We live and work in a world in which the problems we face increasingly refuse to stay in neat categories. For example, higher education institutions face interconnected challenges with artificial intelligence, changing student expectations, professional identities, funding pressures, policy shifts, new forms of learning and questions about the purpose of education itself.
In such environments, organisations often look for the right answer. But what if the more important capability is the capacity to inquire well together? To notice what is happening. To listen to perspectives we do not have. To discover what is already working. To understand what matters. To examine our own assumptions. To generate possibilities. To act. And then to learn from what happens.
I call this Generative Action Inquiry (GAI). It is an approach to leadership, team and organisational development that brings together several complementary traditions of inquiry into a coherent developmental practice.
Its central proposition is simple: We create better futures when we can inquire into reality, meaning, relationships, possibilities and action at the same time.
From Problem-Solving to Inquiry
Much organisational development begins with diagnosis. We ask: “What is the problem?” “What caused it?” “Where is the gap?” “What needs fixing?” This is valuable. But diagnosis has a limitation. It assumes that the desired future is sufficiently known and that the task is primarily to move from the current state toward that future.
Complex environments are different. The future may itself be uncertain. The people involved may hold different interpretations of the situation. The problem may change as we begin addressing it. And the solution may emerge only through experimentation. In such circumstances, we need something more than diagnosis. We need generative inquiry.
What is Generative Inquiry?
Inquiry is generative when the process of asking and exploring questions produces something that did not exist before. A conversation can generate:
- a new understanding;
- a different perspective;
- a new relationship;
- a shared purpose;
- a possibility;
- a commitment;
- an experiment;
- a new way of acting.
The inquiry does not simply reveal reality. It can change how people see and participate in reality. That is why the quality of the question matters.
Compare: “Why are staff resisting the change?” with: “What are staff seeing that we may not be seeing?”
The first question can reinforce a story of resistance. The second opens the possibility that staff possess information that could improve the change. The inquiry has already begun to change the system.
An Integrative Practice of Inquiry
The word integrative is equally important. Organisational conversations often fragment reality. One conversation focuses on performance. Another on employee engagement. Another on strategy. Another on culture. Another on wellbeing. Another on technology. But human beings do not experience these as separate categories.
A leader’s emotions affect a strategic conversation. A team’s relationships affect performance. Professional identity affects how people respond to change. Meaning affects motivation. The wider system shapes what individuals can do.
Generative Action Inquiry as an Integrative Inquiry therefore brings together multiple dimensions of experience:
self + other + relationship + system + meaning + possibility + action.
It asks us to see the whole rather than only the part.
Generative Action Inquiry (GAI) as an Integrative Practice of Four Inquiry Approaches
GAI draws particularly on four complementary forms of inquiry.
Humble Inquiry which is developed by Edgar Schein. Its fundamental question is : “What am I not seeing?” It brings humility, curiosity and genuine interest in the experience and knowledge of others.
Appreciative Inquiry which is developed by David Cooperrider and colleagues. Its fundamental question is: “What gives life here?” It looks for strengths, moments of excellence, generative relationships and possibilities already present in the system.
Motivational Inquiry which draws from Motivational Interviewing developed by William Miller and Stephen Rollnick. Its fundamental question is: “What matters, and what moves us?” It explores values, aspirations, ambivalence, meaning and ownership.
Action Inquiry which is developed by William Torbert and colleagues. Its fundamental question is: “How am I participating in what is happening, and what can we learn through action inquiry?” It integrates awareness, action, reflection and development.
These are not four sequential steps but four lenses through which we inquire. For example, in a difficult team conversation, I might ask: “What am I not seeing” (Humble Inquiry), “When have we worked well together?” (Appreciative Inquiry), “What matters to each of us?” (Motivational Inquiry), and “How am I contributing to this pattern?” (Action Inquiry). The questions interact. They deepen one another.
Four dimensions of Generative Action Inquiry
I would summarise the four dimensions as:
| Dimension | Question | Developmental focus |
| Relational | What am I not seeing? | Humility and other-awareness |
| Generative | What gives life? | Strengths and possibility |
| Meaningful | What matters? | Values and agency |
| Action-oriented | What will we do and learn? | Self-awareness and adaptive action |
Together they create a fuller inquiry field.
1. Relational inquiry: What am I not seeing?
Every person sees the world from somewhere. A professor sees higher education differently from a student. A CEO sees the organisation differently from someone working on in the laboratory. None necessarily sees the whole.
Humble Inquiry begins with the recognition: “My perspective is partial.” That is not weakness. It is an epistemological discipline. The leader asks: “Help me understand.” “What are you seeing?” “What might I be missing?” “What does this look like from where you stand?” This creates the possibility of collective intelligence.
2. Appreciative inquiry: What gives life?
Once we begin listening, we can look for moments when the system is at its best.“When have we experienced exceptional care?” “When have faculty collaboration worked particularly well?” “When have students experienced genuinely transformative learning?” “What was happening?” “What made that possible?”
The purpose is not to ignore problems. It is to identify generative conditions. Perhaps exceptional care occurs when:
- faculty takes time to understand the needs of students ;
- communication is informal and rapid;
- teams trust one another;
- leaders are visible;
- people feel permitted to use judgement.
Those conditions become resources for future design.
3. Motivational inquiry: What matters?
A possibility becomes powerful when people can connect it with something they care about. “Why does this matter?” “What do you want to preserve?” “What do you hope will be different?” “What excites you?” “What concerns you?” “What makes you hesitate?”
This is particularly important in change. People can comply with change without owning it. Generative Action Inquiry seeks something deeper: self-directed commitment. The goal is not to manufacture enthusiasm. It is to help people discover their own reasons for engaging.
4. Action inquiry: How are we participating?
The final dimension turns the inquiry toward ourselves and our action. Suppose a leader says: “My team isn’t taking ownership.” Action Inquiry asks: “What am I doing?” “What assumptions am I making?” “How do I behave when I become anxious?”
Perhaps the leader discovers: “I take over whenever something goes wrong.” The organisation may have a problem with ownership. But the leader is also participating in the pattern.
This is a crucial shift: from observing the system to recognising ourselves as part of the system.
An Integrative Cycle
These four dimensions can be expressed as a developmental cycle:
LISTEN: What are we not seeing?
DISCOVER: What gives life?
EXPLORE: What matters?
ACT: What will we do?
LEARN: What happened, and what are we learning about ourselves, others and the system?
INQUIRE AGAIN: What can we see now that we could not see before?
This is not a linear process. It is recursive. Every action changes the situation. Every change provides new information. Every new piece of information opens another inquiry.
A University Example
Consider a university grappling with Generative Action Inquiry. A conventional approach might begin: “What policy should we introduce?” Generative Action Inquiry begins more broadly.
Listen: “What are students experiencing?” “What are faculty seeing?” “What are employers and policymakers concerned about?”
Discover: “Where is AI already enhancing learning?” “What are educators doing exceptionally well?”
Explore meaning: “What do we believe education is fundamentally for?” “What should remain deeply human?” “What possibilities excite us?”
Action: “What educational experiments could we run?”
Learn: “What did students learn?” “What did faculty discover?” “What assumptions were challenged?” “What does this suggest about the future of teaching?”
The institution is not merely developing an AI policy. It is learning what education means in an AI-enabled world. That is a much deeper organisational-development process.
From Individual Development to Collective Development
Generative Action Inquiry can operate at three interconnected levels.
Individual: How am I making sense of this? The individual develops greater self-awareness, agency and capacity to inquire into their own assumptions.
Team: How are we making sense of this together? The team develops shared understanding while retaining multiple perspectives.
Organisation: How is the system learning and adapting? The organisation becomes more capable of sensing changes in its environment and responding intelligently.
The developmental movement is therefore: Self → relationship → team → system. And then back again.
Generative Action Inquiry and Sensemaking
This is where Generative Action Inquiry connects strongly with organisational sensemaking. People do not simply respond to events. They interpret them. And the interpretations they construct influence what they do.
For example: “Students are resisting AI” leads to one response. “Students are uncertain about how AI changes the value of their learning” leads to another. “Students are showing us that our assumptions about assessment are outdated” leads to yet another.
The event has not changed. The meaning has changed.
Generative Action Inquiry creates space for that sensemaking to become more conscious and collective.
Generative Action Inquiry and Agency Development
The process also develops agency. Agency is not simply the ability to make something happen. It is the capacity to recognise: “I have a part to play in what happens next.”
Generative Action Inquiry moves people through: seeing → understanding → valuing → choosing → acting → learning.
This is agency in practice. The question becomes not: “Who is responsible for fixing this?” but: “What is mine to contribute?” And then: “What can we create together?”
A Practical Five-Question Version for Leaders
These questions can be used in a five-minute leadership reflection or a two-hour organisational conversation. The scale changes but the underlying practice remains.
1. What am I not seeing? (Humble Inquiry)
2. What is already giving life? (Appreciative Inquiry)
3. What matters? (Motivational Inquiry)
4. What is my part in this? (Action Inquiry)
5. What will we try, and what will we learn? (Generative Action)
A Deeper Proposition: Co-creating the Future with Generative Action Inquiry
Perhaps a deeper proposition of Generative Action Inquiry is this. Reality is complex. No one perspective is sufficient. Our interpretations shape our actions. Our actions shape the systems we inhabit. Therefore, better futures require better collective inquiry.
This is why the process begins with humility. We do not know enough. It continues with appreciation. Something valuable is already present. It explores motivation. Something matters to people. It turns toward action. We choose and experiment. And it returns to inquiry. We learn.
The ultimate ambition is therefore not to teach leaders a new technique. It is to develop an organisation in which inquiry becomes part of everyday life. Where a leader can say: “What am I missing?” A team can ask: “When are we at our best?” A colleague can say: “This matters to me because…” A group can ask: “What are we contributing to this pattern?” And an organisation can say: “Let’s try something and learn from what happens.”
Such an organisation does not need to pretend that it has certainty. It develops something more valuable, the capacity to remain curious and learn while acting.
Generative Action Inquiry as an Integrative Practice of Co-creating the Future Together
Generative Integrative Inquiry is ultimately about how people make sense, make meaning and make the future together.
Generative Action Inquiry is more than a conversational methodology. It is a practice of collective sensemaking and agency development.
In our higher education example, it can help educators and leaders inquire into what learning, teaching and scholarship might become in a rapidly changing world.
For organisations more generally, it offers a way to move beyond diagnosing problems and implementing solutions to listen deeply, discover what gives life, explore what matters, examine how you participate, generate possibilities, act, learn, and inquire again.
The future is rarely waiting to be discovered fully formed. It is often generated through the quality of the conversations we are willing to have, and the actions we are willing to take together.
