Application of AI in a Community Development Company in Glasgow: The Chief Executives Perspective

Along with a colleague Bliss Browne and with interest and support from the Scottish Centre for Regeneration, appreciative inquiry and other innovative positive processes were used to engage with the community in Pollok in Glasgow where we worked as partners with both the SCR and the Greater Pollok Development Company ( GPDC). Here is what the Chief Executive at that time John Watson said about the experience in March of this year( the work that we did took place between 2003/4) The questions I asked John are listed along with his replies.

Why did we adopt the AI approach?

There were a number of reasons that came together,

·GPDC had been set up to be different from the other 7 Local Development Companies although that did not last, so using AI after we had been made to merge and become more like the others enabled us to remain distinctive.

· A very committed and interested board member (Lesley Wilson made the connection with Margaret Wright and Bliss and took another board member and myself to Edinburgh airport to meet Bliss so we had a board champion as well as the executive. This really was very important, although I expect we would have still had a go, I think we had far more licence.

· I liked the approach as did Sandra Inrig who was my key person at Pollok. Imagine Scotland was crucial here. We liked it for the usual AI reasons.

·We also adopted it because we wanted to try and create a space in a very crowded initiative rich environment in order to try and work out what we were going to do, and also, because despite all the initiatives, there was no real vision for Pollok, adopting this approach allowed us space to develop and include people from the community in a very different way, so we were not seen as duplicating effort, although we were – from necessity.

· No one else had done it, (in Glasgow) so we could make it up as we went along – a great attraction!

· Margaret Wright, Bliss Browne, Lesley Wilson etc were great people to work with, and gave it momentum but also credibility, we were able to get Community Scotland funding for Pollok.

What Difference did it make??

Compared to a more conventional approach it gave us

· Fun

· A very distinctive approach

· It included staff from the merged organization in a way that helped develop the new organisation as being distinctive from the two merged ones

· It enabled us to have conversations which have remained as powerful board member memories, Lesley ran a number of exercises with board members, she says that one of the most memorable conversations she has ever had was when she had an appreciative conversation with the then chair. This helped the board come together more quickly (I suspect)

· A 5-10 year view of Pollok and its future which was much more optimistic than a shorter 3 year timeframe more conventional SWAT exercise would have given. I would love to use SOAR.

· Local councillors who were able to speak about Pollok in new ways, One of them stood up at a public meeting and waxed lyrically about the area and said that this had been prompted by the GPDC work.

Notes: Imagine Scotland was a large scale gathering held in Edinburgh in April 2003 where Bliss and Margaret partnered with the Scottish Civic Forum to create a participative event where people from all walks of life shared their views of the Scotland they wanted to see and to live in in the future.

SWOT- a technique that looks at the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats of an organisation.

SOAR the appreciative way of looking at strengths, opportunities, aspirations and results for an organisation.

A lot of the people and organisations, e.g. GPDC, SIP, Community Forum have changed over time since we did this work but the community are still there and we did lots of work with them in a series of events which all used the appreciative mind set so many seeds have been sown.