What is Action Inquiry?

Action Inquiry is a systematic, life-long practice to help you learn from your experience. By practicing Action Inquiry, you can increase your personal integrity, your capability to achieve what you want, your capability to work with others more collaboratively toward shared visions, and your use of transformational learning to create a more just and sustainable world.

Definitions of terms

Systematic: Consisting of planned, orderly, repeatable, defined steps

Practice (n): when you perform a technique repeatedly, in an effort to get better at it

Integrity: behaving in a way consistent with your values; lack of a gap between what you intend and what you do, or what you say and what you do, or what you feel and what you say that you feel

Effective: your strategy or actions are effective when the efforts you put in create the results you want

Transformational: it changes the way you see things, not simply the way you DO things

Bill Torbert, in his 2004 book, Action Inquiry, says that practicing Action Inquiry is a way to become:

  • increasingly capable of making future visions come true
  • Increasingly alert to the dangers and opportunities of the present moment
  • Increasingly capable of performing in effective and transformational ways

Action Inquiry has 3 aims

  1. Within the individual, the aim is integrity. Integrity grows by means of regular dynamic evaluations into the gaps between what I plan and what I do, or between how I feel and what I say that I feel, or between what I value and what my actions create. All those sorts of things.
  2. In relationships, the aim is mutuality. When we recognize power differences between 2 people and keep in mind that the use of power can reduce trust and impede honest communication, we’re more able to take creative action toward shared visions and goals, increase collaborative conversations and jointly determined ways of working together to co-create our outcome.
  3. In wider organizations, the aim is sustainability. In order to be sustainable, organizations must create effectiveness, integrity and mutuality to continue growing toward social justice and harmony with the natural environment.

[AMAZONPRODUCT=157675264X]

Related reading:

4 thoughts on “What is Action Inquiry?”

  1. Is there anyway to have a printable copy of the blog? Often there is a button that has “Printable Version.” I do not know how much work that is, but it would be nice. I would like to put a folder together with the work I am doing. I really love your writing. The picture on the last blog is beautiful.

    Linda

  2. Linda, I’ve added a print button at the bottom of every post. I hope it gives you what you wanted.
    Thanks, Debby

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *