Sarah Lewis’ Terrific Toolkit: A Positive Psychology Perspective on the Practicality of Appreciative Inquiry Application

Authors

Ronald J. Chenail, Nova Southeastern University, Fort Lauderdale, Florida, USAFollow

Abstract

Sarah Lewis (2025) has made a strong contribution to the “How To” resources for conducting Appreciative Inquiry with her new book, Practical Appreciative Inquiry: A Toolkit for Applying Appreciative Inquiry to Organisational Challenges, Opportunities, and Aspirations. She has crafted the tome from a positive psychology perspective and her extensive experiences as an organizational consultant and facilitator, author, and postgraduate level lecturer in the United Kingdom. Her presentation is divided into two interrelated major sections - Background and Practice Theory and Applications, in which the backgrounding is full of practicalities and the applications are grounded in sound Appreciative Inquiry thinking. Through her extensive use of case studies, learning points, discussion questions, teaching practice, resources and further reading, she delivers on her practicality promise creating a helpful guide for practitioners of Appreciative Inquiry and for those teaching and learning this positive change methodology.

Keywords

appreciative inquiry, positive psychology, change methodologies, dialogic interventions, organizations

Author Bio(s)

Ronald J. Chenail, Ph.D., is Provost, Executive Vice President for Academic Affairs, Chief Academic Officer, and Professor of Family Therapy at Nova Southeastern University. Since 1989, he has been part of 14 grants and contracts totaling over 6.5 million dollars. His 140 publications, including nine books, have been cited over 8800 times. He has also given over 200 formal academic presentations at conferences and meetings in family therapy, qualitative research, higher education, and conflict resolution. He was editor-in-chief of the Journal of Marital and Family Therapy and the Journal of Divorce and Remarriage and is currently Co-Editor-in-Chief of The Qualitative Report, a journal he founded in 1990.

Publication Date

10-26-2025

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 4.0 International License.

DOI

10.46743/2160-3715/2025.8601

Recommended APA Citation

Chenail, R. J. (2025). Sarah Lewis’ terrific toolkit: A positive psychology perspective on the practicality of appreciative inquiry application. The Qualitative Report, 30(10), 4541-4545. https://doi.org/10.46743/2160-3715/2025.8601