when we did those 10 minute meetings, I would like more of them or I would like more one on one meetings.

They don't have to last long but I found them effective.

Or the group meetings, the group huddles that we used to have in the hallway.

I found that I got to hear everybody's what was going on with everybody in a very short period of time because we were standing, because it was in the hallway, we were quick, it was efficient and we went back to our desk and so that's getting what you want more of as opposed to saying okay, so why didn't you get that email?

I send emails every day.

That's not understanding what works.

I love that question.

What would you like more of?

And because it's so open ended, it can take us into many different directions on the basis what we missing.

But it's phrased positively.

Okay, I would like to have more of communication or more of one to one exchange of ideas or more of peer to peer support.

Love that.

Really great question.

So since we're talking about organizations and I know you do lots of incredible workshops inside lots of different places.

Just wanted to know when you are using appreciative inquiry to invest instigate a real change, certain conditions that need to be in place for it to work.

Well,.

I don't think so.

Other than so what I do is I don't tell, I don't necessarily say the methodology that I use is appreciative inquiry to bring you together.

I don't necessarily start there or even say what the methodology is.

What I will do is just go in based on the remit that I have to get people started, to get people talking.

And my style of facilitation, maybe a little unorthodox, is in my opinion once people start making noise, they're engaged.

Once they, if I can get them to shed some of their maybe apprehensions about being in this workshop, whether they knew the topic or not, whether they had a lot of information or not, it really gets them to think differently and to be able to see their colleagues differently, quite frankly.

Because if you can have a conversation with somebody in a way that you've never had before, it allows you to see them differently.

It allows you to recognize that you have far more in common with that person than you did or that you ever even imagined.

And it gets, it helps organizations to bridge any siloed activity that may be taking place.

So when you bring individuals together to connect, when you bring different sides of an organization together to connect around, not just the questions, but the appreciative inquiry process, it allows change to take place.

Claudia One of the things that I always say if I'm doing appreciative inquiry training, so there's two different things.

Using the methodology to help people through whatever they want to address.

But the other thing that I do is actually teach how appreciative inquiry works.

And one of the things that I always say when I'm doing the appreciative inquiry training is that overwhelmingly positive questions, when you start with overwhelmingly positive questions, it leads to positive and long lasting change.

Right?

And because people are part of the process, people have a voice in the solution.

People know how you got to that solution because they were a part of it.

And they will then have a vested interest and making sure it works.

And it doesn't matter what level of an organization you work at, being a part of the process also means ownership of that process.

Love it.

Because as you said, it's ownership is accountability.

It's the buy in.

But it's so based on the positive aspects and the strengths and solutions and resources we have access to.

Absolutely love that.

So thank you so much, Adaronke, for sharing all your wisdom with us today because this podcast about happiness.

My final question to you is what makes you happy?

Wow.

There are, there are so many things.

So I'll give you a few.

Spending time with my partner, my, my husband, he he brings me joy.

Spending time with family and friends is always a wonderful space.

I will have to say pickleball.

Pickleball is in there and I love it.

And photography and being in a space where I get to help people and help them to transform and have them see the transformation for themselves and knowing that when they walked in one space, they're leaving in a slightly different space.

And that for me, is a job well done as a consultant because you want to know that your client is better off after you have done work for them.

And using appreciative inquiry allows me to see that as we go through the day, the month, whatever the engagement period is, I'm able to see that.

And that for me is really where I, where my happiness sits as a consultant.

And then just some of the work that I do, I have a program called Six Weeks of Joy and where I bring people together online over six week period to explore and interrogate Joy in a lot of different ways.

And the magic that comes from creating programs like this and helping people in their happiness journey, in their joy journey, things like that bring me joy.

Love it.

And of course, yes, love that.

Lots of different varied bits.

And your husband got number one in this list, so.

Hey, lucky man.

Thank you so much, Adironke.

It was absolutely pleasure to be with you today and thank you again for coming and sharing your wisdom.

Thank you.

Thank you so much for having me, Claudia.

I appreciate your time and I appreciate the work that you're doing.