SynTAROTis

Appreciative Inquiry

Have you noticed how often we define problems as what we do not want, or what is negative, painful, or needs to be fixed? Even the word “problem” is problematic: it immediately makes us think of what is imperfect.

What will happen if we focus on the positive instead?

Suppose, instead of asking …

• What do we want to avoid?
• What do we want to leave behind?
• How can we eliminate this?
• What needs to be fixed?
• How do we fix it?
• What do we want to improve?
• What went wrong?
• What must be removed?

… try

• What is going well, and how do we increase it?
• What benefits are there in this situation?
• What is working, and how can we improve it?
• Where do we want to be, and how do we get there?
• What can we add?

Of course we also have to focus on what is wrong, what is negative and needs to be fixed. But framing a question differently—appreciative inquiry—can help us gain a different perspective.

Appreciative Inquiry as a technique was formulated in the mid-1980s by David Cooperrider at Case Western Reserve University. He suggested that rather than focusing on the pain, we look towards increasing the pleasure. The technique is also an effective way to identify opportunities and strengths for improvement.

Appreciative Inquiry involves four Ds: Discover, Dream, Design, Deliver. First we define the problem, then we decide where we want to go, how we can get there, and how to do it.

Let’s use these elements in a Tarot spread:

Prologue:

1. What is going on?
2. What is painful, or needs to be changed?

Second row:

1. Discover: What has gone right before? What is currently working well? What do you like about this? What are the strengths?
2. Dream: Where do we want to go? What is the pleasure, and how can we increase it?
3. Design: What do we need to get there? What can we add, increase, or strengthen?
4. Deliver: What do we do? What is the next step?

What if I do nothing?

Ever had a problem you could not solve? Duh, of course you have!

Some problems can put you in a maze: you keep going but you never get anywhere.

When you face such a problem, pause, take a deep breath, and ask: “What if I do nothing?”

How might this work?

“Do nothing” may seem strange—after all, you have a problem to solve!

It does not mean that you sit back and wait for the worst to happen. On the contrary, you direct your thoughts to contemplate what will happen if you do nothing.

To “do nothing,” you must be still for a moment. Stop the frantic search for solutions for a few minutes. Reflect.

What will happen if events take their course? What is the worst thing that could happen? Are there any advantages in letting the problem stand?

What would be the ideal solution? What are the obstacles and constraints you are facing? Who can help? What are your resources (time, people, equipment, funding, knowledge)?

Having done that, you might find …

1. …the problem has disappeared. (Wouldn’t that be nice!) Maybe you discover that the problem is not as urgent as you had thought, or maybe the reason for solving it had disappeared while you were running the maze. Or …
2. …the solution is just lying around, waiting to be noticed. (Yes!) Who knows what you are missing while you are trapped in the maze? An article, an interview, a recently published book, or someone else’s idea could lead you to a solution. Or …
3. …the solution falls into your lap the moment you stop trying to find it. (It can happen!) You are in the shower, or cutting the grass, or just waking up, when you have an “A-ha!” moment. (Think of the story of Archimedes taking a bath: “Eureka!”). Or …
4. …nothing happens, but when you go back to work on your problem, your subconscious quietly presents you with the solution.

What if it does not work?

Neither “Do nothing” nor any other creativity technique can guarantee a solution. But you will not have wasted your time. Consider this:

• You would dramatically increase your chances of finding solutions. Deliberately “doing nothing” is better than doing nothing, after all!
• You would stop wasting time and energy on a fruitless quest. Problems are seldom solved when you are running around without a plan.
• Reflecting on the problem might bring up information that you had not yet considered, or possibilities that become obvious once you quiet your mind**.
• You would be clear on the possible consequences of the problem.
• Your definition of the problem would be focused on exactly those aspects of the situation that need to be fixed. (A good definition puts you halfway to the solution.)
• You might discover that you were trying to solve the wrong problem. Time to change direction!

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Notes:

“Do nothing” is not my original idea. It was first described by Brian Clegg and Paul Birch in their book Crash Course in Creativity (London: Kogan Page, 2002). I stumbled across the technique by accident (… okay, I was procrastinating on a problem …), and being a lazy thinker, I rank this technique among the first to try!

** One way of consolidating what you already know about a problem is to use a Tarot spread that “reads” a situation (i.e. is focused on understanding a problem, not on divining the future). The Celtic Cross works well for this purpose. My "Taking Stock" spread might also be useful. “What if I do nothing?” is a decision spread with “do nothing” as a card position. Or make up your own spread, with the card positions that represent the aspects you want to reflect on.

Exercising creativity

Creativity is a skill. We are all capable of being creative, although some are more skilled than others. And as with any other skill, practising leads to improvement.

Edward de Bono wrote a lovely book called How to have creative ideas: 62 exercises to develop the mind (affiliate link). The exercises, which all use random words, aim to “tickle” your brain into creativity.

Here are a few of the exercises.

The book includes tables of random words, but you can use any method to get a random word. One way is to take a book, open it at random, and place your finger on a word.

Odd man out

1. Get four random words.
2. Study the words, and find one that could be the “odd man out.”
3. Explain why.

De Bono’s example with random words FUR, RANSOM, CHIMPANZEE, and WORRY:

• … ‘worry’ is the only human emotion among the words
• … ‘chimpanzee’ is the only creature
• … ‘ransom’ is the only word that implies criminality
• … ‘fur’, ‘ransom’, and ‘worry’ are all unpleasant (for some people). ‘Chimpanzee’ is not.

Grouping

1. Get six random words.
2. Divide the six words into two groups of three on some basis.
3. Explain your reasoning.

De Bono’s example with random words TEARS, NIGHT, PREJUDICE, SPINACH, ANGLE, PYJAMAS:

• … ‘prejudice’, ‘night’, and ‘tears’ are dark in nature; the others not
• … ‘angle’, ‘tears’, and ‘prejudice’ are all ways of looking at something
• ‘… prejudice’, ‘spinach’, and ‘tears’ can all be complicated; the others are not

Pairing

1. Gather two lists of four random words each (List A and List B).
2. On some basis, pair a word from List A with a word from List B.
3. Define the basis of the pairing.

De Bono’s example with List A (TOAST, PROPHET, CHIP, TAIL) and List B (RUNWAY, FORMULA, LOLLIPOP, PYRAMID):

• … ‘toast’ (from List A) and ‘lollipop’ (from List B) are both edible
• … ‘prophet’ and ‘pyramid’ both occur in ancient cultures
• … ‘tail’ and ‘runway’ are both to do with aeroplanes
• … ‘chip’ and ‘formula’ require mathematics

Combining

1. Obtain two random words.
2. Try to combine the words to create a new business.
3. Show how the new business would work and why it might be expected to make a profit.

De Bono’s example with DOCK and CABIN

• … special parks where travelling cabins (motor homes) can dock very easily and comfortably
• … creation of special docks for the home (‘cabin’). These would be places where you could put various things like cameras, computers, briefcases, etc.

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De Bono, E. (2007). How to have creative ideas: 62 exercises to develop the mind. London: Vermilion.

I have an idea!

Out of ideas? Try drawing a Tarot card saying “I have an idea!”

If you have a specific problem that you need answers for, you can use brainstorming with Tarot cards, or any other creativity technique. The current technique is useful if you are simply scraping around for ideas.

Try drawing a card a day if you want to practice your creativity.

The idea can be silly or profound, useful or frivolous, supremely creative or a provocative thought.

Here are some examples:

 

	Hourglasses are quieter than egg timers; they also provoke less anxiety than a stopwatch. My special-needs class may find a pretty hourglass more soothing when they do timed exercises.
	My husband would love a spa treatment if we make a weekend of it!
	Uh … maybe I should stop choosing clothes for my grandchildren and let them choose their own. They are very conscious of their appearance lately.
	We are talking at cross-purposes. I should back off for a while to reconsider my approach.
	I read somewhere that taking a nap is often effective in coming up with solutions. This could be just what I need to do now.
	Boaz let Ruth pick up grain left by the reapers. Working for something is more dignified than charity. Maybe I can persuade some of the homeless people who come to the soup kitchen to dish out the food, or help those who find it difficult to to eat unaided.
	A family gathering! Just what I need for the next scene in my play.

What is standing in my way?

One of my favourite spreads is a modification of the traditional Celtic Cross spread. The emphasis is on identifying and exploring a wish.

1. What do I want?
2. What is standing in my way?
3. The ideal
4. The danger
5. Where does this wish come from?
6. Where is it going?
7. Where am I, in this wish? (What is my role? What can I do to make this wish come true?)
8. How can I arrange my environment (people, resources, etc.) to give me what I want?
9. How are emotions blocking or helping me?
10. Possible outcome

What if the card is the obstacle?

Every creative thinking technique has the same purpose: helping you see the problem from a new angle, and search for solutions in a space where you had not been before.

Tarot cards give you an image and keywords as brain “ticklers.” When you apply these to your problem, you are looking at your problem through the card which, like a filter, focuses on a different route to the solution.

Wen you use Tarot cards as stimuli for creative thinking, usually you will approach the card as if it contained the answer to your problem; or at least the next step that you need to take.

But what if the card were the obstacle instead?

How it works

For this technique, formulate a problem statement and write it down.

Now shuffle the cards and draw one at random

Ask yourself: “Suppose this card represents the obstacle I must overcome?” How would you get by the obstacle? Do not just make a list of things not to do: think of the card as the problem to solve, the same way you need to overcome obstacles in an electronic game.

You can use anything related to the card for inspiration. Bertie (see the sample exercise below) uses traditional meanings of the card, the book meanings from the accompanying book, and the image itself.

Working with this premise, write down any ideas that come to you.

Sample exercise

Bertie needs a way to apologize to this wife for his distant and aloof behaviour of the last few weeks. Now that he has received the promotion that had been on his mind, he finds that the intimacy between him and his wife seems to have disappeared. What can he do to regain it?

Problem statement: “How can I compensate for keeping my distance from Sue during the last few weeks?”

Card: Strength, Trump VIII (XI in this deck), from Jane Lyle’s The Secret Tarot.

If this card were the obstacle to overcome, how can Bertie solve his problem?

The card shows a young woman taming a unicorn. A lion lies close by (or is it flying through the air?), and around them is a border of flowers. Traditionally, the card represents gentleness, inner strength, controlled passion, and the animal instincts tempered by love and patience.

The unicorn

Bertie’s first thought is that the card epitomizes his usual approach to conflict. He regards himself as the “strong, silent” type and someone who would not bother anyone else with his problems. If he now regards this approach as the obstacle to overcome, maybe it is time to share with his wife the worries of the last few weeks, and apologize for not having talked about them to her.

The unicorn has a fierce-looking horn, capable of inflicting much pain. Bertie is not comfortable sharing hurt and anxiety, not even with his wife, but he acknowledges that this attitude impedes intimacy. The unicorn therefore stands for both the pain he has caused his wife, and his own unhappiness.

The young woman indicates what he had been expecting of his wife: to be, as usual, gentle and patient; to calm him, but not expect to share his pain or even know what was going on.

There is not much communication between the woman and the unicorn. Bertie realizes he must not see his silence and his inability to share as a strength, but a liability in his marriage.

The unicorn, as a magical animal, also portrays his wish that the problem would “magically” go away, something he now realizes will not happen.

Something else about the unicorn: the horn seems to Bertie to indicate a “one-track mind,” the obsession he has had about the promotion. Here is another obstacle to overcome: he must acknowledge his wife’s right to share his emotions, apologize for having not noticed anything or anyone else while the company considered his request, and resolve not to let this happen in future.

The maiden

If he is the maiden, he has tried to “tame the unicorn” himself, not noticing that his wife was upset about his withdrawal from her and their relationship.

The lion

Jane Lyle notes that the unicorn and the lion have traditionally been enemies. Bertie has been treating his wife as if she were part of the problem, the enemy, and not the one person completely on his side. He knows she is angry with him, but so far, she has been “taming” this unicorn. Sue has been patient, but he cannot expect her to be patient much longer.

In the past, Bertie has used sex to re-establish intimacy with his wife. He does not think this will do the trick this time. Flowers might not work either. He knows he will be clumsy when he starts the conversation, so he would like something concrete to show Sue that he had not shut her out completely.

Staring at the card, and at the lion in particular, Bertie remembers that, a week ago, Sue has mentioned that she would love to have a cat. That’s it! He will buy her the cutest kitten he can find, to show her he has been paying attention even though he has seemed aloof.

The end

You will note that, unlike divination, in this exercise the card can have multiple meanings and symbolize several, even contradictory, aspects.

When you are trying to solve a problem creatively, you use every inspiration and every idea that goes through your mind. In divination, on the other hand, although several interpretations are possible, you would choose what fits the situation best.

Let me know if the technique works for you!

The back-to-front reading

Tarot spreads are usually read by interpreting or reflecting on cards that have been randomly drawn. How about reversing the order and giving the interpretations first?

Write down your question or problem statement.

Choose or design a spread that covers the aspects of the problem you want to consider.

For each card position, write down

1. what you would like to be true, or

2. what you would expect to see in a divinatory reading.

Don’t stop after one sentence. Really scratch around in your mind for wishes, fears, emotions, or beliefs around your query.

If you are familiar with Tarot cards, you might add which card(s) you think you deserve.

Now shuffle the deck and draw cards (at random) for the spread.

How much do the cards you drew contradict or confirm your “interpretations?” How many connections and contradictions can you find?

If you had been reading the cards in the normal way and drew the same cards, how would you have come to your “interpretations?” Force the interpretation and the card together.

What else do the cards suggest?

Which cards would you have selected to reflect your query? (The “inside-out” reading.)

Which cards would you have expected?

An inside-out reading

Creativity is thinking and doing things differently. Suppose we turn a normal Tarot reading inside out?

Usually the reader would draw cards at random, one for each position in the spread.

A second way of using the cards is to go through the deck face up and choose cards that best reflect a situation, an action, a feeling, a concept, or an aspect of yourself.

The choice of cards can reveal thoughts and motives that you have not been aware of, or the cards could reflect your attitude and beliefs around the situation.

Cards selected in this way are then used for reflection, freewriting, or journaling.

An “inside-out” reading is a reflective reading, so instead of shuffling the cards, go through them and choose three cards that in some way represent your question.

You can choose cards based on their traditional or book meanings, but you can also choose cards by the images alone.

If, for example, you are considering ending a friendship, you might choose the Three of Cups to represent the good in the friendship; the Queen of Swords for what is bothering you (your friend has been making snide remarks that she is passing off as jokes); and the Nine of Pentacles to reflect on how much her attitude is influencing your friendship. (Does she control the hawk, or is something in control of her?)

1. Using the cards as focus, record the thoughts that come up. Why did you choose these three cards? How do they represent the problem or aspect that you are considering? How do they not reflect it?

2. The next step is to read the cards as if you would a normal divinatory reading (that is, as if you had drawn these cards at random). What else do the cards suggest?

   Compare this reading with your reflection above. How do they differ? What are the similarities?

3. What themes or connections can you see among the three cards? What thoughts do they evoke?

   Perhaps all three cards come from the same suit or, as in the above example, depict women. Perhaps they are all court cards, or major arcana cards.

   Maybe the people on the cards are all facing the same way, or maybe the cards all have the same number.

   Do the cards perhaps depict a number progression (such as the Four, Five, and Six of any suit, or Knight, Queen, King)?

   Do the cards perhaps suggest growth (a numerical progression, for example) or decline?

   Do you see any similarities in the interpretation (book meanings or your own meanings) of the cards? ‘Stagnation’, perhaps (the Four of Cups, Four of Pentacles, and Hanged Man all depict a form of inaction) or ‘change’ (Death, The Wheel of Fortune, The Tower).

   A symbol could repeat on all three cards, or symbols that have similar associations.

   How do the themes link with your question?

4. If the three cards represented a story, what would it be, and how does the story reflect—or not reflect—your query?

Reverse the spread

Asking “How can we really annoy our customers?” instead of “How can we increase customer satisfaction?” may just prod your brain into creative mode.

Reverse brainstorming and reversing the problem are fun ways to jolt the brain out of its usual ways of thinking. Sometimes a surprise shakes loose some ideas, so why not approach the problem from the opposite direction?

In reversals, you ask questions such as “How can we make the problem worse?” or “How can we cause the problem?”

Alternatively, you can reverse something in the problem definition:

“How can we increase sales of Widget X” could become “How can we stop people from buying Widget X?”

You can reverse anything in the problem statement—go backward or do the opposite. Reverse a viewpoint. Change direction. Reverse the action, or the object, or the goal of the exercise. Find an upside-down and back-to-front way of stating the problem. Then brainstorm solutions.

And with Tarot cards?

Reverse or negative brainstorming works well with Tarot cards, but techniques specific to Tarot would be to reverse the cards or to ask the “wrong” questions in the spread positions.

Reverse cards offer a wealth of meanings, mostly because there are various ways to read them. In The complete book of Tarot reversals (see bibliography below) Mary Greer offers twelve ways to read reversed cards. James Ricklef and Joan Bunning also describe ways to read reverse cards.

And in creative problem-solving, the more stimuli you have, the greater the chances of finding unexpected solutions.

The reversed spread

The first part of this spread is a normal problem-solving exercise using upright cards, so write down your problem statement, shuffle the cards, and lay them out like this:

1. What is the problem?

2. What is the most important thing about this problem?

3. How can I approach this problem?

4. What or who can help?

Now reverse the cards

Repeat 1: What is not part of the problem?

Repeat 2: How can I make the problem worse?

Repeat 3: What should I not do?

Repeat 4: What if I do nothing?

Why reverse the problem?

When you concentrate on what not to do, you surprise your brain by tackling the problem from a different angle.

Once you have generated ideas, of course, you need to reverse the “solutions” to apply to your problem.

Reversing the problem also addresses common stumbling blocks in problem-solving.

The first is working with a fuzzy definition of the problem, so that it is not clear what is or is not part of the problem. You might have defined your problem too widely (“How can we increase customer satisfaction” versus “How can we make our teenage customers happy”), or too narrowly (“How can we encourage teamwork?” versus “How can we improve staff morale?”).

You might be trying to solve the wrong problem (focusing on team spirit when the team members are unhappy about things that have nothing to do with the team).

You also do not want to spend time on a problem, only to find that the problem does not exist anymore. The urgency of the problem might have passed, or the problem might have solved itself. (Wouldn’t that be nice!)

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1. Bunning, J. (2003). Learning Tarot reversals. York Beach, ME: Red Wheel / Weiser.
2. Greer, M. K. (2001). The complete book of Tarot reversals. Woodbury, Minnesota: Llewellyn.
3. Anthony Louis, Tarot plain and simple. Bounty Books, 2008
4. Ricklef, J. (2003). Tarot tells the tale: Explore three-card readings through familiar stories. St Paul, Minnesota: Llewellyn.

The root of the problem (Spread)

Root cause analysis (RCA) is an attempt to solve a problem by first identifying its causes.

RCA is used when you want to do more than find a solution; where the root causes of the problem must be eliminated and prevented from recurring.

Several techniques exist to help you in RCA. This spread, based on the Celtic Cross, examines various angles to understanding the problem.

1. The problem
2. The main challenge to overcome
3. What you know
4. What you hide
5. What has contributed to the problem?
6. What else?
7. What role did you play?
8. What role did your environment play in this problem?
9. What role did emotions play?
10. Where is this leading to?