Identifying Themes

,

Themes of what gives life are in the information gathered in the generic interviews as well as from the customized protocol interviews. In fact, those themes often come in surprising ways and from surprising places and events!

Themes are important “threads” from the inquiry data. They are short answers to the question: “What do we hear people describing in the interviews as what gives life in this organization?” Locating the themes involves identifying and highlighting those ideas imbedded in the interview data. Identifying the themes continues the “reality-creating conversations” and provides a link between the inquiry we have conducted into the past and the image of the preferred future we will create in the fourth core process. The themes become the basis for collectively imagining what the organization will be like if the exceptional moments we have uncovered in the interviews became the norm in the organization.

Example of the Themes

The following example of themes comes from our work with an international pharmaceutical company. To put the themes in context, this example shows the preceding processes of topic choice, question formulation, and interviewing, as well as the next step after theme selection, which is articulating the dream, a process often referred to as writing “Provocative Propositions.” More will be said about that step in the next chapter.

Topic: Transfer of learning from the workshop to the workplace. (Note: In this example, the topic had been identified by the HR group that wrote the original request for proposal for the evaluation of the simulation training process that had been delivered to nearly five hundred people throughout a major division of their organization.)

Question: One of the purposes of the research simulation is to provide opportunities for you to learn about both the research process and about your style of working with a team. The desired outcome is for you to feel that the things you experienced during the workshop are useful in your work in the organization and in your life in general.

In that context, can you tell me some examples (stories) of ways that the things you experienced during the simulation workshop have had a positive impact on your work and/or the quality of your life at work? Tell me a story about that. What happened? Can you tell me another story (example)?

(Note: During the start-up session the consultants worked with the internal team—the core group—that guided the whole “valuation” process. We began with an AI training session during which the core group learned about AI theory and experienced the process by doing the generic interviews, agreeing on the topics, and formulating questions that became the official interview protocol for the AI process. The above is one of those questions.)

Themes: Transfer of learnings. The major themes that emerged from the examples interviewees gave of applications back in the workplace were as follows:

• Participants overwhelmingly reported a clearer and more detailed understanding of the research system as a whole and of the roles and phases within the research process; application of this knowledge has enabled them to be more efficient and effective in their jobs.
• Many participants reported that they now place a greater value on their personal expertise and are more proactive in making contributions and taking initiative.
• As a result of the experience of teamwork on the program, participants are now using their collective expertise more effectively to make decisions and to progress their research efforts.
• Participants are continuing the process of networking that began on the research simulation and are using their new and broader links within the organization to assist them in developing and working on new ideas more quickly and effectively.
• Many participants have taken the opportunity to examine and further develop their leadership styles; some have also identified and addressed additional development needs for their staffs.
• Participants also report being more purposeful and rigorous in planning their research efforts, more effective in requesting and allocating resources, and more timely and effective in their decision making.

(Note: These themes were identified and compiled by the core group and the consultants. First, the answers from the more than one hundred interviews were collated into one document so that all of the answers to the above question were simply listed together under that question. Taking that list, the core group and consultants gleaned the themes listed above. They also compiled the answers to the “wish” questions that applied to the transfer of learning as listed below.)

Wish Question: Ideas for how transfer of learnings could be promoted further and for follow-up activities were as follows:

• Build into the program more help with how to apply the learning back on the job; involve managers in preparing participants for the program and in helping them to apply their learnings afterward.
• Make a desk-top tool available.
• Provide other educational forums and follow-up workshops on specific topics.
• Use the model for scenario modeling/challenging assumptions.

(Note: The following provocative proposition—an activity that is part of the next core process, Creating shared images for a preferred future—was formulated from these themes and used to guide the next stage of work for the HR team.)

Provocative Proposition Topic I: Transfer of Learnings: When the simulation program is most effective, the workshop experiences are directly translated to the workplace. With an increased understanding of the research process and the roles of the complementary disciplines, scientists plan more effective research efforts and become more proactive in their interactions with other departments. More timely decisions are made and resources are more focused on critical activities.

By effective teamwork, scientists leverage the skills and expertise of others to plan and progress research efforts more efficiently. With greater confidence in their own abilities to impact drug research, they more actively contribute to scientific discussions and initiate new research activities. Leadership is displayed through proactively developing staff and enabling them to participate in cross-functional initiatives.

Outcome: The HR team used this guidance for designing the next simulation training.

Below are some additional examples of the kinds of themes—things that are life-giving—that people identify from the interviews done in their organizations:

There is no prescription for a theme. It is entirely up to the group to decide what gives life in their own system. Often discussions of themes found in the interview data will lead to conversations that uncover other themes the group believes are equally important. The challenge for the AI facilitator is to let the group go where it needs to go with as little constraining structure as is possible to have and still maintain enough order to get the work done. There are no right or wrong answers here; just answers that have meaning to the group itself.

In order to situate the “identifying themes” activity in the overall AI process, we provide two examples. The first shows a set of themes from one of our clients, set, for your understanding, into the context of the process we were using. The second is an example of an exercise you can use to help a group identify themes. These are meant to be informational, not instructive, because there are as many ways to get at this process as there are organizations and consultants working with it.

A Process for Selecting Themes

In a complex system intervention, the work preceding this step has likely been: (1) identifying a core group from the organization; (2) conducting an AI workshop that includes the theory of AI, the generic interview process, and the identification of topics for further study from the interview data; and (3) conducting the interviews. A second workshop with the core group as a minimum and all of the people interviewed as a maximum is a good next step. The second workshop can focus on identifying themes (the subject of this third core process of AI) as well as on tasks that are covered in the next two chapters. For the purpose of illustrating a task statement and process for theme identification, we share with you a process we often use.

A Theme Identification Exercise

This same process works for topic identification from the generic interviews.

Instructions: Choose a work group. Take your interview partner and join two other interview pairs, forming a group of six. (Note: We have used groups of as many as twelve if the group is very large. Interview pairs remain together for this task.) In your group:

• Choose someone to (1) Keep time; (2) Scribe on the chart; (3) Present your final chart
• At your table, each person (briefly) shares one or two of the best stories told by their interview partner. After hearing each other’s stories, create a brainstormed list of all the themes that were present in the stories—about high points, what gives life, ideas that “grabbed” you—ideas about what life is like when things are at their best. From your group’s “brainstormed” list agree on and select three to five topics for your group, and put them on chart paper. Post the sheets. (Note: If you have several topics—i.e., strong leadership, congenial work environment, etc.—each covered by a separate question, you can use this exercise for each separate topic.)

Themes: A theme is an idea or concept about what is present in the stories when people are reporting the times of greatest excitement, creativity and reward. For example, in many stories you may hear that when the topic covered by the question is at its best, people report “a feeling of success” or “clarity about purpose,” or “fun and excitement.” These phrases are “themes.” In your brainstormed list, include all of these kinds of phrases that people can identify. Then select three to five themes that the whole group feels are important and that you would all like to have in your ideal work environment and organization.

It is very important at every step of an AI process to be inclusive and expansive. When we deal with data, our default setting is to become reductionist—to place things in priority order or to sort and try to combine ideas. For this exercise, we recommend that you say three to five as an approximate number of themes, but make it clear to participants that you do not want them to be constrained by those numbers. Some number more or less will also be fine. The idea here is to capture those ideas that are most important to people. Once they have some number of themes on the chart and the chart is posted on the wall (fairly close to each other so that they can all be seen easily) it is important not to give in to the inclination to put together similar themes or to combine charts in any way. Leave them exactly as they are. Once the exercise is done, there are ways to note when similar themes have many dots, which serves to emphasize the importance of those similar ideas.

Prepare a chart like the following and post it on the wall:

Themes	*’s
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.

Each team answers any clarifying questions about the themes they have listed on the chart. Each person has X number of “dots.” Working alone, participants decide, of all the themes on the wall, which are most important to include in their dreams of the future. Another way to decide is to think of those three or four things they want more of in the organization or system. Give them five minutes to decide and place their dots. Use each dot on a separate theme.

(Note: We generally give each person three or four of the colored Avery dots. You can also use markers and tell each person that he or she has X number of checks to be used one by a theme. The scatter-gram is more vivid if you use all one color.)

Making Sense of the Scattergram: Ask: What do you notice about the charts? What themes are most important to this group?

(Note: At this point the group will often notice similar themes and remark on that. Try to reinforce the idea that every theme on the wall is important to at least one group in the room. The scattergram is to give a visual image of the whole group’s energy for certain themes. It is important not to count and put numbers by the dot clusters. Encourage people to see this as a visual of the group’s energy. We rarely put any order to the themes, which allows the next step—shared images of a preferred future—to use all of the theme data as the basis for their images.)

Once again, let us reinforce that the AI approach for identifying themes is different from the traditional approach. Within an AI context, something can be a theme (such as what gives life) even if mentioned in only one story. This is different from the traditional approach, governed by scientific ideas about statistical validity, where something has to be mentioned a certain number of times before it can be called a theme.

Our focus in this process is identifying all things that have given life to persons in the system using a very different but inclusive set of criteria. In AI, if just one person in one interview identifies something that resonates, that strikes a chord with others in the system, then it is most likely that it is life-giving for that system. Of course, we also consider something life giving if several people mention it. This is a process for tapping into the intuitive emotional abilities of the group working with the data as they decide what, for them, gives life and energy in the organization. If it resonates with members of the client system, if people say, “YES, I know just what she means!”, then it’s probably a good bet that this is a theme we should be paying attention to. Bear in mind that this process, like much of AI, is an organic and eminently dynamic process in which if something is missed or misinterpreted at one point it will almost certainly be identified or restated in a clearer way at another point.