Barnabas File

I was sitting in a conference room with several other people a number of years ago.     We had gathered to create an organization that would raise funds for Baptist collegiate ministries in underserved areas of the United States and Canada.     A consultant who was volunteering his time led us through a planning process called SWOT--strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats.    The process made sense at the time, gave us some direction in the formulation of our plan, and I even used it in a couple of other settings, but I began to be a bit uncomfortable at the negative connotations of parts of the process. In recent years, I have come to use an Appreciative Inquiry process in consulting--one that identifies and builds on the inherent strengths of an organization.  I was pleased, therefore, when I discovered that someone had taken the SWOT approach and transformed it into an Appreciative Inquiry process. In The Thin Book of SOAR:...