Appreciative intelligence - the ability to see the mighty oak in the acorn - goes beyond seeing potential in products (like Coke) and situations (like Rotary's polio eradication project). It's also about seeing and revealing the best in people, the way:

 - a bank executive asked an employee - whose bold, trendy style was clashing with the traditional conservative bank culture - to start a new line of business in auto loans. Her style matched that of their new customers and the new unit was enormously profitable before a year was up.
- Estee Lauder saw and treated a shoeless woman in an upscale store as a potentially good customer, against the advice of another salesperson. The woman bought one of each of her products that day and brought her relatives to Lauder's counter the next day.
- A medical facility administrator noticed that a nursing assistant spoke eloquently at a friend's memorial service. She invited the assistant to make a speech at the kickoff of the facility's major fundraiser. The nursing assistant - not the board chairman or the president - addressed donors, board members, staff, volunteers, patients and their vamilies with a speech that opened their minds, hearts and wallets.

Questions to ask yourself:

1. Do you look for talent outside of your organization or develop it from within?
2. Do you look for hidden talents and aspirations in your colleagues and employees?
3. In what ways do you appreciate your manager, staff and friends?
4. Are their characteristics of an individual that you see as a problem, yet someone else sees as an asset?

If you find that all too often you are looking for greener grass on the other side of the fence (talented employees elsewhere), you're forgeting to see and appreciate what people around you are doing, or you're focusing on the way people don't meet your expectations, you are missing a valuable opportunity to bring out the best in the people you work with everyday.

By seeing colleagues and employees in a new way, appreciating their skills and abilities. and helping them apply those to mutual goals, you may find that you are spending less time and money to recruit, hire and train new employees and that you have built an exceptional team specific to your organization.