[Ailist] Re: How much theory to give

[Helen6451 at aol.com]

I agree that the most powerful thing we can do at the outset of our work  
with a client is to get them into the interviews and sharing their stories and  
exploring their values and their hopes for the future.    
 
Then I look at how they are going to take their work into their  organization 
or their community, and when they are going to conduct their own  processes, 
and will need some deeper grounding than the experiences and our own  stories 
of how this works, we have a discussion of what they  need, and I do share 
some of the theoretical framework.  Building  the capacity to shift a culture 
takes a deeper understanding of why this  works and how to move forward with 
confidence.  While not everyone wants or  needs this, I believe it needs to reside 
somewhere within the system, so they  have access to it after we consultants 
leave.
 
Not everyone learns what they need to know to move forward experientially,  
and even though I prefer experiential learning myself, I find it comforting to  
have some deeper appreciation of the depth of the foundations supporting  
Appreciative Inquiry.
 
Helen Spector



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